BlendMaster writes:
Ed Catmull has stated that the next release of Renderman (planned to be in time with SIGGRAPH 2014) will also be available for free for non-commercial usage, such as research, personal learning, evaluating, and even writing plugins for Renderman.
Find more details and pre-registration here.
35 Comments
I got news of this today from a friend. Exciting!
very good! blender will have a good render engine! finally! this is very good!
;)
Cycles is good and this isn't specifically for blender so you could have got it before (not for free though).
Cycles renders simple box with light in 720p for about 2 minutes on my (old enough) PC, mentalray renders the same scene for about 12 sec with the same (actually less noisy) image as result. Cycles is not so good in terms of production.
yes, cycles is bad. we need new renderer. with renderman, everybody can make pixar quality images at home in 2 minutes
i think you might be overestimating how much work renderman will do for you.
It's Endi.. From blenderartists. All sarcasim, all the time!
Haha, I do hope you were joking. Even Pixar doesn't create Pixar quality images in 2 minutes.
Wow if I was a cycles dev that would make me feel real good. Cycles is not finished either.
And Cycles IS the new renderer! It is loads better then the old BI.
Also, if you are hoping to all of a sudden make awesome images quickly then I think you may be in for a disappointment.
Another thing, you will only be able to use the renderer for non-commercial use so if you are only a hobbyist great, but if you are just a hobbyist having an image look like Pixar's shouldn't be that big a deal. Sure you want it to look good but doesn't have to be Hollywood quality.
I am not unhappy that they have released this though, on the other hand completely, I think it is awesome!
(Whew if you read that wall if text congrats)
You're absolutely right. I meant render time, but not scene setup time. Cycles is a lot easier in this way. PRman requires knowledge of it's internal algorithms and rib and rsl e.t.c. So "easy and quickly" is not about PRman. And finally there is no renderer that have "make it look great" button (Cycles btw have something like that, just increase samles number :D)
just like any traditional artist will tell you, its not whether you are using student quality acrylics and artist quality acrylics, sure yes that will make a difference, artist quality acryics are mor vibrant and mor colour fast but it is more that skill of the traditional artist to make a work of art, if he rtist is shit no matter if he is usig artist quality or student quality his work will always be shit because it will be a reflection of his skill level.
in the cse of the two render engines, it unfortnaltely all deoends on the skill level of te person using the render engine and not
I don't think it's about the renderer as such, its more about the user.
Like Richard Stallman would say: "Free as in free beer, not as in free speech". Blender is free software and what's important about that it's not that you can get it for free, but that it gives you the freedom to use it, share it, study it and modify it at your will. Cycles is an awesome render engine and it's free as in "free speech".
Pixar sharing OpenSubdiv as free and open source code is good news. Pixar/Disney sharing their software for free for non-commercial usage it's not good news.
If Maya, Zbrush, etc. were being released for free for non-commercial usage, would people celebrate it and migrate from Blender to those programs?
Everybody can use the software that they choose, but I think that people that uses Blender JUST because they can legally download it for free, are missing a huge side of Blender and Blender's community.
True. Whether or not Maya/Modo was free, I would still use Blender because I've fallen in love with the community. That being said, my choice of render engine is not as set in stone because as a hobbyist with a single computer, render time is a huge deal. I'll be experimenting with Renderman, but ultimately, whatever saves me the most time will be the means for rendering my Blender flics.
I agree entirely and while I'm not out to earn money from my artwork, I'd rather have that choice and not use it, then not have it at all. I think it is incredible that companies like PIXAR are willing to release their tools and software for "free" to the public. By doing this, they help insure that people, specifically younger people, will be interested in graphics design, and that helps PIXAR, and everyone, in the end. However, I think that the limitation of it being totally non-commercial will be a problem for some people. While Cycles may be a more difficult engine to work with, there is a great advantage to using it, anything you make in it can be use for commercial use. If people get interested more in graphics design, by PIXAR releasing there Renderman engine, I'm all for it, but I still think people will seek out a really free engine, like Cycles, to make there artwork.
no, it's still good news just not as good news as if they had released it as foss.
i'm not a coder and i wouldn't jump ship if maya or zbrush were released for free for non-commercial use even though i don't use blender commercially. so being able to learn from the code and share that isn't really a draw for me or people like me.
i just probably never would have tried blender (or any 3d art) had blender not been available for free. i do enjoy making some sad attempts at 3d art/animation though so i'm very glad it is also free of cost on top of being foss.
What the f Dario.. Richard Stallman said the exact opposite.
I meant that Richard Stallman would say that in this case (Renderman being free) "free" is used as in free beer, not as in free speech. I'm sorry if I didn't expressed myself correctly
@Dario - why it's not a good news anyone sharing their software free for non-commercial use? Maybe it's not THAT good news as if they share it for both commercial and non-commercial use, but still it's a great thing. Sorry, but not anything has to be open-source, and that's totally allright imho.
I'm not saying it's bad because you can't use it for commercial usage. I just believe that it's the same thing Windows does: giving away the software for students for non-commercial usage, so that they get "addicted" to it and end up using it in their future professional life. It's bad because proprietary software means giving away some of your freedom as a user, and it is quite often malware. It can for example have back doors and malicious functionalities, ways of spying on the user or having control over the user. Well, you probably know that and more about floos vs proprietary software.
Right now Blender is starting to be (really) competitive to other 3d software and this could mean less "future developers" engaging to the development of libre 3d software, and libre render engines such as Cycles. I'm not to say "hey! Don't use Renderman" to anyone, nor I'm trying to convince anyone here not to use it, but I do see it as a strategy to co-opt future 3D artists and shouldn't be taken naively.
I admit Renderman could teach a lot to any user, and it wouldn't be hard to translate that knowledge to Blender. Moreover, watching Pixar's demonstration at NVIDIA's GTC conference, anyone can spot that Blender+Cycles have similar features and a similar logic on how all works (ray tracing render, view port rendering, gpu rendering, similar render settings and shaders...).
I don't mean to be an extremist here, I use proprietary software, but it's important to know what we give up when using it. I'm a cinema student and, more or less, have often no choice on the software (and codecs!) I have to use at uni, but I try not to be naive about it and to be conscious of what that means.
Sorry for this "too long and non-articulate" answer.
Cheers man!
Well, I see Your point, but I think You exaggerate a bit. Yes, we don't know what proprietary software contains exactly, but malware is rather a problem with products from some "no-name" developers, making money on adverts. Products from bigger, well known companies are rather safe to use in most cases. Of course it's possible that some data goes out to big companies, but hey, let's be honest: if You connect to the Internet, the thing such as "privacy" doesn't exist, no matter if You use proprietary or open-source software.
And unless You're a terrorist or do some illegal things, there is almost 100% chance the possible data leak from Your system won't harm You in any means. I think it's time to understand that since the Internet Era started, nothing is really private, and it's time to deal with it.
Another case is the mechanism of getting people used to proprietary software You mentioned. Yes, that's right, that's the goal of these companies. They want You to use the software as a hobbyst and then to buy it to use for professional work. But is it bad? Well, it depends on what You want to do with the software. If You want to stay with the hobbyst work, then the difference between Cycles and Renderman doesn't exist here - You can do Your work on both of them.
Some people also say that the big adventage of open-source software is that You can analyze and modife it however You want. Yes, that's true, but only if You're a programmer. For me, personally, there's no difference, cause as I'm not a programmer, I don't get anything from this adventage.
Well, to sum up, I would say yes, it's great they want to release Renderman for free for non-commercial use. It's not as much as totally free and open-source software, but it's still a very good move, both for them and for users. And regarding open-source, I think it has a certain adventages over proprietary software, but not as big as some Op-Source maniacs wants to see it (I'm not pointing on You, just to clarify :))
"Some people also say that the big adventage of open-source software is that You can analyze and modife it however You want. Yes, that's true, but only if You're a programmer. For me, personally, there's no difference, cause as I'm not a programmer, I don't get anything from this adventage."
I'm not a programmer, yet I have motivated countless changes inside Blender. The most notable ones are UI and UX of freestyle. One just have to be closer to developers to insert thoughtful changes into Blender.
On the few occasions I tried external renderers, thinking something wonderful would happen, I've ended up thinking what's the point? Cycles or BI is just there. No exporting. No assigning materials. Just edit, press F12, edit, press F12... it's so easy. I think for the vast majority of Blender users, Cycles or BI can and does produce wonderful results... and it's entirely unrestricted.
Indeed, if it isn't integrated directly into Blender, it loses it value to me. It is far easier to just work in and with Cycles then try to export to an external renderer.
"Free for non-commercial use"? does that mean you couldn't upload any images you made with Renderman to any site, or just can't sell the images or work?
You can't sell them. It says that in the FAQ.
Yeah, I read the FAQ after I wrote that. I mean, thats ok, but like I said above this "I'm not out to earn money from my artwork, but, I'd rather have that choice and not use it, then not have it at all".
I will support Cycles renders always! This engine has made by "amazing man" from Blender Foundation. so, keep support Cycles to be Better than Renderman, Guys!
at last i will try it!!!
I have registered for the non-commercial use of Renderman. I will use it to learn. I can then apply those concepts in Cycles.
I have also used the renderer which is riding a high wave at this time - Arnold.
I call Arnold as Cycles' elder brother. They're very similar but Arnold is a lot more experienced and hence, a little more capable and efficient.
Cycles is one of the best things to have happened to CG artists. <3
Actually there is no point to study PRman to migrate then to cycles. They are very different and do not share their concepts.
Yes. They are different technical approaches for the same creative goal.
Am I hearing this correctly, holly shit, now all we need is blender integration lol similar to how cycles is integrated into blender, oh am I asking for a little bit to much for that as well lol
Will it work with blender???????????
Its out guys! The Non-Commercial Renderman License is here!!