Customer Reviews

The RenderMan Shading Language Guide

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm quite pleased with the depth of this book. So many of the CGI titles I've bought that claim to be intermediate or advanced aren't. While the RenderMan Shading Language Guide assumes that you have no starting knowledge of RSL, it immediately dives into technical details without overwhelming the novice. For someone wishing to learn RSL (or even just shader theory), this book is wonderfully paced, containing a great depth of information, very well explained.

At the same time, this isn't a book for dabblers. To get much out of the RenderMan Shading Language Guide, you need to be willing to put some effort and practice into it. This is a textbook and needs to be treated as a subject of study, rather than a casual enhancement for playing with CGI. If RenderMan intrigues you, but you don't want to get too deep into the technical (and programing/scripting) aspects, you'd be better off getting Pixar's RenderMan for Maya and a Digital Tutors or similar training DVD. You'll learn more of the simple, day-to-day things and get started making renderings faster.

As another poster mentioned, the text mentions an included disk which isn't. The website doesn't have downloads either. That omission would knock the book down to 4.5 stars, but since I can't rate with half-stars, 5 stars more accurately reflects the value of the book than 4.

I caught wind that this book was coming out well before it actually came out and could hardly contain my excitement. I had it ordered before it was even off the press.

Let's face it, trying to learn Renderman online is like trying to ride a bike with a flat tire. You can go, but not very fast or very far. I own several other renderman books but found them to be a bit out of date and lacking in areas. Since leaving school and entering into the industry I had actually been considering writing a Renderman book myself. I am glad to say that now I don't have to!

I have been enjoying my copy of the book since december of last year. I admit that I was thrown off by all the refrences to the accompanying cd, as well as a few typos throughout. I was overjoyed however to find the website today! This is the book that I have needed for a long time. It is well worth what you pay for it.

This book presents a well organized approach to shader writing. It is focused on practical advice and application that a beginner can use in the industry. An example would be the chapter on setting up the development environment,things like which were not the focus of Advanced Renderman. The technical content has been diluted to expand the readership-I think antialiasing is covered better in Advanced Renderman. In this book that chapter comes at the end. Note also that this is a shading book, so don't expect topics like procedural geometry creation or hair or fur DSOs or level of detail, though there is a one paragraph reference to deep shadow maps on page 239.

The book also does a good job in covering raytracing and global illumination, an area that has seen changes in PRMan since Advanced Renderman was written. How to use shadow maps is covered well too.

One issue is that the code is not included, I hope I find it on the website. Typing in hundreds of Halton sequence shader number samples does not sound very appealing.
Giving it a 5 overall because of its practical, industry focused advice. Technical content wise it would rate a 4.

I consider myself to be a hardcore hobbyist who has become obsessed with PRman. Every book I've seen so far seems to be written by people addressing people that are already using PRman, so I felt lost and intimidated. So when I saw that this book was coming out I was very excited and ordered it the first day it was available.

Angels were singing when I saw this book sitting on my doorstep. It is a hefty tome of shader writing information that would take years to find scouring the internet. It's a quality publication with heavy, color-filled pages perfect for late night shader writing with some chili-cheese fries.

There is a boatload of information in this book that I haven't seen anywhere else and I imagine this will be a pleasant surprise for someone who doesn't work in the business. The book starts at kindergarten and advances to some pretty heady stuff, but not without priming you on the little math you'd need to know to complete the exercises. The author's tone is friendly and his explanations are easy to understand.

There is only one fault: the text makes several references to an included companion CD which doesn't exist. The book's website makes no mention of it missing nor links to the content, and I guess that's why the price here was lowered from $45 to $29. You could probably live without it.

OK, so if you're thinking about getting this book, stop thinking and do it. It's the best $29 you'll spend - the obscure BRDFs alone are worth the price!

I bought this book an amazon and I have been reading it every week. The authors make renderman looks like an easy subject which proves how successful the book is. Other than a few mistakes in some pages, I really have no complains for the book. I have been using whatever I learned and attempted to create VEX shaders in Houdini's mantra, which has been successful so far. I really recommend this book for anyone who is interested in renderman but does not want to be overloaded with all the technical terms.

I've personally had the pleasure of working with Rudy at Walt Disney Studios, and while this review may seem bias, I really want to stress that the book is VERY well written. He's given me example shaders that I can use and learn from at our current studio. Some of the code isn't completely accurate, but the general description and learning aspect of the content is superb! This book now replaces my standard reference of Advanced Renderman.

I have all RenderMan books on the market.
This one is impressed me!
The authors explain step by step and that make readers understand RenderMan more.

Same as other reviews, lacking of CD is the shame.
However, overall still be very good to me.
And if you consider the price is very worth for money.
That's why I think this book should be given 5 stars.
Hopefully, There will be more good RenderMan books available soon.

Tee

The RenderMan Shading Language Guide is an excellent resource. It contains numerous examples of shader code, to help get you started with writing your own shaders. I was happy to see the robust section on illumination models, with some sl code provided for most of them. I found the section that had common functions (like gamma() and remap()) very helpful, and appreciated the disscussion on more sophisticated components of the shading language (like subsurface scattering and global illumination). In addition, for the user who is new to the process of writing and compiling shaders, a number of pages are devoted to explaining how to achieve these goals. All in all, I would highly recommend this book to any user who wants to learn how to write his/her own RenderMan shaders.

I have read many technical manuals relating to the 3D Animation and Visual Effects industries, and I can honestly say that this is easily one of the best available.

Given the limited library of Renderman books, I'd call this an absolute must have for any Lighting/Rendering/Shader TD, or any artist or technical director involved in the look development and shot finaling pipelines.

Even if you haven't yet worked within a Renderman pipeline, this is the perfect publication to introduce you to, and bring you up to speed in, the Renderman Shading Language (RSL).

I've found that the majority of technical manuals suffer from a number of common flaws:

1. The information is presented chaotically, and with minimal use of examples or descriptions, resulting in a publication that would readable only by those that already know everything it has to teach.

2. The information is presented so laboriously that what should take a paragraph instead takes up three chapters.

The Renderman Shading Language Guide is perfectly paced for beginners and intermediate users alike, and indeed when I showed the book to a couple of highly experienced Renderman TDs, they were surprised by the sheer volume of information and ordered copies for themselves.

Everything is presented in short blocks with an easily readable description, examples, shortcuts and conclusions. There is no unecessarily complicated geek speek, and neither is the reader treated like a 4 year old.

Even though I barely remember my high school math, and in the most flattering estimation I'd be considered a competent beginner when it comes to the math involved in RSL, I found the examples relatively easy to follow for the most part. And in those parts where the math went well over my head, I found the simple descriptions and concise, well explained instructions to be all I needed to quickly understand the topic.

From cover to cover this book is crammed full of useful information. There is no wastage of space in these pages. It seems that every conceivable question is answered - every possible topic covered from introduction to an advanced level of understanding and a practical and immmediately useful conclusion.

And at the price? This book is a steal.

One very minor complaint I would make is in regards to the occasional typographical error. An equation or two is printed with "?" in place of "*" or another symbol, and there are a few spelling and grammatical errors. But as I said, it is a minor complaint.

Also, I would have liked to have seen more complete shader examples demonstrated in a step-by-step process, as while this book is overflowing with informative mini-tutorials, it all seems a little incongruous. It would have been good to see a few more examples where the information was brought together in real-world ways to create some amazing completed shaders. Perhaps in a sequel? ;)

All in all, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, from an industry Lead Lighting TD.

9.5/10

As a professional character TD I don't have lots of time to sit and really dig into other areas of 3D. I've been wanting to learn some basics in shader development as well as render pipeline so that I can be more flexible within the team and able to troubleshoot problems that come up or provide solutions to situations that a project might demand. Renderman has been always something I really wanted to get into but had a hard time reading some of the more complex papers I've found before being that I didn't have the time to gather the fundamentals in order to build off. This book solved that by gathering basic, intermediate, and advanced topics all in one place.

the Renderman Shading Language Guide has really helped me out in understanding how Renderman works, as well as how general rendering works and where shaders, lights, etc fit in. It's written in a very intuitive way, and those that are beginning or even intermediate will really benefit from reading this. The book will not only help you with RSL, it will help you with a greater understanding of professional rendering in general. For the price this book really can't be beat.

After reading this, I feel more confident in tackling those papers I had tried to read before, and really digging into experimenting more with Renderman.