Will converting all of my texture map images manually using the txmake command speed up my render times when using Renderman for Maya? Would it be the same as letting RFM just calculate these conversions at render time itself?
ian_68
Hi
In general you would want the textures to be in the tex format when working with Prman. How you make these is up to you. Doing it at render stage is fine if your scene is simple with only a few textures. With larger scenes with many textures, you don't want to wait for the convert each time you render.
I would also suggest you have a look at 3Delight as well. A very good renderman render, with better Maya integration, plus you get 2 licenses for free.
My two Pence, Ian
NN comments
manny
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I don’t agree with “better Maya integration” with 3Delight. I like being able to use slim to create my shading network. I’m new to 3Delight so maybe I’m wrong. But there’s no way I found to create nodes and network them together. I’ve been using Maya nodes and then converting to 3Delight shaders. Not the best solution.
ian_68
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Hi Manny I thought the same until I looked at the SL which is created when you render your shader. Slim SL is very complex, where as 3Delight is very simple. Having a simple approach to the SL has let me get into shader writing, where as before it looked to complex with slim. I did miss the access to the renderman nodes to begin with, things like Occ node etc(which you use the MentalRay occlusion node which works with 3delight!). So much so that a chap I was working with converted every slim node into a Maya hypershade node to work with 3delight. Writting shaders is easy to learn with 3delight
ian_68
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for eg a simple SSS single step shader
surface simple( float Ks = .7, Kd = .6, Ka = .1, roughness = .04 ) {
normal Nn = normalize(N);
normal Nf = faceforward(Nn, I);
vector V = normalize(-I);
uniform string raytype = "unknown";
rayinfo( "type", raytype );
if( raytype == "subsurface" )
{
Ci = Ka*ambient() + Kd*diffuse(Nn);
}
else
{
Ci = subsurface(P) + Ks * specular(Nf, V, roughness);
}
}
notice the complex SSS call “subsurface”. I don’t know very much about shader writting, but I can understand this code fine =)
Cheers, Ian