From lg@pixar.com Thu Oct 2 12:08:22 CDT 1997 Article: 4689 of comp.graphics.rendering.renderman Path: mcmcnews.er.usgs.gov!nieaqvarsa.er.usgs.gov!news.er.usgs.gov!jobone!news2.acs.oakland.edu!news.tacom.army.mil!news.webspan.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!141.211.144.13!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!news1.best.com!pixar!lg From: lg@pixar.com (Larry Gritz) Newsgroups: comp.graphics.rendering.renderman,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: RenderMan FAQ - monthly posting Followup-To: comp.graphics.rendering.renderman Date: 1 Oct 1997 16:24:02 GMT Organization: Pixar Animation Studios Lines: 792 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Distribution: world Message-ID: <60ttf2$n9c$1@atlantis.pixar.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: apu.pixar.com Xref: mcmcnews.er.usgs.gov comp.graphics.rendering.renderman:4689 comp.answers:17181 news.answers:69489 Archive-name: graphics/renderman-faq Posting-Frequency: monthly Last-modified: 12 Sep 97 This is the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list for the comp.graphics.rendering.renderman newsgroup. Please review this FAQ before posting questions to c.g.r.r. Contents: (* indicates changes since last time) --------- Administrivia: Q: What is the charter for comp.graphics.rendering.renderman? Q: What other newsgroups have closely related material? Q: Where is comp.graphics.rendering.renderman archived? General RI Questions: Q: What is "RenderMan"? * Q: Where can I find documentation on the RenderMan Interface? Q: What's the difference between the procedural interface and RIB? Q: What features are required in the RenderMan Interface? What features are optional? Q: What do I have to do in order to call my software "RenderMan compliant"? Implementations: * Q: What implementations of the RenderMan standard are available? Q: Is PRMan a ray tracer? / How can PRMan do reflections if it's not a ray tracer? / Was a ray tracer used for reflections in Toy Story? Q: Is there a Macintosh/DOS/Windows port of BMRT? In the works? Will the author of BMRT let me do the port to Mac/DOS/Windows? Miscellaneous: Q: What front ends (modelers, etc) support the RenderMan Interface? Q: What other net resources exist which are related to RenderMan? Q: Where can I get the Pixar videos? Q: What is the correct capitalization of "Pixar"? Nomenclature: RI = RenderMan Interface, often refers to the spec document. RC = _The RenderMan Companion_ by Steve Upstill. SL = Shading Language. PRMan = Pixar's PhotoRealistic RenderMan product BMRT = Blue Moon Rendering Tools =========================================================================== Q: What is the charter for comp.graphics.rendering.renderman? ------------------------------------------------------------- comp.graphics.rendering.renderman is an unmoderated newsgroup intended for the discussion of the RenderMan standard (e.g. definition, semantics, usage, tips), the RenderMan shading language (e.g. posted shaders, questions, tips), particular RenderMan implementations, software that uses the RenderMan interface (e.g. RIB-producing modelers, third party shaders), and comparisons, comments and questions about RenderMan in general. This group is NOT intended for the distribution of images or RIB files. Large data or binary files should be uploaded to appropriate FTP sites and announced on the newsgroup, but not posted directly. Q: What other newsgroups have closely related material? ------------------------------------------------------- comp.graphics.animation : computer animation comp.graphics.algorithms : algorithms for graphics comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing : the technique of ray tracing comp.graphics.visualization : visualizing scientific data comp.sys.next.programmer : programming NEXTSTEP alt.movies.visual-effects : discussion of movie effects sci.image.processing : technicalities of image processing alt.graphics.pixutils : pixel and image utilities The FAQ's for these groups (and most others) can be found at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers and many of them have HTML FAQ's at http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/FAQ-list.html Q: Where is comp.graphics.renderman archived? --------------------------------------------- Tal Lancaster has all c.g.r.r articles archived in the RenderMan Repository: http://pete.cs.caltech.edu/RMR/ Q: What is "RenderMan"? ----------------------- Here's the most brief explanation I could come up with: According to RI (p. 3): "The RenderMan Interface is a standard interface between modeling programs and rendering programs capable of producing photorealistic quality images." RenderMan is in many respects similar to PostScript, but for 3D primitives. The goal is to provide a standard mechanism for modeling and animation software to send data to rendering systems in a device- independent way, and with minimal regard to the actual rendering algorithms being used. A particular RenderMan implementation may use scanline methods (z-buffer, REYES), ray tracing, radiosity, or other methods. An important aspect of the RenderMan Interface is the Shading Language (SL). SL breaks the restrictive paradigm of surfaces being described by a small number of parameters (Ka, Kd, Ks, etc.). SL allows the user to write her own arbitrarily complex descriptions of how lighting and shading should be computed. Q: Where can I find documentation on the RenderMan Interface? ------------------------------------------------------------- Late breaking news: the entire RenderMan 3.1 spec is now online at Pixar's site! See: http://www.pixar.com/products/renderman/toolkit/Toolkit/RISpec/ The official RenderMan Interface 3.1 specification is surprisingly readable for a standard document, but not in any way a tutorial. A must for any serious RenderMan user, it's available directly from Pixar for US$20 (in the US, including S&H) or US$25 (outside US, includes S&H by air). Their address is: Pixar 1001 West Cutting Blvd. Richmond, CA 94804 It turns out that a PDF version of the 3.1 spec (with corrections!) was distributed on the SIGGRAPH '95 course notes CD-ROM. So if you have access to this, you can print it yourself. _The RenderMan Companion: A Programmer's Guide to Realistic Computer Graphics_, by Steve Upstill (Addison-Wesley, 1989, ISBN 0-201-50868-0) is an excellent introduction to the procedural API and the Shading Language. Unfortunately, it doesn't address RIB at all. If you're interested in SL, or procedural shading in general, check out _Textures and Modeling: A Procedural Approach_, by Ebert, Musgrave, Peachey, Perlin, and Worley (Academic Press, 1994, ISBN 0-12-227760-6). The source code (including RM shaders) can be found at URL ftp://archive.cs.umbc.edu/pub/texture. Moving to the more obscure, there are good course notes from Siggraph '90 (course 18 - The RenderMan Interface & Shading Language), Siggraph '92 (course 21 - Writing RenderMan Shaders), and Siggraph '95 (course 4 - Using RenderMan for Animation Production). Here are some technical papers that discuss either the RenderMan Interface or some of the technologies behind its implementation(s): Cook, Carpenter, and Catmull. "The Reyes Image Rendering Architecture", Computer Graphics 21(4):95-102, 1987. (Describes the rendering method that prman uses.) Gritz, Larry, and J.K. Hahn. "BMRT: A Global Illumination Implementation of the RenderMan Standard", _Journal of Graphics Tools_, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 29-47, 1996. Hanrahan and Lawson. "A Language for Shading and Lighting Calculations", Computer Graphics 24(4):289-298, August 1990. (Describes SL.) Reeves, Salesin, and Cook. "Rendering antialiased shadows with depth maps", Computer Graphics 21(4):283-291, July 1987. (Describes the methods that prman uses to compute shadows.) Slusallek, Pflaum, and Seidel. "Implementing RenderMan--Practice, Problems and Enhancements." Proceedings of Eurographics '94. (Describes their implementation.) Q: What's the difference between the procedural interface and RIB? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Two bindings exist for the RenderMan Interface. The first is a procedural API, i.e. a collection of library routines callable from a C program. Those functions all start with Ri, for example RiBegin(). The procedural API is explained in great detail in _RC_ and in the RI standard document. The second binding is called RenderMan Interface Bytestream (RIB). RIB is an ASCII (or binary) metafile format. In general, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the API calls and their equivalent RIB directives. RIB is useful for archival and later rendering, rendering over a network, and hacking scenes by hand. RIB is unfortunately not documented in _RC_, but is exhaustively detailed in _RI_. The usual way that RenderMan is used is for a program (modeler) to make the procedural API calls. The program is linked to a library which, for each API call, outputs the corresponding RIB to a file. That archived RIB can later be sent to a standalone renderer which inputs the RIB and outputs rendered images. Q: What features are required by the RI? What is optional? ----------------------------------------------------------- The full list of requirements for a RenderMan-compliant renderer is given in RI on pp. 5-7. Basically, a RenderMan-compliant renderer should minimally provide the following features: Complete hierarchical graphics state Orthographic and perspective viewing transformations Hidden surface removal Pixel filtering and antialiasing Gamma correction and dithering before quantization Produce images containing any combination of RGB, A, and Z at a user specified resolution Support all of the geometric primitives of the standard (including quadrics, polygons, bilinear and bicubic patches, and NURBS) Provide the 14 standard light source, surface, volume, and displacement shaders This is actually quite a lot -- you'll find few rendering systems, free or commercial, which provide as many features as even the minimal RenderMan requirements. In addition, RenderMan-compliant renderers may support several optional capabilities. Many of these features are very advanced, and some rendering algorithms simply cannot support certain features, so the availability will tend to vary from implementation to implementation. The optional capabilities include: Solid Modeling (CSG) Trim Curves for NURBS Multiple Levels of Detail Motion Blur Depth of Field Area Light Sources Deformations Displacements Spectral Colors Texture Mapping Environment Mapping Bump Mapping Shadow Depth Mapping Volume Shading Ray Tracing Radiosity Programmable Shading (in Shading Language) Special Camera Projections Q: What do I have to do in order to call my software "RenderMan --------------------------------------------------------------- compliant"? ----------- You must support all of the required features, including all of the geometric primitive types. You must implement all of the API calls or RIB requests, even for features you don't support (i.e. at least have function stubs so your library accepts the calls). You must not allow information to be sent through any alternative calls not defined by the interface, and you may not use any alternate language for programmable shading. If you write a RenderMan compliant renderer, you must obtain a no-charge license from Pixar (in writing). You basically attest that your software is compliant with the standard and that you won't abuse Pixar's trademark and copyrights. Modeling programs which use the RI standard (i.e. output RIB or make the API calls) may do so without a license, but must display Pixar's copyrights as follows: The RenderMan (R) Interface Procedures and Protocol are: Copyright 1988, 1989, Pixar All Rights Reserved Q: What implementations of the RenderMan standard are available? ---------------------------------------------------------------- There are currently two widely used RenderMan-compliant renderers: PRMan and BMRT. Both are absoltely fully compliant with the RenderMan spec, and have been used in various productions. A couple lesser-used ones have recently popped up, also. Several other proprietary implementations no doubt exist, but to the best of my knowledge they are not available commercially or otherwise. Pixar's PhotoRealistic RenderMan ("PRMan", for short) is the most widely used implementation. These guys are, after all, the originators of the standard, so their implementation is of very high quality. PRMan is used by many production houses, including ILM, Digital Domain, Disney, and others. It was used to render effects for The Abyss, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Casper, Apollo 13, and many other films. And of course, it was used to render Toy Story. PRMan is available on several UNIX systems as the RenderMan Toolkit (retails for $5000 per processor). Call Pixar for product information (800-888-9856). PRMan also is bundled with other products like Vertigo, Macromedia Macromodel, and the now defunct Pixar Showplace. The NEXTSTEP operating system comes with prman and qrman (Quick RenderMan, Pixar's RIB previewer). Larry Gritz has a shareware implementation, called the Blue Moon Rendering Tools (BMRT). It supports ray tracing and radiosity, area lights, full implementation of Shading Language, volume and imager shaders, displacements, and other advanced features. It also comes with real-time RIB previewers (under X11 and/or OpenGL). BMRT runs on SGI, Linux, NEXTSTEP, Solaris, FreeBSD, and HP-UX. There are no Mac, Windows, or DOS versions. It is available by anonymous FTP from ftp.seas.gwu.edu, in the pub/graphics/BMRT directory. More information about BMRT is available from http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/gritz/bmrt.html The University of Erlangen's Vision project is an object-oriented RenderMan-compliant renderer. Information may be found at: http://www9.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/eng/research/vision/ Also check out Philipp Slusallek's PhD about the Vision system, available on the same site. They're not terribly specific about the distribution policy -- they seem able to distribute to "selected institutions", but I don't believe they are widely distributing their package. RenderDotC is a RenderMan-compliant scanline renderer available >from Dot C Software. It runs under Windows 95/NT and SGI. More information from http://www.lava.net/dotc/ Photon is a RIB-reading renderer by Eidolon (Henning Hoffmann and Stephen Keppel-Jones). I hesitate to describe it as RenderMan-compliant (as it has various holes), but it may well be one day soon. It's still in the alpha stage, but looks promising. I haven't tried it, though. More info is available from http://magi.com/~henningh/eidolon.html Q: Is PRMan a ray tracer? How can PRMan do reflections if it's not a ray tracer? Was a ray tracer used for reflections in Toy Story? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PRMan IS NOT A RAYTRACER. It uses the Reyes algorithm (more or less as described in the 1987 SIGGRAPH paper, though with many enhancements and improvements). Environment and reflection mapping do quite reasonable approximations to reflection and refraction, in a fraction of the time it usually takes a ray tracer. Sometimes the reflections don't look quite correct compared to a ray tracer, but this is almost never a problem and almost always worth the time savings. Pixar used the very same version of PRMan for Toy Story (and all their other work) as they sell to the public. You can see examples of how well PRMan does reflections and refractions, not only in Toy Story, but also in The Abyss and Terminator 2. Q: Is there a Macintosh/DOS/Windows port of BMRT? In the works? Will the author of BMRT let me do the port to Mac/DOS/Windows? ----------------------------------------------------------------- In short: No. It is unlikely that the list of supported platforms will grow in the near future. It's extremely unlikely that BMRT will ever be ported to the Mac, DOS, Windows, NT, or any other non-UNIX environment. BMRT is currently supported on SGI, Linux, HP, NEXTSTEP, Solaris (on SPARCs), and FreeBSD. If you have a PC, I strongly recommend looking into Linux, a free (!) UNIX implementation that runs on Intel 486/Pentium systems. NEXTSTEP also runs on Intel-based hardware, and comes with PRMan built in (and can also run BMRT). BMRT's author doesn't wish to release source code, nor does he currently want to port to non-UNIX OS's (on which he has neither the access nor expertise, nor the desire to acquire either). He's turned down offers to port to Cray (among others), so it's not likely you'll convince him to port to the Mac. This is not a snub at users of the Mac or any other platform, just a reality of the life of the author and his finite time and resources. Q: What front ends (modelers, etc) support the RenderMan Interface? ------------------------------------------------------------------- This information was supplied by many people, so it's hard to verify its accuracy, and it certainly contains individuals' opinions. Often, this info comes from the companies supplying the products. I do not necessarily endorse any of the products listed, though if I find out that any are particularly good or bad, I will note it. The products are listed in no particular order, though I've broken it into the categories of: modelers, plugins or converters, and "other". If you know of other front ends or products which use RenderMan, please send me a short paragraph and I will include it here. Modelers which can output RIB ----------------------------- Rhino is a Windows (NT or 95) based NURBS modeler which recently added RIB support. Their site has a beta available for download: http://www.rhino3d.com/ AC3D is a 3D modeler by Andy Colebourne. It's polygon based, but does extrusions, revolutions, etc. It's actually quite nice, runs on Linux, SGI, and Sun, and is free! And it outputs RIB, among other formats. More info, and downloading the software, available at: http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/andy/ac3dlinux.html Vertigo's Animation Machine software (modeler & animation system) has very nice support for RenderMan output, but it's only a polygon based modeler. You can generate RIB files or render directly. Vertigo comes with the prman runtime library linked in for integrated rendering, or you can buy Vertigo bundled with prman. Their phone number is 604-684-2113. Macromedia's MacroModel's was a spline-based modeler for Mac and Win, with pretty good RIB export. But it's now defunct. So it goes. MicroStation is a general purpose CAD program which can be used as a modeler. It supports NURBS, CSG, fillets, and blends, and can output RIB. It's available for UNIX, DOS, and Windows. I believe it is actually written by Bentley Systems, but is marketed by Intergraph. Cheap academic versions are available ($150?). Bentley Systems can be reached at: (610)458-5000 or academic@bentley.com (regarding the academic package.) 3DReality from Stone Design Corp. (505) 345-4800 info@stone.com Runs on NEXTSTEP. A little long in the tooth and has some quirks, but it's built of dynamically loadable bundles and offers a very accesible API for adding your own shapes, tools, etc. Reads and writes RIBS just fine. Really, really good academic discounts and very friendly tech support. Side Effects PRISMS animation system for SGI's running UNIX, has a pretty complete implementation, 416/504-9876, get blurb from Janet Frasier. PRISMS 5 is polygonal, so it spits out polygons, but can also do patch meshes. Side Effects' new Houdini system (modeling & animation) has very good RenderMan support (both PRMan and BMRT). It also includes the ability to create shaders *within* the program by a visual means and export out the shader source for tweaking and compiling. [ed. note - I have heard great things about this package.] Hash Inc. sells a spline based animation package that is excellent for character animation. The .ribs are exported frame by frame. It is available for PC, PowerPC, and WinNT on SGI, MIPS and a few others. It has particle effects, skinning, channels, spline deformation and more. http://www.hash.com/~hashinc/ [ed. note: I've been told that this package produces very bad RIB] Amapi 2.05 is mainly a modeller that is fairly good for creating characters. It uses NURBS, Splines and Polys. Intuitive interface unlike any. http://www.yonowat.com Alias PowerAnimator (also for SGI), versions 5 & 6, output rib, NURBS including trim curves. [ed. note: Alias's RIB output is notoriously mediocre.] Intuitiv'3d from Intuitive Systems, Inc. tel: 415-852-0245 fax:415-852-1271, info@intuisys.com. Runs on NEXTSTEP. Sports a terrific interface but is rather slow. Great realtime previews of lighting and shape, so-so modeling tools, great shader manipulation, including "MetaShaders" which store surface, color, displacement and lighting shader info in a single entity. Reads RIBS but saves to its own proprietary format (.i3dw) solidThinking from Gestel Italia, Ph.:++39 444 964-974 Fax: ++39 444 964-984 Email: info@solid.gestel.it, WWW: http://www.gestel.it For NEXTSTEP, this industrial-strength modeler from Italy approaches Alias in its power and refinement. Great modeling tools including NURBS, control of every RenderMan parameter, fast and smooth manipulation of objects and lights. Reads and writes RIBS, support for both PRMan and BMRT, reads Wavefront, TDDD and DXF files too. Support for things like particle animation, 3D mice is planned. Version 2.4 of solidThinking adds: export/import from 3D Studio, VRML. Breeze Designer is a 32-bit 3D modelling and design tool for Windows NT, Windows 95 and Win32s with exports for the Persistance of Vision raytracer, RenderMan, and VRML. Breeze Designer is still under developement, and updated are posted regularly. The beta latest beta version is available from the above location. All beta's are distributed as copyright freeware. http://povray.org/ftp/pub/povray/modellers/breeze/BreezeDesigner.html The Valis Group's Pixel Putty Solo for the Mac ($349 retail, $299 direct?) offers an extremely versatile and fluid spline-based modeler featuring nine different NURBS, lattice deformations and boolean operations on patches, direct rendering to RenderMan using .slo shaders, and event-based key frame animation with inverse kinematics. More information can be had from Valis at: VALISGROUP@aol.com or 1-800-VALIS-04. Alias Sketch 2.0 for the Mac is a spline and polygon surface modeler which supports NURBS but does not have shader support. Price is around $600. Autodesys form*Z is a CAD modeler on the Mac and Win95/NTwhich goes for $1500. Polygons, CSG, and spline meshes are supported. No direct shader support. VIDI's Presenter Professional for the Mac ($1500) is a spline/patch-mesh based modeler with excellent RenderMan support; you can manipulate shader parameters and everything. More info at: http://erehwon.caltech.edu/vidi/vidi-homepage.html There's also a site at http://www.webnation.com/vidi/ which contains more info and some useful shaders. FastCad 3D by Evolution Computing; 437 South 48th Street, Suite 106; Tempe, AZ 85281; Phone: (602) 967-8633. FastCad 3D is a 3-D modeling system capable of producing a RIB file for rendering with a program like Pixar's Renderman for Windows. This DOS program can produce 3D models quickly due to the fact that it is written in Assembly language. DesignCad 3D for the Mac and Windows ($500) is a polygonal surface modeler which outputs RIB. Supports CSG. No direct shader support. More information from http://www.viagrafix.com VisLab 3D Animation Software by Engineering Animation Inc.has a full renderman interface. Normal rendering is done entirely in hardware, but everything can be automatically piped over to prman, or written out as an .rib file. Both hardware and prman can also be combined in the same scene. The interface is really great. Contact: Engineering Animation Inc., 2321 North Loop Drive, Ames, IA 50010, 515-296-9908 Poser 2 is a human shape and pose modeler from Fractal Design which supports animation, clothing, and exchanging body parts with various 3D objects. It runs on Mac, PowerMac, and Windows. It can export RIB. Details can be found at http://www.fractal.com/poser/ or by calling (800)297-COOL. ThreeD, by Kieran Jones is a scene modeler that runs under NEXTSTEP and supports RenderMan. I haven't tried it, but it's available for FTP from ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/pub/next/apps/graphics/2D_3D/ThreeD.06.NIHS.b.tar.gz You can contact the author at kjones@vcn.bc.ca. ShellyLib2.0, a shell-shape-generator which outputs RIB (among other formats). is available from http://www.informatik.uni-rostock.de/~rschultz/shellylh.html VTK, Bill Lorensen's OO scientific visualization toolkit, can now output RIB. It's not really a modeler, but if you're into SciVi, you may think this is very cool. See http://www.crd.ge.com/~lorensen/vtkrib PhotoSynthesis 1.0 is a primitive modeler that has full support for RenderMan on PowerMac platform. Rendering features include automatic reflection and shadow generation, softbox reflections, and easily set-up Depth of Field blur. Shaders are fully supported with unique 3D cursor that replaces Up/At Vector. Exports RIB file format. Full featured NURBS, Boolean Operations and 3DMF File Import/Export will be available in Spring of '97. Available directly from Silver Creek Software. For more information call 888/880-0551, e-mail SilverCSW@aol.com, or see their WWW site at http://www.navicom.com/~silvercsw Converters & plug-ins for modelers ---------------------------------- Pixar's new ATOR product is an Alias plugin that produces excellent RenderMan output. Also includes compositing software and a system for distributing rendering jobs across a network. Details available directly from Pixar. DriveMan from Gestel Italia converts IGES and Alias Wire files to RenderMan, for use with either PRMan or BMRT. There's both a freeware version and a more complete commercial version. More information from: http://www.gestel.it/driveman/index.html SoRender is a freely distributed interactive graphical interface >from Softimage to the RenderMan standard. The interface is currently composed of eight tools that are all written as plug-ins to Softimage and are built on Softimage's DKit. Features Include: Interactive Previewing of RenderMan rendered images from within Softimage; Interactive tools for working with shaders and adjusting parameters; Tools to make working with shadow maps and environment maps easier; Shader Keywords to facilitate parameter animation; Support of both PhotoRealistic RenderMan and BMRT; Access to all tools from within Softimage; Support of motion blur. SoRender can be obtained at either: http://www-viz.tamu.edu/htdocs/Software/SoRender/SoRender.homepage.html or ftp: viz.tamu.edu/pub/software/SoRender.v1-0.tar.gz WaveMan, a Wavefront-to-RenderMan conversion tool, is available >from Minds Eye Graphics (mindseye@infi.net, 804-643-3713). SoftMan(TM): an interface tool between SoftImage and RenderMan sold by Animal Logic. Details can be found at: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~softman including a downloadable version. For more information contact: email brian@dl.oz.au ph 61 2 9906 1232 fax 61 2 9906 7433 Lost In Space makes a product called Siren which converts SoftImage scenes into RIB files. Info is available from siren@lostinspace.com. Siren converts Softimage 3D scene and model files into RenderMan RIB and shader files. Siren 2.0 works only on SGI's running IRIX 4.0.5 or later. It can read Softimage 2.66 scene/model files. SiRen only has a comandline/scripted interface, but is now being upgraded to a point and click version 2.1. To run siren you must have a copy of the Softimage Developers Kit. US$2000 per license, bulk discounts available. 30% discount for educational institutions. Source licensing is available. Siren + Renderman deals available. Pay for Siren2.0 and get a free upgrade to Siren2.1 when it is released. There is a 3D Studio to RIB converter by Alex Segal on the net, see http://www.ufa.ru/rmc/3ds2rib.html for details. Envisions Solutions sells Envision-It, which converts DXF to RIB. Not a modeler. Sells for around $200. Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. has a product called the NuGraf Rendering System, which includes a very high quality Renderman export capability. For Renderman users, the software can convert from DXF (best DXF reader around), 3D Studio (100% conversion), Lightwave, IGES, Wavefront, CAD3D, and many more. In addition, the software can create extruded 3d fonts which can be exported to Renderman. A demo and other info are available from http://www.okino.com. Contact: 905-672-9328 (voice), 905-672-2706 (fax). Okino Computer Graphics has also released a cross-platform data translation product called "PolyTrans" that runs on Windows, DOS, SUN, SGI and DEC machines. For Renderman users, the software can convert >from DXF, 3D Studio, Lightwave, trueSpace, IGES, Strata StudioPro, Wavefront, 3DMF and many more. RIB output files use optimized meshes with vertex normals that are properly segmented according to shader assignment. Files translated with PolyTrans are "Render Ready" requiring little or no tweaking necessary to render equivalent images to those of the originating 3d package. A demo and other info are available from http://www.okino.com/conv/conv.htm. Contact: 905-672-9328 (voice), 905-672-2706 (fax). Syndesis has a product called InterChange, for Windows and SGI, that converts between more than fifty 3D file formats, including Softimage, Alias, LightWave, 3D Studio and many others. It can export geometry to a simple RIB file. http://www.threedee.com/ Syndesis also just released a new product called Megahedron. It's a rendering engine controlled by a high-level interpreted language. It's not Java, it's not POV, it's not Renderman, but I bet anyone who tinkers in Renderman would find it interesting. It's interactive, inexpensive, and easily reprogrammed, right down to shaders and procedural objects and motions. Cow House has a free converters from Inventor2.0 and VRML to RenderMan & BMRT. For details, see: http://www.cowhouse.com/Home/Converters/converters.html Other Tools ----------- Cinema Graphics is now selling a product called "Shade Tree" which is a dataflow system for writing RenderMan shaders. Info at http://www.cinegrfx.com/ Pixar used to sell Showplace for the Mac and Typestry 2 for the Mac and PC. They're nice little programs if you can get your hands on them, but Pixar no longer sells these. WavesWorld, a set of UI, modeling and animation objects available only atop NEXTSTEP, available via http://wave.www.media.mit.edu/people/wave/ An object oriented framework consisting of two "kits" of objects and lots of examples, WavesWorld is based directly atop the RenderMan interface. Q: What other net resources exist which are related to RenderMan? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Pixar home page: http://www.pixar.com finally contains useful information! Pay particular attention to http://www.pixar.com/products/renderman/toolkit/Toolkit/index.html which has the RenderMan 3.1 spec and all of the documentation for PRMan online. BMRT home page: http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/gritz/bmrt.html Tal Lancaster of CalTech (now a TD at Disney) has set up a "RenderMan Repository" for dissemination of shaders, RIB files, etc. Among other things, this site has pointers to just about everything else that has RenderMan related stuff. It's also got all c.g.r.r. articles archived. Here's the URL: http://pete.cs.caltech.edu/RMR/ The Ebert, et al. book _Texturing and Modeling_ (mentioned earlier) has an FTP site with the examples from the book, including RenderMan Shading Language source code: ftp://archive.cs.umbc.edu/pub/textures Professor Ken Musgrave (one of the authors of the T&M book) taught a graduate seminar at GWU on procedural texturing. Student projects, images, and shaders can be found at: http://www.seas.gwu.edu/graphics/ProcTexCourse/ Similarly, Stephen May recently taught a course on digital lighting at Ohio State. A Shading Language tutorial and student projects can be found at these addresses: http://www.cgrg.ohio-state.edu/~smay/DigitalLighting/Course.html http://www.cgrg.ohio-state.edu/~smay/RManNotes/RManNotes.html Michael B. Johnson (a.k.a. "Wave") has a home page at: http://wave.www.media.mit.edu/people/wave/ He's built a lot of software that runs on top of RenderMan (see the description of WavesWorld earlier in this FAQ). ThreeD, by Kieran Jones is a scene modeler that runs under NEXTSTEP and supports RenderMan. I haven't tried it, but it's available for FTP from ftp://ftp.cs.orst.edu/pub/software/NeXT/binaries/graphics. You can contact the author at kjones@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca. Geomview is an interactive 3D geometry (in the mathematical sense) viewing program written at the Geometry Center. It can export RIB. URL is http://www.geom.umn.edu/software/download/geomview.html SoftMan(TM) (Animal Logic's Softimage->RenderMan tool) information and demos: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~softman Alex Segal's 3D Studio to RIB converter is on the net, see http://www.ufa.ru/rmc/3ds2rib.html for details. Doug Ward has a site that's about using VIDI Presenter 3D. If you look on: http://www.webnation.com/vidi/ (select the shaders button on the frame) you'll find some shaders and other goodies that may be useful even if you don't use Presenter. Quido Quaroni has put up several shaders at ftp://ftp.gestel.it/pub/incoming/shadersrc.tgz (this is a .tar.gz file) and compiled versions of those shaders for both PRMan and BMRT at ftp://ftp.gestel.it/pub/incoming/stshader.tgz VTK, Bill Lorensen's OO scientific visualization toolkit, can now output RIB. See http://www.crd.ge.com/~lorensen/vtkrib/ Raynet, "http://ray.deepfx.com, offers 3-D scene file format conversion and rendering services for RIB files. I offer no endorsement, just a pointer. Q: Where can I get the Pixar videos? ------------------------------------ Pixar's animation video (which contains Luxo Jr, Reds Dream, Tin Toy and Knickknick) is available directly from Pixar. The cost is $25.00. Just call 1 800-888-9856 or 510-236-4000. The tape is available in both VHS NTSC and PAL formats. Recently, the Pixar shorts were released by Disney Home Video as "Tiny Toy Stories". You should be able to find them at your local video store for around $10. Q: What is the correct capitalization of "Pixar"? ------------------------------------------------- It's written "Pixar", just as it is throughout this FAQ. I don't know why people keep capitalizing it, perhaps they are trying to duplicate the logo, which is in a particular typeface and happens to be all caps. In any case, it's not an acronym like IBM. It's a regular company name like Disney. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This FAQ was mostly written and maintained by Larry Gritz, who wishes to thank the contributions of: Antoine Durr, J.J. Hoesing, Steve Hollasch, Michael B. Johnson, Joshua Kolden, Andrew MacRae, Nino Mendolia, David Milner, Pohl Longsine, Steve Weintz, and others. Please send comments, additions, gripes to: lg@pixar.com -- Larry Gritz Pixar Animation Studios lg@pixar.com Richmond, CA