Renderman books7/31/2023 ![]() As I said 10 years ago, and now say with even more reason: Happy Rendering! But my real excitement, is for you, the reader, who for so few dollars can get the benefit of so much hard-won experience in such a concentrated yet accessible form. My warmest thanks go to Tony, Larry, and all of their contributors for sharing their light so generously and skillfully. With this book in hand, you may not be a wizard yourself, but you can play one on TV. Here we have an august circle of expert guides to take you by the hand and show you what goes on inside the head of someone who knows their way around. While I do believe that the Companion functions nicely as a field guide to the resources available, here at last are the maps to the territory, the signposts in the dark woods that can make the foreigner feel at home and enable her to make real progress. I am sure that I am not alone in sometimes feeling a little lost and small in dealing with something as powerful as RenderMan. With this book the real wizards step out from behind the curtain so we can see what they're made of, and it's not a lot of smoke, mirrors, and subwoofers, either.īut the real reason this book is such a tonic is that I get to have it. We live in a world in which the messenger is easily mistaken for the message, and for 10 long years I have been far more closely identified with RenderMan ![]() Second, it finally diverts attention and credit for the interface away from me and toward those who actually deserve it. First, it takes a longstanding monkey off my back-the need for a followup to the Companion. I have several reasons to be so delighted. (The only time that people came together to deal with the real nitty-gritty of geometry and shaders was at the Advanced RenderMan courses of SIGGRAPH, organized and presented by many of the authors here.) This is a vacuum that has sorely needed filling, and now I'm delighted to see it being filled, and filled so well. Worse, although the art and practice of RenderMan continued to develop, somehow that progress never saw the ink that would allow the platform to rise and the field to move forward for the world at large. For 10 years, The RenderMan Companion has been the only book available on the subject, complete with its thin spots, omissions, and obsolete view of the interface. And the interface has proven the equal of problems and dataset sizes that were laughable 10 years ago ("Ten million polygons? Don't be ridiculous."), supporting a revolution that continues to blow the minds of audiences the world over.īut still. In fact, the revolution in digital effects began (with the "water weenie" of The Abyss) soon after Pixar's PRMan first entered the scene. Today, RenderMan is the de facto standard for photorealistic 3D rendering in the digital effects industry. On most of these counts, the effort must be considered a success. Not only would the book's content enable people to do cool work with RenderMan, but its very existence would encourage subsequent publications that would continue to raise the platform of knowledge and technique. Second, and more importantly, we hoped to encourage and support the development of the field as a whole in both deed and word. First, we hoped to promote the RenderMan Interface as a standard for high-quality three-dimensional computer graphics, similar to the role PostScript plays in two dimensions. The RenderMan Companion first appeared, 10 years ago, with several purposes behind it. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this book ISBN 1-55860-618-1 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise-without the prior written permission of the publisher. © 2000 by Academic Press All rights reserved Morgan Kaufmann Publishers 340 Pine Street, Sixth Floor, San Readers, however, should contact the appropriate companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration.ĪCADEMIC PRESS A Harcourt Science and TechnologyĬompany 525 B Street, Suite 1900, San Diego, CA 92101-4495,Īcademic Press Harcourt Place, 32 Jamestown Road, London NW1 7BY United ![]() In all instances where Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is aware of a claim, the product names appear in initial capital or all capital letters. All Rights Reserved.ĭesignations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks or registered trademarks. Courtesy of Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Imageworks Toy Story © Disney Enterprises, Inc. Global Entertainment Productions GmbH & Co. Manufacturing Senior Production Editor EditorialĪssistant Cover Design Text Design and Color Insertĭesign & Production Copyediting ProofreaderĬover image credits: "STUART LITTLE" © 1999
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |