RIB Compliance

[Tensor Studios]

Hi

I posted this a few days ago but the forum reorganization seems to have killed it, so here goes...

The feature list for Octane says that v1.0 will have "[f]ull support for RenderMan RIB format..." and I was wondering what full support is, since each RenderMan-compliant renderer - and I know Octane isn't REYES - has its own 'flavour' of RIB support.

Specifically, I was wondering if Octane will support RiCurves, RiPatches, RiParticles, RIBboxes and CSGs, since these are all part of the RenderMan standard now.

This is a great renderer, and I love what it's already capable of; the speed of work in just a few months is amazing, and I know some features (like volumetrics and sub-pixel displacement) are some time off yet, but I'm really looking closely at this for studio-wide implementation.

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

Callum MacAlister
Tensor Studios

[radiance]

Hi,

Yeah i noticed your post, put it on my backlog but did'nt arrive at answering it.

We will support RIB as a format for providing animation data to octane, but we probably won't support the advanced things you mention anytime soon.
I can see ricurves and motion blur support, besides instancing/transforms and polygonal models,
but we won't focus on patch based and CSG geometry, as these are difficult to map to GPUs, and will only be used by 0.1% of our customer base.

Our primary and current idea is to use RIB files for providing a pipeline from 3d host apps to octane with more than OBJ or Collada formats,
but i don't see octane becoming a full renderman replacement anytime soon.

Radiance

[Tensor Studios]

Thanks for the reply!

I completely understand your priorities, and honestly the most important part of the list was RiCurves anyway (useful for hair generation ( )

Thanks so much, and keep it coming!

Callum

[nodehg]

Hi, this is the right topic i am looking for

Beside Tensor Studios' questions, there are some more things i am interested in about the RIB support . And i'm about to buy and try rendering with Octane and Maya.
Here are the questions:
1. Renderman renderers uses shader written in RSL as materials of the geometry, so if we want to render the rib, what kind of shader should be send to octane? Is it possible to read some custom renderman shader or we need to give some kind of standard shader parameters in the Rib ?
2. How do Octane render animated rib? should all frames be in a single rib file or batch render multiple ribs via command line batch render( some thing like a .bat on windows)?
3. It is extended based on question 2, do we need to do lighting in octane or lighting in the software such as maya? I'd really like to render some charactor animation with octane, but i don't want to setup lights frame by frame

Thanks!

-HG

[nodehg]

So, we need the next version to work with rib. I just get that information from the version feature page, sorry for those stupid questions, and let me try it with maya first

-HG

[radiance]

Hi, this is the right topic i am looking for

Beside Tensor Studios' questions, there are some more things i am interested in about the RIB support . And i'm about to buy and try rendering with Octane and Maya.
Here are the questions:
1. Renderman renderers uses shader written in RSL as materials of the geometry, so if we want to render the rib, what kind of shader should be send to octane? Is it possible to read some custom renderman shader or we need to give some kind of standard shader parameters in the Rib ?
2. How do Octane render animated rib? should all frames be in a single rib file or batch render multiple ribs via command line batch render( some thing like a .bat on windows)?
3. It is extended based on question 2, do we need to do lighting in octane or lighting in the software such as maya? I'd really like to render some charactor animation with octane, but i don't want to setup lights frame by frame

Thanks!

-HG

Hi,

I'll reply to your points:

1. We'd provide some replicas of octane's shaders. At this point developing a full programmable RSL pipeline in octanerender is not possible due to GPU constraints, and the fact that octane is based on other algorithms/concepts than REYES renderers.
2. We would initially go for a RIB file per frame, not a multi-frame ribfile, and extend on it over the next versions.
3. As with the current workflow, lighting/material tuning should be done interactively in octane, RIB is only for replacing the current plugin/OBJ pipeline. We think having the whole pipeline based around the fast/interactive lighting that octane offers would be of the most benefit to the type of artists / markets we're developing octane for...

Yours,
Radiance

[nodehg]

Thanks Radiance. It's great to have your official replies! I can't wait for my Paypal confirmation with visa
have to try it!

-HG