PRMAN and Renderman Studio

[soulburn3d]

All slim is is a set of "Templates" (A template is basically a piece of shader code that outputs a pattern, shader, etc) that you link together. A template can be authored by the user, or you can get templates from the web, or use the basic ones that ship with slim. So really a slim template is shader code.

The question you'll need to answer is if you don't want to do any programming, are the templates you can download from the web and are the templates that ship with slim enough to do the job you want?

I'd recommend getting an evaluation of slim and try it for yourself, see if the default templates are enough for what you'd like to do. And if not, could you hire a programmer or two to write new templates that do what you want? If the answer to these two things is no, then you may want to look at another renderer.

You can also look into using Renderman For Maya, which uses maya's hypergraph and materials, and then converts them to shaders for use inside renderman.

- Neil

[beaker]

Here is a good question: Can your artists build good enough shaders with the Hypershade or do you have to hire someone to program custom shaders for MR? If the answer is the former, then SLIM will work just fine for you.

[jude3d]

slim now with renderman studio use renderman shader in hypershade, this mean you can edit on the fly the shader and reload it in hypershade to combine it with another maya shader or utility. this is a really powerfull architecture to work on shader editing.
the power of slim is mainly in the power of the slim code, you can use dynamic or generativ function to create shader like delux who is a dynamic shader you can add your own shading component to it without rewrite the smae code for each shader. in that way you can create a shading component for reflection, another for phong specular another for a torrance specular, another for another separated function, and so on and finally combine the shading component you want in a delux shader. this is the most powerfull system I've ever seen for years in cgi. with a single shader you can create everything you want. slim is also a very cool manager for shading network and rendering effect.
the only thing you need is a deep exploration of slim code to unleech the power of this tool. give it a try. you wouldn't regret

[lotusexige]

As has been mentioned, there are 3 ways to get a shader into maya for use with renderman studio/renderman for maya/prman

1) Write the code yourself, in SL language, compile it for your renderer and load that with the 'renderman shader' hypergraph node

2) Use the hypergraph within maya itself as you would if you were using the internal maya renderer.

3) Use SLIM (ships with renderman studio) and build up your shading networks from the 'blocks' and templates provided. then import that into hypergraph. You can get incredibly complex shading networks built with SLIM, and that requires ZERO programming skills. Of course you will get more out of it (and grasp concepts better) if you do have an understanding of writing shader code. But it should not be thought that you need to be a programmer to make amazing shaders within SLIM

Renderman studio is an amazingly powerful product, and can only get better :)


Oh I thought of a 4th way to get good shaders, hire me :D

[mayadesigner]

So you wanted to know if you can build great images with the built in shaders? You can, I am not saying that it is not in your best interest to learn a little RSL but you can do very well with the built in networks within SLIM. Here is a character for a short I am working on done with all the available SLIM networks. It is all camera dependent as you can see. The details really come out as you get closer. This is one of the greatest features of RenderMan. I will tell you I know RSL but there were no custom templates used to create these images....

http://www.mayadesigner.com/meter_F1.jpg


http://www.mayadesigner.com/meter_F4.jpg

http://www.mayadesigner.com/meter_F2.jpg

Thanks,

mayadesigner

[DP]

wow!

Thanks for all the amazing reply's this is really good stuff i can use i our evaluation.

Neil: I'm defintely gonna try out for a eval of SLIM

But for the most part we can make our shaders within the Hypershade, but i'm setting out to learn RSL code - not to be a hardcore coder but just to know whats going on, and eventually make tweaks and templates myself.

And if i can make shaders like the one Chris logan made out of templates only, then we've got it covered for now :)

Although we're always looking for talented people - Simon! :D

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