Start by assigning a new Blinn to the dragon. Next we'll create a ray-traced chrome material. Generally ray tracing should be used when these effects are absolutely necessary and cannot be created (faked) in another way. Enabling ray-traced effects requires more memory resources than pure scanline rendering. RenderMan is a hybrid scanline renderer which has an advanced ray tracing sub-system. Open the Render Globals and select the Features tab, then click the Ray Tracing box in the Ray Tracing section to enable ray tracing. The first step is enabling ray tracing, which is done via the Render Globals. The image is located in the sourceimages folder of the rfm_project (~/rfm_project/sourceimages/grid.tif).įirst we'll add ray-traced reflections to the model. Select the Grid material (it's just a Lambert) and let's map a simple image of a grid to the color. The scene should look something like this:įirst things first: if you look at the Maya materials and what they have been attached to, you might notice that there's not much to reflect and/or refract in this scene. This scene is simple, with a subdivision surface dragon and a NURBS plane inside a polygonal Cornell Box, a couple of Maya Materials, and a couple of lights. Other advanced ray tracing effects, like Global Illumination, require special RenderMan workflows. For instance, basic ray-traced reflections, refractions, and shadows can be created using the standard Maya methods. Most familiar ray tracing operations are easy to set up with RenderMan for Maya. In this tutorial we will take a look at ray-traced reflections and refractions. RenderMan also has advanced features for creating sophisticated effects:Ī familiarity with RenderMan will help to successfully leverage its strengths in the production of high quality CG imagery.įot this tutorial open the Maya scene, dragon.ma. Learn more about some of the other fundamental strengths of RenderMan: In the example above, if we were renderering 100 teapots, and not just one, we would begin to appreciate RenderMan's ability to handle large, complicated scenes. For instance, RenderMan is memory efficient and it excels at rendering lots of geometry. As you become more familiar with RenderMan you will become aquainted with where its strengths are to be found. You may notice, however, that in the example above both images render in about the same amount of time and with approximately the same level of quality.
#MAYA RENDERMAN TUTORIAL FULL#
This allows the Maya artist to harness the full power of RenderMan with a minimal amount of hassle. RenderMan for Maya will translate the majority of elements in any given Maya scene file. RenderMan for Maya allows Maya scenes to be rendered with RenderMan simply by switching renderers. Render-> Render Current FrameWith any luck, your result should look like this:Ĭongratulations! You've rendered an image with RenderMan! Render-> Render Using-> RenderManNow you're ready to render the scene with RenderMan! Next we'll render the scene using RenderMan. Render-> Render Current FrameThe Maya render should look like this: The scene should look something like this:įirst, render the scene using the Maya renderer: The teapot is a hierarchical subdivision surface. This scene is simple, but it contains a number of Maya Materials, including the ramp shader and some texture maps. With RenderMan for Maya fully loaded, open up the Maya scene, teapot_and _box.ma. (Where are the tutorial files?)įirst of all, make sure that RenderMan is properly set up. To get started, let's render the Maya scene, teapot_and _box.ma. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective holders. Pixar and RenderMan are registered trademarks of Pixar. Pixar Animation Studios Copyright 2008 Pixar. Getting Started1.1 Rendering a Picture 1.2 Ray Tracing 1.3 Motion Blur 1.4 Depth of Field 1.5 Displacements 1.6 Particles 1.7 Fur and Hair