RENDERMAN available 4th quarter

[Ade]

Can Lightwave mac work with it? Or is it a big of small update?



https://renderman.pixar.com/products/news/G5_release.html

[Beamtracer]

Hey, that's pretty cool, but it could have been predicted that Pixar would release it for the Mac before too long. It's also brings a lot of kudos to the Mac.

I don't know how it'll integrate with Lightwave. Don't forget that PR Renderman is also a competitor to Lightwave.

[luka]

I shouldn't think it would be hard to create a render plug for LW. As long as the engineers have access to the API

Look at Worley they have virtually tranformed the way in which you render in LW.:)

[Nakia]

PRman or any other Renderman is not really a competitor for LW. I has no modeller. It might vivsl LE rendering system. If we could get LW scenes converted to RIB, life will be cool. PRman can handle serious Film Screen resolutions. So it will be a major Plus to have it supported.
Need a plugin to convert .lw .lws to .rib. Would be best to either do this out side of Lightwave. App that read LW files then export to RIB. SGI has convertors like this built in IRIX.
Blender 3D has a few Convertors to convert to .rib renderman files. THey use Python scripts to do it. ANd Folks laugh at Blender when it support more rendering systems then most 3D apps out there and its free.
Only reason to really build a plugin is to be able to view a Renderman render scene.
Also lets not forget 3Delight and Aqsis, these are the freebies that rock (3Delight is real good on Mac) they use the same .rib format as renderman. And they are already available for Mac, so there is no real need to wait to get a G5 and save 40billion dollars for PRman.
3Delight even have a good shader app thats only on Mac OS X.
http://www.3delight.com/index.htm
3Delight is what I think the hardcore underground folks should work on now. So when PRman is released we will be ready.
Any thoughts?

[Nakia]

Will it be easier to make a plugin that work with LW or an Utility that is outside of LW that converts Objects and Scenes to .rib files?
Ultility might be best being that it can be built to take advantage of OS X both G4 and G5. Also this Utility can work with Lightwave surfaces both custom and presets and convert them to the shaders files (which is written in C iin renderman). It is the shaders to rock in Renderman.
Also a seperate Ultility might be better to manager as Lightwave advances to newer releases.
Probably it can or will be done outside of Newtek.
Let us Mac user take control of our 3D world!!! :D

heres a link to some good info:
http://www.renderman.org/
Aslo a good book is
Advanced RenderMan: Creating CGI for Motion Pictures by Anthony A. Apodaca, Larry Gritz

[policarpo]

you just need to get these guys developing again:

http://www.td-grafik.de/softw/lightman.php

i don't think renderman will fly for LW users if it isn't as easy to use as the current rendering workflow.

but that's just me. i have no time to spare to learn to code shaders and such.

give me a button, input field and visual selection tools to manage my surfaces and lights and nothing else. :)

[Nakia]

Renderman is a bit fussy. In the Blender 3D crowd its more of the hard hardcore that deal with Renderman stuff. But it is a good option to have I think. Then it will give LW more use in the big shops that can afford PRman (Chances are they have thier own LW to Renderman plugins and utilities already written)
One thing I will dig by having a seperate utility to do LW to Renderman is to set cron jobs up to render a crap load of scenes during the night when I'm not login. Renderman will give us apple user the ability to take advantage of the UNIX power of OS X.
Lightwave Render come pretty close, look wise to Renderman renders anyway. But if OS X needs that edge combining it with PRman the Mac way will do the trick.
This release of PRman for OS X is going bring a new breed of OS X 3D artist to the camp, Will they side with Maya OS X users or LW users? The Terragen Mac OS X users are growing as that App gain grown and they are siding with Lightwave which is cool.
Lets have see in the PRman gallery models made in Lightwave but rendered in PRman. not Models made in Maya.
:D

[Xacto]

Does anyone know the price yet?
:)
:rolleyes:

[Nakia]

https://renderman.pixar.com/
Has info
heres a price list of the current stuff thats out now.

RenderMan® Pro Server™ 11.5
(PhotoRealistic RenderMan®, Irma™, & Alfserver™) $ 3,500

RenderMan® Artist Tools™ 5.5
(MTOR™, Alfred™, Slim™, &"it"™) $ 2,000



RenderMan® Pro Server Maintenance
(per license) $ 700

Cross Platform Fee $ 700

Upgrade from RenderMan® Toolkit™ 11 to 11.5 $ 1,050

Upgrade from RenderMan® Toolkit™ 10 or lower to 11.5 $ 1,750

RenderMan® Artist Tools™ Maintenance
(per license) $ 400

RenderMan® Artist Tools™ 5.5 Upgrade $ 400

Alfred™ 5.5 $ 1,000

Alfred™ Stand-Alone 5.5 Upgrade $ 160


This list reflects Domestic pricing for the USA.