RenderMan 21 and RenderMan For Blender 21 are now available
A new release for RenderMan comes together with an update of their Blender integration!
rgordon writes:
Today Pixar has released version 21 of their popular RenderMan software to the non-commercial users. To coincide with this event the Blender bridge has been updated with the new features that RenderMan 21 supports along with some major improvements to the add-on.
Including but not limited too:
- The PxrSurface Uber shader (Used extensively in Finding Dory)
- Pxr Studio Lights and Light Filters
- Integration with Cycles nodes (So you can quickly convert your favorite Cycles scenes to RenderMan)
- Advanced workflows for lighting, batch rendering, and pass management
- And much more.
That’s awesome! One of the days, there’s going to be a Pixar behind-the-scenes for a movie, and they’re going to show Blender on the screen where an in-house tool or Maya used to be.
What is your logic? The Renderman with opensubdiv is donation from Pixar to open-source. Not the other way around. Blender institute consumes available technology but not produce it. They have nothing to offer Pixar.
http://www.blendernation.com/2013/03/08/pixar-on-blender-and-the-importance-of-open-source/
Is the blender bridge another term for the daily builds? Trying to get the PRman 21 addon to work with 2.78a and throwing errors.
The “bridge” is just a term for the plugin. It’s the “pathway that connects” Renderman to Blender.
If they were to refer to the daily builds, it probably would have been called the “trunk”.
Thanks for the reply, REAVENK. Makes sense. Cheers!
Updated my PRMan from 19 and gave it a try. One sad thing is Pixar dropped support for RSL in favor for OSL. Ok, so sort of sad but also sort of good. I just have to tweak some of my old favorite shaders to work with OSL syntax and be ready to roll.
I’ve got to see if the plugin automatically complies blender’s OSL node to a Renderman .oso file. I’ve got to see where 3rd party compiled shaders can go too!
It does compile them for you. They should go in your /tmp/renderman_for_blender/SCENE_NAME/shaders dir. Keep in mind PRMan can’t use shaders with closures in them.
Yup, I just saw the PxrOSL node in the material node editor so that will make my life a bit easier. Thanks for the heads up on the closures.
For others interested https://renderman.pixar.com/resources/current/RenderMan/PxrOSL.html lists other restrictions on their OSL implementation.
RENDERMAN 21.7 released now but I couldn’t find the proper add-on for Blender. Pixar site only delivers the latest version and there is no add-on related to the last version. Does anyone have the knowledge that I need? What should I do in this situation?
You can go to the github page (https://github.com/prman-pixar/RenderManForBlender) and download the addon as a zip file. It should work just fine with the 21.7 release.