Re: OpenGL vs. Renderman

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1 total messages Started by William M. Bumgarner Thu, 16 Apr 1992 18:53

#1706

Author: William M. Bumgarner
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 18:53

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One thing that should be mentioned about Pixar's creation of RenderMan: 
They thought ahead... the RIB language has a number of commands that are
highly expandable (though, as of yet, unsupported by Pixar's prman
(PhotoRealistic renderMAN renderer) in its last incarnation).  One
example is trim curves;  trim curves are curves defined as NURBs
(Non-Uniform Rational B-splines) that trim parts out of surfaces defined
as NURBs.

NURBS are complex, but very cool.  All the stuff is in RIB to support
NURBs fully, but the renderers aren't smart enough yet (though I'm sure
someone has a custom in-house renderer that supports this stuff [if
there are, do they need a slightly experienced graphics hacker?? :-)]). 
If you try to do a trimcurve call in RIB code, the prman will check the
syntax and then tell you that "TrimCurve: FEATURE NOT IMPLEMENTED"
(which was a very painful wall to bash my head against).

Cool stuff.

b.bum

bbum+@cmu.edu    | But who can unlearn all the facts that I've learned
                 | As I sat in their chairs and my synapses burned
NeXT Developer   | And the torture of chalk dust collects on my tongue
  Support Temp   | Thoughts follow my vision and dance in the sun  -- PHISH

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