Is Renderman For Me?

In principle, it should be possible to use a RenderMan compliant renderer from a compatible animation package with virtually no knowledge of the rendering API. In practice, however, this is rarely the case, and at the very least an understanding of the general architecture is invaluable. Though we would like to be able to treat rendering as something that “just works,” even the best rendering systems benefit from a little user intervention. Rendering is a complex part of the computer imaging process. RenderMan gives the user control over almost all aspects of this process and hence a full understanding can take many years to acquire. To use a RenderMan renderer to its full potential on a project requires the same investment in time and effort as you might expect to spend learning an animation and modeling package. Fortunately, it is possible to obtain useful results from a more limited effort.