Customer Reviews

Rendering for Beginners: Image synthesis using RenderMan

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The topic of the Renderman Rendering language is a huge and unweildly topic. This book by Saty Raghavachary makes it a very manageable subject of study for the student or professional interested in using this technology.

As a college professor teaching Digital Lighting and Rendering, I am going to add an entire module to the class based on this book. It makes it very easy to explain and it is easy for students to read thus allowing everyone to use one of the more powerful rendering technologies available today.

Been reading my copy for the past few days, it is terrific. The book is wonderful for a novice such as myself. I have played around with rendering in Max, LightWave etc. but have always wanted to learn RenderMan.

The content is beautifully laid out, LOVE the all-color images and illustrations. It is for beginners but sure includes a lot of material! The text is peppered with all sorts of references that point to even more goodies. The author seems to have a direct, sometimes humorous style that is very appealing to me. Can't wait to start downloading the examples and playing with them.

I highly recommend this book.

This is a terrific book - and not just for beginners. The author gives a very clear grounding in the concepts that underpin 3D rendering applications, and shows his own deep experience with Pixar's Renderman specification and the implementations built on it by Pixar and others. He also conveys very strongly his own enthusiasm for Renderman and the underlying REYES algorithm, and this is infectious. After a few pages, you will certainly want to access one of the free or trial implementations, and give them a go for yourself.

The book is informed by extremely attractive and colorful images that very clearly illustrate the specific tools and techniques available to Renderman users, and these are fully supported by code snippets (within the text and on the companion website) that make the Renderman structure fully transparent for beginners - just as the title promises!

This is no small accomplishment as the power of Renderman - as exampled in the Pixar and many other movies made with it - arises from the extremely fine degree of control over visual phenomena that it makes accessible to users. First time exposure to the range and precision of these controls can be daunting even for experienced 3d users, but the author's explanations of the RIB and SLIM shader language scripts that drive Renderman are all you need to begin experiments of your own, and to take advantage of more specialized/advanced titles like Advanced Renderman by Apodaca and Gritz.

Renderman is great for photorealistic rendering, but it also excels for non-photorealistic techniques like 'tooning and beyond, and one exceptionally interesting part of the book (again well-supported by the website) provides plenty of illustrations and code for exotic techniques that emulate all sorts of effects from impressionist paintings to woodblock illustrations, and more.

For anyone into 3d, Renderman for Beginners makes clear that rendering packages are not just the back end of a modeling process, but are absolutely central to the practical and artistic effects that define the amazing potential of today's 3d/CG work. To understand the conceptual framework of a high-quality renderer is also to understand, and to be thrilled and amazed by the remarkable workings of our own visual engagement with the world. And, after many years of working in this field, Saty Raghavachary, the author, is obviously still very much under the spell of this excitement. Whether you read Renderman for Beginners as a practical introduction to a prospective career, say as a Technical Director in CG, or whether you read it just for a general understanding of how our contemporary visual culture is evolving, this book will satisfy you fully. Thanks, Saty.

Renderman is one of the most powerful rendering packages out there, and this book forms a good guide to the self motivated reader. The author assumes little previous graphics knowledge. The basic ideas of matrix algebra and how these can be applied to graphics operations are demonstrated. Aided by numerous clear figures.

More involved operations are also explained. Bezier surfaces, NURBs, anamorphic warping etc. The Renderman language is seen as compact and versatile.

As a grad student in graphics, I've found that creating nicely rendered images is essential for effectively displaying results. I began learning RenderMan with a more advanced book, but found that my overall understanding was lacking. "Rendering for Beginners" has filled in the gaps, giving me a much better foundation for generating images. The book is easy to read and understand, and it is full of images and code snippets (full code is available on the web - which is great!)

The book and companion website has greatly enhanced my understanding, from rendering basic scenes such as wire-frame meshes to writing complex shaders. I highly recommend this book to both those beginning to learn RenderMan and people who want to strengthen their understanding of the basics.

As a budding technical artist in the CG industry,i was always keen in learning Renderman.I initiated with many online turorial and article but found myself in the pool of doubts by its complexity.

This book by Saty Raghavachary shadowed me in getting a complete understanding of Renderman architecture,the authors style of narrating the idea behind the Renderman workflow,evolution of Renderman and illustrations are simply gripping....

This is the one you are looking for.......

This book is a perfect introduction or bridge between the other RenderMan books. The author does an excellent job at explaining RenderMan with tons of examples that you can get from his website. The book is easy to read and covers everything you need to get started.

If you find the Companion just too "programmy", and the Advanced RenderMan book too... advanced, this book has the right balance of explanation and code samples... After reading this book, you will be able to go back or move to the other books without the fear of being lost in computation as the author really took the time to explain the why and how of things.

Just to be picky: some of the RIB files from the site could be leaner (some Maya crap here and there), and some of the shaders could not work because of missing files. Also, if you do not have PRMan, install a copy of the other free renderers (3delight/Aqsis/Pixie); that will show you how they differ, as some of the code will work straight with one renderer, while others need some tweaking... Great studying material nonetheless.

If you are a beginner to Renderman like I WAS go and get this book. ... This book will give you enough confidence and get you hooked to Renderman...big time!!..So you have been warned!!..The title should read "Get hooked to Renderman"...or "Get high on Renderman"...:). It was a little hard when I started reading the Advanced Renderman book sometime ago..Having almost gone through much of the RfB book a lot of things that were "deep" in the advanced Renderman book is very clear now...This book is simple enough to read and yet the topics are covered in great detail and depth...Can't wait to get my hands on the RSL Guide book from the same author.Indispensable if you want to learn Renderman.

i have been reading this book for some time now and frankly the much i have read i am fully satisifed with it. its well written and clears lot of concepts.

Regards