Rendering for Beginners

Preface

This is an introductory-level book on RenderMan, which since its inception in the 1980s has continued to set the standard for the creation of high quality 3D graphics imagery.

Structure and Organization of Contents

The book explores various facets of RenderMan, using small self-contained RIB (scene-description) files and associated programs called “shaders”.

There are three threads interwoven throughout the book. First, 3D graphics rendering concepts are thoroughly explained and illustrated, for the sake of readers new to the field. Second, rendering using RenderMan is explored via RIB files and shaders. This is the main focus of the book, so nearly every chapter is filled with short examples which you can reproduce on your own, tinker ...