If you're talking about renderman, it's the engineer's renderer. The scope/depth of it's shader architecture is still pretty much unparalleled. In my opinion, it allows for the best procedural texture/surface mapping possible. As for the physics of its lighting components (GI, reflection, refraction, etc etc), I think many modern rendering solutions are just as good.I think renderman used to be the 'dream renderer'.. though today I would say that the playing field is more level, and that the choice of a rendering system today is a lot like the choice of certain programming languages -- it's coming down to a matter of what you first learned or what your preference is.As for speed, I honestly have no idea how fast it is for production renders. They have come out with some recent in-window real time rendering software which gives a good estimation of what the production render will look like. It's blazingly fast and I don't know of anything else out there right now that can match its quality.
I find it hard to believe anyone who's interested in 3D rendering had not heard of Pixie, or any number of RenderMan-compliant applications. This application has been around going on FOUR YEARS. This was news when I read about it on Slashdot back in 2003.Well this is certainly one case of Digg being at least a few steps late on a news release. THREE YEARS BEHIND.
thetadotMar 13, 2006
If you're talking about renderman, it's the engineer's renderer. The scope/depth of it's shader architecture is still pretty much unparalleled. In my opinion, it allows for the best procedural texture/surface mapping possible. As for the physics of its lighting components (GI, reflection, refraction, etc etc), I think many modern rendering solutions are just as good.I think renderman used to be the 'dream renderer'.. though today I would say that the playing field is more level, and that the choice of a rendering system today is a lot like the choice of certain programming languages -- it's coming down to a matter of what you first learned or what your preference is.As for speed, I honestly have no idea how fast it is for production renders. They have come out with some recent in-window real time rendering software which gives a good estimation of what the production render will look like. It's blazingly fast and I don't know of anything else out there right now that can match its quality.
darkmotionMar 13, 2006
Nice find- I already have renderman :) But i prefer mental ray for its realistic shading :P
namingishardMar 14, 2006
LMao, the setup freezies HAHAH,
mrgenericMar 14, 2006
<a class="user" href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/k3d/">http://sourceforge.net/projects/k3d/</a><a class="user" href="http://www.k-3d.org/wiki/Main_Page">http://www.k-3d.org/wiki/Main_Page</a>
zjm7891Mar 14, 2006
You make the word freeloader sound so harsh! =PActually if you don't need to pay the incredible ammounts of money for @home projects... why do?
pauldonnellyMar 14, 2006
POV-Ray isn't Renderman compliant, nor is it open source according to the usual definition. It's not free software. It's still a good program though.
Closed AccountMar 14, 2006
I find it hard to believe anyone who's interested in 3D rendering had not heard of Pixie, or any number of RenderMan-compliant applications. This application has been around going on FOUR YEARS. This was news when I read about it on Slashdot back in 2003.Well this is certainly one case of Digg being at least a few steps late on a news release. THREE YEARS BEHIND.