prman

Sampling in RenderMan/RIS

ris_sampling

The new RIS mode introduced in RenderMan 19 is a completely new render-engine that is very different from REYES. Being a brute force path tracer (uni- and bidirectional modes) it works much more like other renderers that follow a similar approach (e.g. Arnold). That approach aims to make the render process more simple and interactive. And while I personally don’t like it completely yet it seems to get widely adopted in the film industry and we all have to adjust to it sooner or later :)

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Simple PrimVar Helper Script (updated)

primvar_helper

Primitive Variables are a really cool way to get variation in Renderman Shading Networks. As it requires adding Attributes to your Shape Nodes within Maya to control the variation it can be quite time consuming to set it up. So I was trying an attempt to build an interface that helps a bit with the set up.

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Dirt AOVs with Yeti & PRMan

yeti_dirt

CG fur always has the tendency to look very clean and soft. To break up the structure and to give a bit more realism I like to mix it with a bit of dirt, e.g. some leafs or sticks in the fur of a character walking through the woods. Here’s a quick rundown on what I’m doing to achieve this using Yeti and Renderman within Maya.

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Automatic TEX Conversion

mari_nuke_txmake

To render more efficiently and to get some particular features working one has to feed Renderman with .tex files. Most regular image files can be converted to .tex files with the txmake executable that comes with RPS. However converting multiple files such as UDIM’s from Mari can be time consuming. So let’s make things a bit quicker… :)

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