Free Non-Commerical Renderman download

[Gamerprinter]

Renderman, Pixar Studios very high end 3D rendering software is now available as a free download for non-commercial uses only - woot!

I've always wanted to have Renderman, back in the days when I did a lot more 3D, but it was no way near affordable.

[Acorn]

Thank you very much for the heads-up.

general question to all: If Renderman is command line only, what front end would you go for?

Acorn

[Gamerprinter]

Well Maya (a rather expensive 3D designa and animation program) is the primary user of Renderman, at least that is what Pixar Studio's rely. It is my understanding that most 3D applications that have animation features built in will work with Renderman. I downloaded it not for the purposes of animation, rather, I generally only create 3D stills, and usually top down only for use in my map designs. I'm planning to create detailed map objects in Nendo exported to .3DS format, imported to Renderman and run as a single frame rendering. I'm pretty sure Renderman also works by command-line, instead of being command line only.

[theinonen]

I believe any modeller that exports RIB format can be used as source for the renderer, but only with Maya it works in plugin form and integrates into user interface. By the way, there always was BMRT as a free option for raytracing Renderman files.

[Gare]

I think that a lot of people who have a lot of spare time and want to compare the rendering engine used in scores of feature-length animation with their own rendering system should check this out.

The downsides to this deal are several, though, be the interested beware:

• It's a non-commercial license. No using this $1,000 software for published or paying work.

• You have to become a member of Pixar's forum. Me, I've got better places to share my time and data.

• You need to know how to import work and apply Pixar shaders to make any experimentation worthwhile.

I had a love affair with the RenderMan shader in the 1990s. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, and to a certain extent, I still feel the same way about its novelty and quality. Here's a simple example of the render quality:




At the risk of sounding simplistic, I think since the 1990s, there have been several rendering engines that make your head hurt less to use, such as Maxwell Render and the rendering engines in products such as Maya, modo, and LightWave, with different if not superior results.

But you can't beat the price if you want to experience what pieces of your work might look like if animated and placed in Toy Story.

My Best,

Gary

[theinonen]

Downloaded Non-Commercial Renderman for testing purposes.

I have been playing little with Japanese modelling software Metasequoia, which is pretty nice to use and has support for rendering with Renderman.



Quality of the rendered images seems to be very good.