Renderman 21 - Learning Optimisation


Renderman 21 for non-commercial is now out, meaning we can move into look development and lighting tests with Renderman for 3rd year films The Big Top and Dino Diner.

I have been looking into it this evening, after downloading and installing it as fast as I could. I was pretty happy that old scenes were somewhat compatible. All I have had to change were the lights, but as I am focusing on relighting my kitchen scene anyway that was no problem, all of the shaders I transferred over to the new PxrSurface shdaer, which I am really liking.

This version is far more user friendly than the last, but with all the power. I am also noticing a lot of the little things from Arnold which I like having coming across now into Renderman, which is great. The whole settings UI is much improved, now fully integrated into mayas render settings, its just far quicker to use and setup.

One thing I am really pleased with are the new lights and lighting tools, I was keen to try the portal lights, which dramatically help render interiors.


Both of these images were rendered using the same HDR image, at 16 samples, and took 5 minutes each, the one on the left solely using the HDR, and the one on the right using 3 portal lights, as you can see the result is incredible. The lighting result is more or less the same, some minor differences in the corner behind the kitchen roll, but the difference in noise for the same time to render is great.



The two images above I was playing around with the distant light, I tweaked colour temperatures between render, giving it more of an outside daylight feel.


And this one has a stronger focus on the interior light, with less coming in from the outside.

Obviously all of this is really quick work, just playing around with new toys and settings but I'm really looking forward to getting more into Renderman 21 and seeing what it can do.

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