Pixar Animation Studios, or simply Pixar is an American computer film animation based in Emeryville, California. The studio is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with photo realistic Renderman , its own implementation of the industry-standard Renderman image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the computer division of Lucus film before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986 with funding by Apple inc.co-founder Steve jobs, who became its majority shareholder.