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Pixar's Renderman is getting a free version... anyone hoping someone makes a Daz Plugin

dakkuuandakkuuan Posts: 305
edited December 1969 in The Commons

Like the title mentions, Pixar's Renderman renderer is going to be released for free: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/06/pixar-will-soon-release-a-free-version-of-renderman/
Gotta wonder what Daz Studio and Poser renders would look like with that beast. Be kinda cool if someone wrote a plugin. I shouldn't even really be talking, I keep wanting to get the Luxrender plugin for Daz but I don't want to deal with fooling with the mats to get it all to look right lol. Still, gotta wonder if such a thing will be possible and how the renders would look.

Comments

  • AdemnusAdemnus Posts: 744
    edited December 1969

    Yes! That would be amazing!

    And this is the opportunity of a lifetime to have access to this renderer. DAZ ought to really take advantage of this.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,429
    edited December 1969

    Remember that 3Delight, as used in DS, is already a Renderman complaint renderer so the change wouldn't necessarily be that great.

  • icprncssicprncss Posts: 3,694
    edited December 1969

    The free version is listed as noncommercial. No clear information given as to what constitutes noncommercial in their book. If noncommercial means the usual, it could pose a problem for those who use DS in commercial work.

  • dakkuuandakkuuan Posts: 305
    edited December 1969

    Yeah, but it would be more of an academic type thing for me. I'm mainly curious about it, that's why I stated if 'someone' would make a plugin, not Daz. Renderman complaint doesn't really mean much. I highly doubt Pixar's Renderman is a biased renderer, for example. But being 3Delight is complaint, the changes in mats might not be that bad.

  • Scott LivingstonScott Livingston Posts: 4,340
    edited June 2014

    Renderman is biased, just like 3Delight.

    More information: http://3d.about.com/od/A-Guide-To-3D-Software/tp/Rendering-Terminology-Explained.htm
    http://www.thethirdfloorinc.com/publish/_assets/417/10/02/tdw126.f.renderers-7a90.pdf

    Edited to add: Renderman has some new features to increase physical accuracy, and it's sometimes described as a "hybrid" renderer. As far as I can tell, this doesn't change the fact that it's essentially a biased render engine (it's more that it can behave almost like an unbiased renderer), but I could be mistaken.
    See also: http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-state-of-rendering-part-2/

    Post edited by Scott Livingston on
  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,716
    edited June 2014

    You can use PRMan in several different modes (for lack of a better general term) including fully biased, hybrid biased/unbiased (raytraced), or fully unbiased. It's totally up to the user how they want to do their rendering. Keep in mind this little known factoid - the "PR" in PRMan stands for Photo Realistic - or Photo Realistic Renderman (many think it's for Pixar Renderman). PRMan has been capable of fully unbiased rendering for many years (late 90's or early 2000's), it just wasn't used in production much because of the time hit. Multi-core processors have caused many to re-think the use of raytracing for production due to the time savings setting up lighting and shaders. Here is a great article that describes the hybrid render approach and how Pixar used it in Monsters University (among other things).
    http://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-state-of-rendering-part-2/

    Over in the Rendo forums, Paolo (Preta3d - maker of the Reality plugin for DS and Poser) expressed interest in possibly creating a version of Reality for Renderman. Right now our options are a bit limited. If you have a copy of Maya or Houdini floating around, using Rendeman could be easy. You may be able to use the RIB export from DS, but there would no doubt be some differences between the two, but maybe someone like Paolo would be able to create a "bridge" via a Reality like interface that would give us access to PRMan.

    For a quick overview of technology, uses, and future of PRMan this is a pretty good article:
    http://www.fxguide.com/featured/rendermanris-and-the-start-of-next-25-years/

    Post edited by DustRider on
  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,631
    edited December 1969

    I'm fine with biased. Being able to use it PR would be nice, but the day I am sold on unbiased rendering will be the day when I have enough computing to do it in four hours or less for a 2000x2600 pic.

    My main interest in the free version (I've registered) is for evaluation purposes. I'm not going to violate the EULA in any way, but before I shell out $900 for all the commercial goodies I want to know that it's something I can actually use.

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