What's New? (18 June 2008)

What's on this page?

• What is RenderMan?
• History of RIB
• Mail Notice
• What's here?
• Newsworthy
• OtherLinks
• Policy

What is RenderMan®?

RenderMan is actually a technical specification for interfacing between modeling and rendering programs. From 1998 until 2000 the published RenderMan Interface Specification was known as Version 3.1. In 2000 Pixar published a new specification, Version 3.2. Coming soon Version 3.3

For a renderer to be a considered a RenderMan compliant renderer it must meet all of the standard requirements laid out in the spec. There are some more things that are needed, too, which are mentioned in the Usenet: comp.graphics.rendering.renderman FAQ.

So the reasons for this confusion between RenderMan the spec and PRMan the renderer are:

  1. Pixar publishes and owns the RenderMan Interface Specification
  2. RenderMan is a registered trademark of Pixar.
  3. Pixar had the first implementation (PRMan).
  4. PRMan has been used in a lot of movies.
  5. Not only was PRMan the first implementation of the RenderMan 
     Specification, it was for many years the only implementation. 

One example of this is that PRMan makes use of the Reyes scanline algorithm. So many assume that RenderMan renderers can only use Reyes or some scanline rendering implementation. Whereas this became moot when BMRT arrived which was the first publicly available RenderMan compliant raytracer.

So now you know better.

Also, reading the FAQ is a good way to make your posts to the RenderMan Newsgroup (news:comp.graphics.rendering.renderman) be more intelligent and less annoying to us old timers on the newsgroup. There is nothing more annoying (well, ok Spammers are much worse), then questions like "Where can I get RenderMan?" "Are there any good RenderMan books?" To which the answers are easily found, in the FAQ or a few minutes, from a WEB or newsgroup search.

RIB History

RenderMan Interface Bytestream (RIB), very simply, is the file format used to pass scene information (model data, lights, camera, shaders, attributes, and options) to a RenderMan renderer to control image that it will render. At the 2003 SIGGRAPH, Dana Batali (Director or RenderMan Product Development at Pixar) shared an interesting historical slide showing some of the major milestones on evolution of RIB. (which has been around publicly for 15+ years)

Email Addresses Notice

What's here (or what will be here)?

The purpose of this Repository is to help spread the lore of RenderMan®.

The RMR consists of about 75 HTML pages, 200 Megs of data and around 150 shaders at last count. Plus there of dozens of links to various other RenderMan related sites. Serving the RenderMan community for over 10 years.

This site is your site too, so don't be just a lurker. If you have something to share, by all means feel free to do so. This site will become only as good as you help make it.

Don't feel you have to have finished work either. I have been considering building a "Work in Progress" section, for code that doesn't produce the desired results or are wondering if there is a better way of doing it.

OF NOTE: I use Pixar's PRMan Linux. So if information seems slanted, it is because this is what I use on a daily basis.

Newsworthy

Newsworthy events and announcements

(June 18, 2008)
This year's SIGGRAPH RenderMan User's Group meeting will be on Wednesday 13th, 2008. It's now time to submit something for the 10th annual Stupid RenderMan Trick. The deadline for a Stupid RenderMan Trick is July 17th. If you have a submission to consider send it to: stupidrattricks@pixar.com with the subject Stupid RenderMan Trick, a few paragraphs describing the trick and images, code snippets, etc. If ther is a large amount of material they would prefer a location to a WEB site with the material. NOTE: Invitations to the User's Group meeting will be mailed out to Pixar customers at a later time. Do not try to RSVP until you have received the inviation.

(June 17, 2008)
2008 28th June the first official JP RenderMan user community will take place. Later at Siggraph there will be a follow up meeting. For those interested in how RenderMan is used in Japan and wish to attend please contact info AT rendersan DOT org. For more info go to Bernard's Blog.

(Aug 06, 2007)
News from SIGRAPH 2007
Sunday -- Aug 05 Per Chritensen mentions that PRMan-13.5 has full shader support for Photon Mapping. Photon Mapping has been in the renderer since PRMan-11 when ray tracing was added. However, its application was limited. Hopefully this should allow for its application in productions.

Monday -- Aug 06 The Surf's Up course (headed by Rob Bredow) was great! The course notes are very well done, too. If you didn't make it to the course and don't have access to the SIGGRAPH DVDs, Rob has a lower res version of the PDF at his web site: 185fx.com

(June 24, 2007)
Blizzard Entertainment is looking for a RenderMan Shader writer. Be sure to check out their link for the job qualifications.

(December 19, 2006)
I recieved email from Larry Gritz a little while back pointing out a typo in Advanced RenderMan's filteredsmoothstep:

Original source for the filtedsmoothstep

float filteredsmoothstep (float e0, e1, x, dx)
{
    float integral (float t) {
	return -0.5*t*t * (t*t + t);
    }
    . . .
}

Correct start of the function:

float filteredsmoothstep (float e0, e1, x, dx)
{
    float integral (float t) {
        return -0.5*t*t * (t*t - 2*t);
    }
    . . .
}

(July 30, 2006) SIGGRAPH did it to us again and don't have the DVDs ready in time for the conference!

So I am putting out the materials now. So the conference attendees can enjoy them while they are still here at SIGGRAPH.

(June 15, 2006) With SIGGRAPH just around the corner, it must be time for anther round of Stipid RAT Tricks! Here is the call for this year's submissions:

We're now inviting your submissions for the eighth installment of Stupid RAT Tricks. This year's Stupid RAT Tricks will take place at the annual Pixar User's Group meeting at SIGGRAPH, Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006.

For those new to this event, the idea is to come up with something involving RenderMan, MTOR, Slim, RfM, shaders, DSOs, front ends to the above, scripts for handling RIB, war stories, etc. Almost anything related to RenderMan or its usage in a production environment is fair game. Judging will be based on a combination of how cool, useful, obscure, and just plain perverse the trick is. If it leaves us shaking our heads in awe, confusion, or both, it's a good thing.

Four winners will get to share their tricks with us at the User's Group meeting. Showing a set of pretty images won't be enough, though: you'll get 15 minutes at the meeting to educate us all on your trick. A/V equipment will be provided. You'll come away with instant fame, the adulation of your peers, and of course there will be prizes as well. There is one main prerequisite for submissions: you must be able to attend the User's Group meeting to present your trick in person.

Entries should be submitted to stupidrattricks@pixar.com and should have as their subject "Stupid RAT Trick". A few paragraphs describing your trick, along with any images if necessary, will be fine. If there is a lot of material or video, we'd prefer it if you could point us to an external web page containing your material. We'll need to get all of the entries before July 10, and winners will be announced on the forums on July 17.

N.B.: Invitations to the User's Group meeting will be mailed out separately to customers. Please do not RSVP for the meeting at this time.

(May 21, 2006) After a three year hiatus, there will be a RenderMan course at SIGGRAPH this year! It is a full day course on Tuesday: 25. RenderMan for Everyone. The speakers are:

   Hal Bertram 
   Rudy Cortes
   Tal Lancaster
   Dan Maas
   Moriz Moeller
   Heather Pritchett
   Saty Raghavachary

(Jan 25, 2006) Well, unless you we on walkabout, you know by now that Disney bought Pixar on the Tuesday, the 24th! The Pixar software group, sent out mail yesterday to all of their customers under support contracts that buisiness is as usual. None of this should really effect the commercial development and support for RenderMan or RAT.

Pixar press release on the buyout.

(Jan 16, 2006) A very special challenge at the AQSIS site: A chance to get into the second edition of "Essential RenderMan Fast"!

(Jan 05, 2006) It is January and so it is time for Aqsis' fifth challenge in their montly challenge series.

Changed Email Addresses
It looks like somebody has started scanning web pages for email addresses. I have changed everybody's address listed in the RMR, to something that will bounce. Now you will have to check the address and edit out the garbage. Sorry.

Also if it looks like you received mail from either my pacbell or renderman account and it didn't have anything to do with renderman, I didn't send it and now you know how you got selected.

old News -- old news items.

3.1 RenderMan Spec
3.2 RenderMan Spec (PDF)
RMNotes, by Steve May.

Policy

Your saying, "Hey I've something I'd like to add. How do I get it there?"

For now the only way to get things the WEB site is to email it directly to me at tal AT renderman DOT org. If it is binary, I can handle MIME, or just plain uuencode.

On a related topic, I won't accept any binaries (pictures excepted) such as compiled shader files, etc. If you have a shader that you would like to share but don't want to distribute the source or if you have some shaders that you would like to sell. Then feel free to send some pictures that you feel shows them off.

A) If it is just source -- make sure you include some comments telling us this is yours, so we know who it came from and who to give credit to. Also, if you are sending a shader, make sure you include a simple RIB that shows the shader off.

B) Anything else include a readme describing what it is and that this is yours.

The contents of the RMR are maintained and copyrighted by Tal Lancaster

Any comments or suggestions? Send them to: tal AT renderman DOT org

RenderMan is a registered trademark of Pixar