Can Maya create rib files for rendering in BMRT

[timmccoy]

I am in charge of getting a render farm together for my employer, I've been doing some research. I've found some good stuff but we are running Maya and would like to find a way to use BMRT and RENDERMAN. (something that does a little better job than the Maya render itself, we are all set up for the batch render). I can't find any info on createing rib files from Maya. if anyone has any sugestion on what can be done let me now.

[gmask]

Mtor from pixar is the best and most expensive way to output RIB files. I do believe there is a script or something here at highend that outputs RIBs from maya but who knows about the shader support. //nevermind Maya 3 comes with a rib export plugin but it doesn't export any shader info just nurbs.
Using BMRT and renderman is called FrankenRender. In this case BMRT is used as a raytrace engine from renderman but works with unix only.

Have you looked at www.exluna.com? They're coming out with a renderman compliant program called Entropy. It's cheaper than renderman and has the features of BMRT but is faster and has tech support.

[sunil_born2win]

I'm far from being a specialist, but a friend of mine has re-written the rib export plugin that's available here on Highend3d ... You will find it in the plugin or MEL/Scripts section, and it is the RIBExport plugin from Olivier Renouard. It uses the previous plug, but with better poly export (I think it uses the Maya UVs properly). You can try the Maya built-in Rib export as well. I've never tried BMRT myself, but had a look on it when O. Renouard used it, and it seems to work correctly (exepting the very very long render time). As gmask says, it only exports the models and UVs, lights ... For the shaders, you'll have to use wether MTOR or Shadetree, or write your own shaders ... In this last case, I've heard that refering to the two Renderman books existing is of a great help, and being a CG developer might be a prerequisit ... In my case, I'm using MTOR, which friendly-user interface is of a great help when being unable to write a single RIB line