Renderman

[playmesumch00ns]

From the menu select RenderMan>Settings, then press the "make cool" button.

[Aiur]

You can also right click on the shortcut and in the launch settings tab add these variables +make cool +/path/coolscene.rib

:thumbsup:

[frizDog]

You will need to create some robust surface shaders, many,many highres texture maps. Some good (and again) robust lighting shaders, decent models and a good lighting setup and some pretty powerful computers to render.


It is a pretty broad question, and is what many of us do for a living and therefore cannot sum up an answer on how to make your renders look good in a sentence or two

[MikeBracken]

If you only setup your scene the same way that you did in the Scanline, the renders will be pretty close. You have to think about the strengths of RMFM.

Almost everything can be baked.
You get displacement "almost for free".
You get excellent SSS that is fast and can be baked.
Deep shadows are fast and can also be baked.
The colorbleed occlusion is beautiful.
With AOVs you can get a ton of usefull passes "almost for free".



Regards,
Mike

[fusedgore]

are there any renderman tutorials out there that are good on teaching the renderman .I know that was a very broad question .I just dont know where to start .

[ndeboar]

A wise man said, It isn't about just mastering the technology, its also about mastering the art. Renderman wont make your stuff look any better, but it'll do it faster.

[playmesumch00ns]

are there any renderman tutorials out there that are good on teaching the renderman .I know that was a very broad question .I just dont know where to start .

Sorry for being facetious it was a long day yesterday. When you say "I get the same basic renders I always have", it implies that you're achieving the same sort of results you were before--presumably with Maya software or mental ray--and were just expecting the output from PRMan to look better automatically.

Making pretty pictures is not about the tools, it's about the artist using them. Without a goal to aim for all you won't achieve anything. Your best bet would be to do some of Jeremy Birn's lighting challenges. Set yourself the target of choosing only one of the cool features of prman that have already been mentioned to use in each project and concentrate on making a nice image while learning how that feature works at the same time.

Those of us here who know it well have spent most of our careers learning how to tame the bloody thing, same as those you'd consider masters of mr, vray, etc. Don't expect Avatar overnight, but keep concentrate on making the pretty pictures and you'll find it very rewarding.

[fusedgore]

Thanks for that info .I will check those out for sure by Jeremy Birn.

[uphillcastle]

Thanks for that info .I will check those out for sure by Jeremy Birn.

I searched ALOT for Renderman tutorials and they are nowhere to be found. There are a few that arent even to be trusted from what I see!

The best renderman for Maya course I have watched is the digital tutors DVD...It has everything for a beginner (which I am) getting into that plugin. Covers lots of aspects of the software and what it can do.

But in terms of learning how to write shaders from the ground up - the programming side of things...thats a whole other ball game. I am teaching myself maya and thought that was a bit tricky until I looked down into that deep dark wasteland of RSL. (for me anyhow)

For that I would suggest: The renderman shading language guide, and Advanced renderman.

Maybe advanced renderman first.

Oh theres good renderman courses at TDCollege and another place...cant remember...will write back when I do. thanks

[learn]

Well yes, the rendering part of 3d tends to be dificult for some people(for me to).I am not traying say that other fields of 3d are easy...When i look at things from my perspective, when i started modeling, things were moving much faster then now, when i am learnig rendering.You must realize that hi quality renders are usualy mixture of modeling, texturing(very important), ligting(even more important) and even some composting.There is a general rule of thumb that to be realy good at something you need to invest ALOT of time...

[Bender83]

I don't know your current understanding so Ima lay it down under the assumption you know as much as I did when I first started rendering...

ASIDE from the art that is lighting - the way I look at it, there are three things that you need to master to make Renderman sing.
1) Globals/AOV's and Shared Geometric Attributes
2) RIB - Renderman Interface Bytestream - Scene description
3) RSL - the renderman shading language

The first will be covered fairly well in your Digital Tutors tutorials.
For the second and third, I stumbled across this little webpage that explains it nicely for the non-programmer. http://www.vga.hr/resources/tutorials/3d/rsl/. But to delve deeper, as far as training online goes, try fxphd, they've got a Renderman 101 course on at the moment (http://www.fxphd.com/courseInfo.php#RND101), OR, if you're technically minded and severely driven, you could go all out with the Renderman Certified Courseware from Escape Studios (http://www.escapestudios.com/en_GB/online-learning/courses/renderman-courseware.html).

Check it.

[ndeboar]

They mention Switch/Case statements in that RSL reference. I didnt think any RSL implimentation supported them?

[keraj37]

A wise man said, It isn't about just mastering the technology, its also about mastering the art. Renderman wont make your stuff look any better, but it'll do it faster.

I have this same problem with maxwell - I saw few works of masters and I thought: "Yesy everything is maxwell doing for them". But when It came to doing my own renders, I didnt see any difrence between my past renders on mr or vray.

I think that same problem is with U and renderman, I know it is powerfull tool but U need to learn how to use it by trying evrything on evrything.

Good luck!

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