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Rendering for Beginners: Image synthesis using RenderMan 1st Edition
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Dana Batali, Director of RenderMan Development, Pixar Animation Studios
Whether you are an animator, artist or 2D illustrator looking to move to 3D rendering you will be amazed by what can be achieved with RenderMan. Saty Raghavachary offers a complete, non-technical introduction to RenderMan and rendering in general - finally a guide you don't need a math degree to follow!
Full of clear explanations and plenty of samples on the associated website - www.smartcg.com/tech/cg/books/RfB - for you to play with, this color guide will quickly get you up to speed with this powerful, professional program so you too can harness the power of the program to create top quality imagery.
The book features:
* Clear explanations of rendering concepts to get you up and running fast
* Extensive color illustrations to inspire you to make the most of your skills
* An associated website with numerous self-contained examples which you can download, reproduce, modify and learn from
* Comprehensive coverage of RenderMan's functionality to show you how to get the most out of this powerful renderer
* Coverage relevant for all versions of the package, including a section on global illumination introduced in Release 11, as well as the key, general rendering concepts
Pixar's award-winning RenderMan is one of the best renderers available and has been used to create visual effects for dozens of movies since 1985. It is also the renderer used to make blockbuster animated movies such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. As the beautiful images in this book show, in addition to photoreal imagery you can also use it to create illustrations, visualizations, simulations of natural media and even abstract art!
Contents:
Rendering; RenderMan; RIB syntax; Geometric primitives; Transformations; Camera, output; Controls; Shading; What's next; Resources
Saty Raghavachary is a senior graphics software developer at DreamWorks Feature Animation. He has written software used in The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and Shark Tale. He is also a part-time instructor at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, USA where he teaches RenderMan and MEL (Maya) programming.
- ISBN-100240519353
- ISBN-13978-0240519357
- Edition1st
- PublisherFocal Press
- Publication dateOctober 26, 2004
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions7.25 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches
- Print length384 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Dana Batali, Director of RenderMan Development, Pixar Animation Studios
Book Description
From the Back Cover
Dana Batali, Director of RenderMan Development, Pixar Animation Studios
Whether you are an animator, artist or 2D illustrator looking to move to 3D rendering you will be amazed by what can be achieved with RenderMan. Saty Raghavachary offers a complete, non-technical introduction to RenderMan and rendering in general - finally a guide you dont need a math degree to follow!
Full of clear explanations and plenty of samples on the associated website - www.smartcg.com/tech/cg/books/RfB - for you to play with, this color guide will quickly get you up to speed with this powerful, professional program so you too can harness the power of the program to create top quality imagery.
The book features:
* Clear explanations of rendering concepts to get you up and running fast
* Extensive color illustrations to inspire you to make the most of your skills
* An associated website with numerous self-contained examples which you can download, reproduce, modify and learn from
* Comprehensive coverage of RenderMans functionality to show you how to get the most out of this powerful renderer
* Coverage relevant for all versions of the package, including a section on global illumination introduced in Release 11, as well as the key, general rendering concepts
Pixars award-winning RenderMan is one of the best renderers available and has been used to create visual effects for dozens of movies since 1985. It is also the renderer used to make blockbuster animated movies such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. As the beautiful images in this book show, in addition to photoreal imagery you can also use it to create illustrations, visualizations, simulations of natural media and even abstract art!
Contents:
Rendering; RenderMan; RIB syntax; Geometric primitives; Transformations; Camera, output; Controls; Shading; What's next; Resources
Saty Raghavachary is a senior graphics software developer at DreamWorks Feature Animation. He has written software used in The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and Shark Tale. He is also a part-time instructor at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, USA where he teaches RenderMan and MEL (Maya) programming.
About the Author
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Product details
- Publisher : Focal Press; 1st edition (October 26, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0240519353
- ISBN-13 : 978-0240519357
- Item Weight : 2.3 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.25 x 0.75 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,445,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #278 in Rendering & Ray Tracing
- #1,768 in Computer Graphics
- #2,906 in Graphics & Multimedia Programming
- Customer Reviews:
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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.
Regards
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.
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.
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.
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.

