Installation

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Operating Environment

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How to use

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Create a scene and create a surface light source as the light source. 

In the "File" menu, select "Export" and choose "RIB (RenderMan)". The RIB export dialog box will appear. From there, you can set a lot of parameters. Once done, click OK, specify the Output location, the texture image will be outputed in the image's directory. 

The texture will be a in the *.tiff format, a format needed for RenderMan. If you only perform these operations, you don't need to install RenderMan. 

If you want to render in RenderMan, you will need to install it. You can download the non commercial version of the "RenderManProServer 19.0" at http://renderman.pixar.com/view/non-commercial-renderman (the user registration is required). 

To exploit the newly exported RIB file, follow the steps below:

For Windows users:

- Open the Command Prompt and make sure that the PATH of RenerMan executable file can be searched

- Please confirm that the directory where is installed RenderMan is "RMANTREE" (C:\Program Files\Pixar\RenderManProServer-19.0\) is designated as an environment variable. If you don't have it, please add it. 

- PATH can be added as follows:

set PATH="C:\Program Files\Pixar\RenderManProServer-19.0\bin";%PATH%;

After this: 

prman xxx.rib
A rendering of "xxx.rib" is performed. When finished, the rendering result is outputed as a tiff picture.

"samples/MaterialTest.shd" I came near, did a RIB export and did a rendering by RenderMan.

 

 

For the Mac users:

- Open the terminal and specify the directory (/Applications/Pixar/RenderManProServer-19.0) in "RMANTREE" in order to search for the PATH of an executable RenderMan's file. If you don't have it, please add it:

export RMANTREE=/Applications/Pixar/RenderManProServer-19.0
export PATH=$PATH:/Applications/Pixar/RenderManProServer-19.0/bin

After this:

prman xxx.rib
A rendering of "xxx.rib" is performed.

The type of image file you want to output (tiff or OpenEXR format), can be specified before performing the rendering.

he rendered image will be a linear image having a dynamic range.

 

Function

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RIB Exporter plug-in will have the following functions:

- The RIB file corresponds to a RenderMan render, the image texture is in tiff format

- RenderMan's RIS is a new rendering mode that is designed to be fast and easy to use while generating production-quality renders. Global illumination works out of the box and interactive rendering provides rapid iteration for artists.

- A surface light source and 1 infinite light source are output( e.g. DayLight / Physical Sky)

- Possible renderings:  "PxrPathTracer" (single way path trace), "PxrVCM" (bidirectional path trace) and "PxrDirectLighting" (only direct light) 

- A background is baked as a panoramic picture and outputed/reflected as IBL

- You can perform many material parameters modification such as "PxrDiffuse" "PxrDisney" "PxrGlass" "PxrConstant"

It's also possible to set the parameters for RenderMan differently from the Shade 3D's master surface parameters

- The renders images formnats can be OpenExr and Tiff

- The surface material mapping layers  "diffuse reflection texture," "normal map texture" "bump map texture" are respectively outputed one by one

Other descriptions 

Restrictions

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- Free form surfaces outputs are converted to polygon mesh

- If you assign subdivision surface, the output will be subdivided

- It's possible to assign a RenderMan material to each master surface. When directly assigning a surface material to a shape, the output will be converted to the RenderMan material by default 

- Texture image size's output is resized by the power of 2

- Transparent processing of pixels using a trim map and alpha component of the texture is not supported

- The output of point-like source of light, spotlight and  parallel light source are not supported

- Animation rendering is not supported

Some features will be supported in later versions.

 

Use Library

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RIB Exporter plug-in is rendering a tiff image by using the "libtiff" (http://www.remotesensing.org/libtiff/).