State of RenderMan

[MG]

In the last few years I unfortunately wasn't able to do much with
RenderMan or much with computer graphics in general, due to study
and related obligations along with private affairs.

Could someone tell me about how, for example, Pixar's PRMan and
other RenderMan/RIspec-compatible renderers are doing and what
developments there have been?

This usenet/newsgroup used to be a wealth of information and used
to answer all my questions, along with giving me a good idea of
the state of affairs.

- MG

[Bo Schwarzstein]

RISpec has almost not upgraded for a long time. The most popular RM
are 3delight and PRMAN now, the others similar renderer such as Gelato
are all most dead. The latest PRMAN is RPS 16, it supports PBR now,
and faster & faster RT. 3dlight is similar to RPS13.5 now, its artist
tool has been improved a lot.

[MG]

On 3-7-2011 17:26, Bo Schwarzstein wrote:
> RISpec has almost not upgraded for a long time.

Thank you for filling me in with this excellent update, excuse me for
the belated reply. I really appreciate it.

It's good to know it wasn't me, who was missing the news. But then,
it's a pretty good specification as it is.

> The most popular RM are 3delight and PRMAN now, the others similar
> renderer such as Gelato are all most dead. The latest PRMAN is RPS 16,

> it supports PBR now, and faster& faster RT. 3dlight is similar to

> RPS13.5 now, its artist tool has been improved a lot.

I see, that's both interesting and to be expected (in the latter case,
with PRMan, of course). Too bad that nVidia ran Gelato in the ground.
I still like BMRT, I used it quite a bit back in the day (it was the
only way for a ~15 year-old, like myself, to get my hands on a RMan/
RIspec-compatible renderer). I always thought the quality was amazing,
even if it may not have been the 'fastest one around.' I also liked the
whole distributed "FrankenRender" setup, where you could configure BMRT
as a 'ray-server' for PRMan/REYES.

- MG