Renderman.org Letter from Tal Lancaster
Ted Gocek
Founder of The RenderMan Repository
February 2010
1994 is of special significance to me.
In 1994 the internet as we know it now was still in its infancy,
Netscape for the early web browsers had just come out. The whole
concept of web browsing was a completely new thing. In fact one of the
early uses was as a means to get software updates more conveniently
than logging into some FTP server somewhere across the world to get
the latest version of something.
Also in 1994, I had started learning RenderMan through the help of
The RenderMan Companion and the "QuickRenderMan" that was bundled with
the NeXT computer. There weren't any online resources out there for
finding out or learning more about RenderMan. I did manage to find a
bulletin board in Los Angeles that had some RenderMan users on it and
got a few pointers.
Then I managed to make contact with three extremely helpful
individuals, Tony Apodaca (Head of Pixar's PRMan group), Michael B.
Johnson (Creator of Wavesworld), and Larry Gritz (Creator of BMRT).
They were very patient and helpful in answering all of my various
questions.
It was near the end of 1994, when I had the inspiration to
organize what I had learned and provide a learning site to help others
learn RenderMan better. So this was how and when The RenderMan
Repository (many know it as RenderMan.org) was born. The site went
online publicly in early 1995, becoming the very first website on
RenderMan. Coincidentally about the same time Larry had started the
comp.graphics.rendering.renderman usenet group, which for many years
became the de-facto place to get questions answered by many of the
leading experts.
So after 15 years, I feel it is time for me move on. I just
haven't had the time on the last couple of years to keep the site
current with all of the developments in the RenderMan community at
large. There have been many good sites that have cropped up and
Pixar's forums have been good at helping people out, too.
I didn't want the site to die out so I decided to give the site to
Pixar to maintain. I felt that letting Pixar have the site would be
the best thing for the RenderMan community. They have assured me that
much of the content that was there would still be available and so
this choice ensures that the very first RenderMan site will be able to
live on.
Lastly, I would like to thank all of the other contributors that
sent materials over the years and for everybody that has thanked me
and appreciated having this resource available. I enjoyed sharing it.
And from time to time, I still hope to contribute to the RenderMan
community in some way.
Tal Lancaster
Creator/Maintainer www.renderman.org 1995-2010
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Wow! I came to this site to see if it was still out and I find this
news out. Not only that but gave it to Pixar for safe keeping,
hopefully they will not alter it too bad.