Request For Info: Renderman Workflow

[scott-spencer]

Hello all,

being a Mental Ray user myself and having only dabbled in Renderman briefly I was hoping someone could put up their Renderman workflow using Zbrush generated maps with MTOR.
I suspect we have a few Renderman users on here ; )

Thanks,

Scott

[sbroumley]

Well, I really can't help you with MTOR - been years. However the process is rather simple.

I use Liquid to export from Maya to either Renderman, 3Delight, Pixie, Aqsis, whatever. I far more powerful tool from the point of vue of TDs. You're mileage may vary.

In essence you need a displacement shader. You could use a normal map, but you would want to roll that into your surface shader - trust me).

Then apply the shader to the geometry and tell it where the map is (set or accept default Km) and render.

This is avery simple breakdown but pretty much right on the money.

I can probably answer specifics if you post them.

Jason

[scott-spencer]

Thanks for the info.

I was looking for the general workflow since my experience with MTOR is limited. I had some success setting up a combine appearance and renderting from there but that was in the 16bit maps days. I wonder if txmake will have any issues with the new 32bit float files. I can't imagine it would.

I was shocked tofind that MR will read and process 32bit float tifs but in the process of loading them Maya throws up about 6 error messages...

I have access to Renderman now so I need to really sit down and play hard with it. Problem is finding the time ; )

S

[joojaa]

Yes it ets 32 bit floatsb (just remeber taht pixar does not like the lzw copression schemes licencing thing). You can obtain a sample normal shader atleast form headus examples. Buut if i dont remember too wrong i saw one slim template at pixars boards too.

And i must say that MTOR is one of the best converteers ive seen. Ive used othrers too but in general i do say that mtor is better. But then theres athe raley HC way of using HOudini as the final exporter.

Tough truuth to be told im not seure alfred is the optimal for ALL jobs.

[sbroumley]

Really can't help with MTOR, it's not good enough for most pipelines. Liquid rules. However if your not really doing production, you probably won't care.

[scott-spencer]

Thats interesting. I didn't know MTOR was not a standard in most Renderman pipelines.
I come from almost all Mental Ray background. The last place I was working they were interested in Renderman but I think the licenscing came out to too much more than MR and they would have to retrain/restaff ; P

My question is more academic especially since, as you have seen on ZBC recently, there is a defecit of information on micropolygon renderers and ZBrush maps while Mental Ray info is abundant.
Of course I am interested in learning more myself.

S

QUOTE(JasonBelec @ 10/26/05, 04:32 PM)
Really can't help with MTOR, it's not good enough for most pipelines. Liquid rules. However if your not really doing production, you probably won't care. 
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[joojaa]

mtor is good enough for my pipeleine. Anyway appart from liquid being free and open source i dont se any major advantage over mtor. Im not so sure about alfred tough you could ditch that, because i find it slows my renders down a wee bit.

Could you mneme one thing that liquid does better than mtor? Anyway ive used liquid in some capacity over the years. BUt id say thet the newest mtor is a big improvment on the mtor workflow. Unfrotunately at the current place they did want to switch over to liquid because it was cheaper.

BUt i do usderstand why some places like weta would choose to use liquid... i mean not only do the save 2000 bucks ofor each seat they also getto tinker with code. That does not mean liquid is better! just means weta has more resouces than me.

personaly i feel mtor i much more production ready than liquid is, also much more user firendly to td that should count since youd be fighting with da artists all the tiomme if not. And why for gods sake cant you get a precompiled maya 7 version of liquid yet... i mena you can get mtor for maya 7 allread. Oh ewell i can allways compile one but...

and i dont even begin to talk about hair and volumetrics.

[sbroumley]

Well Scott, Liquid works with all REYES tools where MTOR does not. I know very few pipeline people (TDs in general) that would opt for MTOR over Liquid. That said, everyone always has a favorite.

MentalRay sure does get a lot of talking up, I was involved with the founders of it to license me a thousand copies for a farm about 2 years ago, but when I got right down to the real world testing it fell apart big time. They offered all kinds of support to get it all working, but I just felt that REYES was the thing to stick with. Sofar I haven't been disappointed, besides it's easy to take the simple MR files/shaders and convert for REYES rendering.

Of course I will admit I'm biased, as I did work for that little company with the string of hits, oh so long ago when they were practically unknown.

Joojaa, I'm glad it works for you. I find it interesting though that you think the interface is weird in Liquid. It was for me as I really hate Maya, but those who know Maya seem to feel it's just right. Yes I use Maya - as a container, what it's best at. Previously I utilized custom tools for about 6 years, before accepting Liquid on recommendation by a friend.

I also don't see the issue with hair and volumetrics either, but perhaps I was just lucky in production. Either way, grab a tool you like and rock on!

[joojaa]

mtor works fine with other renedrman compilant renderers atleast for my needs. Theres nothing that states you must ask it to launch prman! Rib is rib! The Sl is the same well mostly anyway. and yes offocurse prman has certain hooks into mtor taht others ont do but...

[sbroumley]

Wow, I forgot about this thread.

New Liquid out, full integration with Maya.

Of course I like Pixie, I used to be a big supporter of 3Delight from the early days. However the cost, just keeps jumping up - did a lot of great work with it though.

I'm about to put Pixie through it's paces on a feature so I'll post info here later on. I have seen the updated MTOR and it seems alot more flexible as per in-house tools at you know where. I think the reason I'm a big Liquid fan, is that it was available to those without large bank accounts early on. However if you have the cash, spend baby!

Jooja, we always seem sort at odds on various threads. I'm going to have to buy you some liquid refreshment so we can yell passionately at each other over our views. )~