最近一直在重覆翻閱《Advanced RenderMan: Creating CGI for Motion Pictures 》第六章 How PhotoRealistic RenderMan Works，這一章節將整個 prman 的 Reyes rendering pipeline，從頭到尾描述了一遍。 定義並且解釋了非常多 prman 用到的名詞，與 RenderMan Global 裏頭，Reyes 這個選單下的很多參數，實在是非常棒的一個章節，堪稱是了解 renderman 的入門章節。像是 micropolygon, dicing, gprims, shading rate, …… 都在這一個章節說個明白，非常的棒。 ...
RenderMan 是什麼？直覺反應會覺得，它是 Pixar 這個動畫公司所研發出來的一套 renderer，算是現在電影特效與 3D 動畫業界，最舉足輕重的軟體之一。 其實呢，RenderMan 並不是這個意思…… ...
Wonderful to hear from you. I spent a most enjoyable 12 days in Taipei last summer. I taught a 5 day class of RenderMan at DCI. Thank you for telling me about the kind words of one of my (best) students. Very encouraging. The “RenderMan Companion” by Upstall has 3 chapters (maybe 4) devoted to shader writing. Although it is an old book, it is still very good. “Advanced RenderMan” by Apodaca and Gritz is very good although sadly it was written before the raytracing extensions were added to prman. You may like to follow some of the links on one of my class pages,https://sfdm.ca.scad.edu/vsfx/faculty/mkesson/Ca301/index.html ...
Dear Prof. Kesson, I noticed your website and your work on renderman in reading the following article by one of you students. https://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=2855078&postcount=99 and then I found, wow, what a great website about renderman programming and that Cutter Text Editor. and soon, I downloaded Cutter and started to think about using it for mel programming (I am not yet familiar with renderman programming) instead of gVim although I have also retrieved a full complete function list from maya doc server and made it as syntax file for vim because Cutter seems more attractive and I was very interested in that CommandPort feature. I will dissect it and give you feedback ;) currently, I am thinking about studying renderman shader concept/programming because I am in a Taiwan company aiming for being a great 3D animation studio in Taiwan and my current position is as a Effect TD. therefore, I got lots of opportunities and equipments ( nice workstation, maya, shake, renderman and renderfarm ) to learn what I want to learn. so lucky I am. In your great website ( https://www.fundza.com/ ), I think I can ask you how to start my renderman shader/programming road. would you please suggest or instruct something by your long-term experience in this for me to learn renderman ? Oh! I forgot to tell you. my background is computer science and my major is computer graphics in graduate. therefore, I have good programming skills and it’s always not the problem for me to do coding and learn a new coding. and I have basic knowledge of computer graphics. Sincerely Yours, —- Shuen-Huei (Drake) Guan RD & TD DigimAx, Inc. https://www.digimax.com.tw/ Taipei, Taiwan
SHADERS Clearly, shaders play a crucial creative role in defining the appearance of a CG production. RenderMan has been adopted by many leading studios because it allows special purpose shaders to be added to those that already exist. Individual shaders are small sub-routines (functions) written in a specialised programming language called the Pixar Shading Language. The language enables new shaders to extend the creative possibilities of the renderer; it allows computer artists to find endless ways of controlling the appearance of a 3D scene through the use of custom shaders. The only limit is their imagination, their ability to write new, or adapt existing shaders and their creative flare at adjusting the parameters that control the visual effect of a shader. In some respects RenderMan shaders are analogous to plugins for, say, PhotoShop and AfterEffects. Plugins for those applications provide extra functionality to their host program. Likewise, shaders “work” within the environment of a renderer. ...