Presto

Plot[]

This short is about a magician named Presto DiGiotagione and his cute and hungry rabbit, Alec Azam.

At the beginning of the short, Alec is seen locked in his cage in Presto’s dressing room, trying to reach a carrot inches out of his reach. Presto comes in, having finished a meal, to test his magic trick of pulling Alec out of a hat. After he sees that the trick works, Presto is about to feed Alec the carrot, just as he hears a knock on his door, letting him know that it’s time for him to go on stage and do his act.

Presto then rushes onto the stage to begin his act, leaving Alec thinking he will be fed the carrot. When Presto tries to perform the trick on stage, he cannot find Alec, then looks to see that Alec had taken the hat off. Agitated, Presto tries to reach Alec, but ends up pulling a mousetrap out of the hat instead. To try to get Alec to put the hat on, Presto throws an egg into the hat, only to have it bounce up and hit him in the eye. Presto then makes a carrot appear and puts on the hat used to grab Alec. He then turns the carrot into a flower, making Alec angry and prompting him to put the other hat into an air pipe, making Presto’s face red and his hair sticking up.

Becoming increasingly frustrated and angry, Presto tries to get Alec once again, but gets his pants ripped off. He then sees a ladder and attempts to hit Alec with it, but instead is hit by the ladder as it shoots out of the hat. Frustrated, Presto presents the carrot again, but proceeds to smash it with a piece of the ladder, making Alec scream. Presto once again tries to grab Alec, but Alec sticks his hand into an electrical socket, shocking Presto thus the quartet played the bluegrass music.

Now extremely angry, Presto chases Alec behind the stage and gets pulled by a rope into the air, but soon slips and falls with many heavy objects falling above him. Alec then saves Presto from being crushed by making him fall into the hat.

After a short pause, the crowd begins to cheer for Alec and Presto. Alec, in a bad mood, begins to walk away when Presto beckons him to come over. To cheer Alec up, Presto makes the carrot appear again, which Alec immediately eats when he comes out of the hat. They end the show as friends and Alec becomes an even bigger part of Presto’s act.

Presto Software: The Racecar of Animation Software

While Pixar started as a hardware company and struggled hard to sell their products, it took the imagination of Steve Jobs to really get their journey going. The fascinating thing is that so many tools and processes that are now commonly used in the industry had their start at Pixar. Some processes, like animating a test with audio from another movie, are now used by each and every student trying to learn the craft.

Other things, like their animation software, remain a closely guarded internal secret. Though we have gotten a few insights at events throughout the years, and I had the honor of getting a demo on-site when visiting a few of my friends who work at Pixar, information about all the possibilities are still hard to come by.

To read more about Presto’s availability and what other Pixar software might be available to the public, check out this post I wrote specifically about that.

The Predecessor Menv: A Look at Pixar Animation Studios’ Early Animation Tool

Menv was the predecessor used at Pixar until it was first used to make the short film Presto and gave it its name in 2012. Before I started doing research for this article I myself actually thought the software was called Marionette. That seems to be a misconception, though, as Pixar insiders mention that this was only a name used by the press.Even Wikipedia is getting that fact wrong.

If this name was ever used internally at Pixar then it was more likely to be used derisively.

Here is a great video from the Toy Story 1 days where we see very young Pixar legends and a really nice view at that initial version of Menv. Pete Docter even mentions the name Marionette. However, he uses it to describe the Woody puppet and not the software itself.

I would not be surprised if some uninterested journalist just quickly watched this footage and mistook Docter’s mention of the Marionette as the name of the software itself.

I love this little look back and the crudeness of the setup, yet it still shows a lot of thought as to what is important to an animator that wants complete control over their puppet.

Presto was never intended to be released to the public and has remained in use only at Pixar internally. This is likely also to keep a competitive advantage that Pixar has kept throughout the years, however, with cutting-edge proprietary software developed by companies like this one, it would be hard to provide proper customer service to more than the people on the Pixar campus itself, where the developers are on site to take care of software code and other things in person.

Some Pixar employees describe the Presto animation system as the race car of animation softwares. It needs highly trained mechanics and drivers that have been trained and briefed on how exactly it is going to use the fastest. But due to how finely tuned it is, it is also expected to crash once in a while, but no other tool comes close to doing the job as well as Presto.

Different Software that would be commercially available, like Maya, would be comparable to a BMW. Perfect for everyday traffic, used by many different people reliably and without crashes.

I would not be surprised if some uninterested journalist just quickly watched this footage and mistook Docter’s mention of the Marionette as the name of the software itself.

I love this little look back and the crudeness of the setup yet it still shows a lot of thought as to what is important to an animator that wants complete control over their puppet.

Presto was never intended to be released to the public and has remained in use only at Pixar internally. This is likely also to keep a competitive advantage which Pixar has kept throughout the years, however, with a cutting edge software like this one, it would be hard to provide proper customer service to more than the people on the Pixar campus itself where the developers are on site and take care of it in person.

Some Pixar employees describe Presto as the race car of animation softwares. It needs highly trained mechanics and drivers that have been trained and briefed on how exactly it is going to use the fastest. But due to how finely tuned it is, it is also expected to crash once in a while but no other tool comes close to doing the job as well as Presto.

All other Software that would be commercially available like Maya would be comparable to a BMW. Perfect for everyday traffic, used by lots of different people reliably and without crashes.

Production[]

Presto was directed by veteran Pixar animator Doug Sweetland, in his directorial debut. Looney Tunes cartoons were a major influence, with Alec being easily compared to Bugs Bunny. The character design for Presto was based on William Powell.

Animating the theater’s audience of 2,500 patrons proved an expensive proposition, even with the help of the crowd-generating Massive software. Early suggestions were to show cutaways of just a small portion of the audience, but the full effect was achieved by only showing the back of the audience. To save time, most of the audience models were borrowed from the previous Pixar film, Ratatouille. Additionally, Presto’s body is Skinner’s lawyer, and the carrot was one of the many food props from that film.

Plot[]

This short is about a magician named Presto DiGiotagione and his cute and hungry rabbit Alec Azam.

At the beginning of the short, Alec is seen locked in his cage in Presto’s dressing room, trying to reach a carrot inches out of his reach. Presto comes in, having finished a meal, to test his magic trick of pulling Alec out of a hat. After he sees that the trick works, Presto is about to feed Alec the carrot, just as he hears a knock on his door, letting him know that it’s time for him to go on stage and do his act.

Presto then rushes onto the stage to begin his act, leaving Alec thinking that he will be fed the carrot. When Presto tries to perform the trick on stage, he cannot find Alec, then looks to see that Alec had taken the hat off. Agitated, Presto tries to reach Alec, but ends up pulling a mousetrap out of the hat instead. To try to get Alec to put the hat on, Presto throws an egg into the hat, only to have it bounce up and hit him in the eye. Presto then makes a carrot appear and puts on the hat used to grab Alec. He then turns the carrot into a flower, making Alec angry and prompting him to put the other hat into an air pipe, making Presto’s face red and his hair sticking up.

Becoming increasingly frustrated and angry, Presto tries to get Alec once again, but he gets his pants ripped off. He then sees a ladder and attempts to hit Alec with it, but instead is hit by the ladder as it shoots out of the hat. Frustrated, Presto presents the carrot again, but proceeds to smash it with a piece of the ladder, making Alec scream. Presto once again tries to grab Alec, but Alec sticks his hand into an electrical socket, shocking Presto.

Now extremely angry, Presto chases Alec behind the stage and gets pulled by a rope into the air, but soon slips and falls with many heavy objects falling above him. Alec then saves Presto from being crushed by making him fall into the hat.

After a short pause, the crowd begins to cheer for Alec and Presto. Alec, in a bad mood, begins to walk away when Presto beckons him to come over. To cheer Alec up, Presto makes the carrot appear again, which Alec immediately eats when he comes out of the hat. They end the show as friends and Alec becomes an even bigger part of Presto’s act.

What Makes Presto Stand Out Among Animation Software

Pixar Presto software has been used in every Pixar movie and short films since the first feature film animated in Presto, “Brave”. This CGI animation software provides artists with an interactive scene context that enables them to work seamlessly with full-resolution geometric models and advanced rig controls. 

By leveraging this powerful tool, character animators at Pixar have experienced a remarkable increase in productivity.Here is a great demonstration from 2014 where one of the developers shows a few features that make Presto really amazing to work with.

Here is a great demonstration from 2014 where one of the developers shows a few features that make Presto really amazing to work with.

The one thing that sticks out to me the most is the real-time environment. Even lights and shadows with multiple characters are real-time. No other studio, at least in the Visual Effects industry, is close to something like this just yet.

The closest we’ve gotten to this was perhaps working on Avengers: Endgame, but since all VFX houses still build their pipelines around Maya, some issues cannot be fixed until Autodesk fixes the software.

These days, there are real-time environments in packages like Unreal Engine, and even Blender is getting closer to it. What is remarkable, nonetheless, is that Pixar had this technology back in 2014. That just shows how much ahead of their time they were and perhaps still are.

In regards to the actual animation process itself, what I find very interesting is that there seem to be no actual curve controls to select the body parts. All it takes is a click on the geometry, which is a fantastic solution to having to turn curves on and off and gives a much clearer view of the character one is working with.

When watching older videos like the one below (timecode 2:15) it seems that back in the ‘menv’ days, they seem to not even have had the geometry selection but only the channels on the right. 

We can see how Bobby Podesta is using each channel on the right for one rotation axis of the head. At Weta Digital we had a similar system for the face rigs on films like Planet of the Apes. I personally loved working like this as it, again, gives a clearer view of the character/face you’re working with, without obstructions.

When watching the behind the scenes footage below, I also noticed another thing.There are several hotkeys attached to the side of the Cintiq screen which to me indicates that animators would actually use Cintiq’s not just to quickly draw poses, but that they work in 2D long enough so that it makes sense to attach these hotkeys on the side. 

This suggests to me that the 2D capabilities of Presto seem to be more extensive than perhaps has been shown in public.I have seen demonstrations in other software where animators could draw over 3D poses and the software would adjust the model according to the drawing like in the video below for Disney’s Paperman, but perhaps the Presto animation software is capable of doing much more that we have not seen just yet.

Production[]

Presto was directed by veteran Pixar animator Doug Sweetland in his directorial debut. Looney Tunes cartoons were a major influence, with Alec being easily compared to Bugs Bunny. The character design for Presto was based on William Powell.

Animating the theater’s audience of 2,500 patrons proved an expensive proposition, even with the help of the crowd-generating Massive software. Early suggestions were to show cutaways of just a small portion of the audience, but the full effect was achieved by only showing the back of the audience. To save time, most of the audience models were borrowed from the previous Pixar film Ratatouille. Additionally, Presto’s body is Skinner’s lawyer and the carrot was one of the many food props from that film.

What Software Should You Learn Then?

Pixar animation studios is renowned for their advanced animation technology together with Disney animation studios. By using their award-winning rendering capabilities, they are able to create beautiful visuals for both VFX and feature films. Their expertise allows them to quickly adapt and produce the highest quality of content possible animated with the Presto animation system in order to make sure that every project stands out from the rest. 

Since Presto isn’t available to the public, the best alternative is Maya. It has the most advanced animation toolset and is widely available. Blender is catching up quickly but it is not there yet.

I have also written an article about actual Pixar software that is available to the public. Check it out here.

Trivia[]

• Presto was nominated for an Annie Award and an Oscar for Best Animated Short Subject.
• The short seems to take cues from classic cartoon shorts like those produced by Tex Avery for MGM and the Looney Tunes series released by Warner Brothers.
• In the newsreel at the beginning of Up, the theater Muntz displays the skeleton in is the same theater that this short takes place in.
• Alec Azam is referenced in the Magic Kingdom’s Town Square Theater queue for the Magician Mickey meet-and-greet, with the black magician’s hat featuring his ears peeking out.
• Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets appear in the background of the short, sitting in a balcony akin to the one they occupy in The Muppet Show.
• One of the waiters from Ratatouille (not Mustafa) makes an appearance in the short. When Presto gets shocked and the musicians start playing bluegrass music, one of the musicians is that waiter.

Music[]

The score to Presto was composed by Scot Blackwell Stafford.

Title	Composed by	Length
Presto Opening Titles	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:18
Cage	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:12
Il mio nomo e Presto cavatina e cabaletta	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:07
Door	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:15
Tail Pull	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:24
Fanfare	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:11
Top of Show	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:29
Eggs	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:20
Under Pantaloons	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:16
Ladder	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:24
Carrot Smash	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:11
Haywire Hoedown Promenade	Scot Blackwell Stafford, Doug Sweetland	0:07
Chase	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:13
Fall	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:29
Triumphal	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:25
Presto End Credits	Scot Blackwell Stafford	0:27

Trivia[]

• Presto was nominated for an Annie Award and an Oscar for Best Animated Short Subject.
• The short seems to take cues from classic cartoon shorts like those produced by Tex Avery for MGM and the Looney Tunes series produced by Warner Brothers and Leon Schlesinger.
• In the newsreel at the beginning of Up, the theater Muntz displays the skeleton in is the same theater that this short takes place in.
• Alec Azam is referenced in the Magic Kingdom’s Town Square Theater queue for the Magician Mickey meet-and-greet, with the black magician’s hat featuring his ears peeking out.
• Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets appear in the background of the short, sitting in a balcony akin to the one they occupy in The Muppet Show.
• One of the waiters from Ratatouille (not Mustafa) makes an appearance in the short. When Presto gets shocked and the musicians start playing bluegrass music, one of the musicians is that waiter.
• The titles at the start pay tribute to the «burlap openings» of the Disney cartoons of the 1940s-1950s.

Say Hello To Presto: Availability Of Pixar’s Exclusive Animation Software

If you want to secure a job at Pixar, the software should be the least of your concerns. I have applied to Pixar several times throughout the years and I never even considered the software the issue why I got rejected 7 times and counting.

Learn to animate well. Learn to animate in Pixar’s style. Show your creativity. Show that you have a unique voice and that you are a storyteller above everything else. If you can convince them of that, then they will teach you the software once you’re hired.

Remember that software is just a tool. Tools change and are constantly developing. The thing that makes you unique is your voice as an artist. Spend your time developing that instead of learning new software and writing software code.

Conclusion

Despite being widely used within the company, little is known about the specifics of Presto animation software outside of Pixar.

All we know is that NVIDIA GPU plays a crucial role in enabling Presto’s live and interactive environment to run smoothly and maintain fast frame rates, even with highly complex character models and detailed environments. 

Overall, Presto’s live and interactive environment enhances the animators’ experience by allowing them to manipulate every aspect of their characters in real-time, from the hands and feet to the facial expressions. This feature is essential for creating high-quality animations while minimizing costs and maximizing productivity. 

Another impressive feature of Presto is its ability to make changes quickly and efficiently without disrupting the workflow. Despite the lack of information available about Presto, its impact on the animation industry is undeniable.

Pixar Presto’s Impact on the Animation Industry

Presto provides artists with an interactive scene context that enables them to work interactively with full-resolution geometric models and sophisticated rig controls. By leveraging this powerful tool, character animators at Pixar have experienced a remarkable increase in productivity.

One of the significant breakthroughs achieved by Pixar with Presto was the development of fur on characters like Sullivan. Sullivan is a character in the Pixar animated film “Monsters, Inc.” He is a large, furry blue monster with purple spots who works as a “scarer” at the titular company.  Sullivan’s fur consists of 900,000 hairs, with each hair having four points, and all of them are being warped in real-time only on the GPU. 

NVIDIA GPU plays a crucial role in enabling Presto’s live and interactive environment to run smoothly and maintain fast frame rates, even with highly complex character models and detailed environments. 

Overall, Presto’s live and interactive environment enhances the animators’ experience by allowing them to manipulate every aspect of their characters in real-time, from the hands and feet to the facial expressions. This feature is essential for creating high-quality animations while minimizing costs and maximizing productivity. 

Italian[edit]

Etymology 1edit

From Late Latin praestus, from the Latin (“at hand”, adverb). Compare Catalan , French .

Adjectiveedit

presto (feminine , masculine plural , feminine plural , superlative )

1. () ready
2. () fast, quick, nimble

   early 14th century, Dante, “Canto I”, in Inferno, lines 31–33:
   Ed ecco, quasi al cominciar de l’erta, ¶ una lonza leggera e presta molto, ¶ che di pel macolato era coverta; And lo! almost where the ascent began, a panther light and swift exceedingly, which with a spotted skin was covered o’er!

Descendantsedit

→ French: preste.mw-parser-output .desc-arr{cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .desc-arr{font-size:.7em;vertical-align:super}

presto

1. soon

   Synonyms: ,

   Ritorno presto. ― I will be back soon.

   Potrebbe piovere presto. ― It may rain soon.

2. early

   Synonym:

   Non sono abituata a svegliarmi presto. ― I’m not accustomed to getting up early.

   Se ne andarono presto. ― They left early.

3. quickly

   Synonyms: ,

   Spero che ti riprenderai presto. ― I hope you’ll recover quickly.

4. (music)

Descendantsedit

• → English:
• → Ladino:

Etymology 2edit

from (“to lend”) +‎ .

Nounedit

presto m (plural ) ()

1. loan

   Synonym:

2. usury (practice of lending money at excessive interest rates)

   Synonym:

3. pawnshop

   Synonym: dei

See the etymology of the corresponding form.

presto

sperto, sporte, spreto, spretò, sprote, sterpo, sterpò

English[edit]

Pronunciationedit

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈpɹɛstəʊ/

  .mw-parser-output .k-player .k-attribution{visibility:hidden}Audio (Southern England)

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  (file)

• (US) enPR: prĕs’tō, IPA(key): /ˈpɹɛstoʊ/
• Rhymes: -ɛstəʊ

presto (not )

1. (music) Very fast or quickly; a directive for the musician(s) to play in a very quick tempo.

Interjectionedit

presto

1. Used by when performing a ; ta-da; voilà.

   So I put my hand into the hat and presto! Out comes a rabbit!

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 31, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers and London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 142:You know the old man’s ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it ; and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it.

used by magicians

abracadabra

Nounedit

presto ()

1. (poker slang) A pair of fives as a starting hand in Texas hold ’em.

Referencesedit

Weisenberg, Michael (2000) The Official Dictionary of Poker. MGI/Mike Caro University. →ISBN

Portes, Strope, e-sport, eSport, esport, opster, opters, petros, poster, repost, repots, respot, sprote, topers, tropes