🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi,

I'm looking for documentation on the RenderMan shading language and
the format of .RIB files that are passed to RenderMan for display.
The version of RenderMan supplied with the NeXT comes with a bunch of
shaders and textures, but no documentation on them (I can get simple
ones to work, but can't pass parameters to them succesfully even when I
can figure out what the parameters are, so texture mapping and such
are out).  In addition, though I can determine that .RIB files are
quite similar to the RenderMan language itself (documented in The
RenderMan Companion which I already have), there is no document
describing its syntax explicitly.  Same is actually true for the
shading language which is well documented but lacks information such
as the exact output of functions like noise().  Anyway, I'm seeking
any documents on RenderMan, whether for the NeXT or for any other
platform that might be similar in its implementation.  Is there a
repository of documents on-line anywhere, or that can be purchased?
Does a newsgroup exist that is more or less dedicated to RenderMan?
Any help would be appreciated greatly.  

I will summarize e-mail so please don't send "I would like this too"
messages.

Thanks!

Shane