http://www.dctsystems.co.uk/Text/index.html
Publications and Presentations
Digital Relighting for Stage Use
Updated and expanded versions of this work will be presented at Eurographics UK TPCG09
Hardware Accelerated Shaders Using FPGA (Luke Goddard and Ian Stephenson)
Updated and expanded versions of this work will be presented at Eurographics UK TPCG09
RenSH - Rendering in Shell Script
RenSH is a RenderMan compatable renderer written in shell script. Why? Because it's possible!
Presented at the Pixar User Group, SIGGRAPH 2008.
A Per Grain Simulation of Film
Statistical models of film grain simply don't work - grain isn'tsimply noise, rather is's embeded in the stucture of the image. Herewere sumulate the latent image, and development process of an entirenegative, one grain and one photon at a time.The results not onlyappear visually appealing, but sensiometric properties such as thecharacteristic curve, Granularity and reciprocity failure emergewithout being explcitly programmed into the simulation.
Presented as a Poster at Siggraph 2008. PDF
Digital Relighting for Stage Use
Digital relighting is a great party trick, but hasn't really foundmuch use. By hooking up a hardware accelerated relighting tool to a DMXlighting rig, we can quickly capture stage lighting, then preview theresults of adjustments in real time when stage access is unavialble.This can be used either in pre-production, and during performance.
Presented as a Poster at Siggraph 2008. PDF
Hardware Accelerated Shaders Using FPGA (Luke Goddard and Ian Stephenson)
Graphics hardware isn't really suited to production rendering, sohigh quality hardware accelerated rendering is difficult. Customhardware solutions are financially impractical. FPGA allow customhardware to be generated at run time, allowing rendering hardware to becustomised, not just for generic rendering, but for each surface ineach scene. RenderMan shaders for each surface are compiled to hardwareallowing surface illumination to be calculated at true hardware speeds.
Presented as a Poster at Siggraph 2008. PDF
Simulating Film Grain using the Noise Power Spectrum
Adding grain to simulated images makes them look more exciting.While its relativly easy to add some noise, here we use the principlesdeveloped by imaging scientists to produce grain which is theoretically"correct". While the results are usefull, they also illustrate thelimitations of current photographic theories of grain.
This work is published in Eurographics UK 2007
Essential RenderMan 2nd Edition
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Ittook forever to make it to press, but we finally ironed out all thebugs, and the new edition looks great! The content is basically thesame, but everything has been rewriten/edited to improve clarity, andthe images reworked so that they're FAR clearer than the first edition. You can buy it from Amazon. |
Improving Motion Blur: Shutter Efficiency and Temporal Sampling
An extended version of the SIGGRAPH sketch is published in the January 2007 edition of the Journal of Graphic Tools. It includes an improved sample distribution function which allows the efficiency to be set from 50 to 100 percent
Shutter Efficiency and Temporal Sampling
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Presentedas a sketch at SIGGRAPH 2005. Motion blur in rendering systems istypically based upon a perfect shutter. Lower shutter efficiency, asexhibited by real leaf shutters, can produce better images, both intheory and practice. This can be implemented trivially, and withoutperformance cost in virtually any renderer. |
A Real Virtual Pinhole
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Tobe presented as a poster at SIGGRAPH 2005. Virtually every publicationon rendering refers to a "theoretical pinhole camera". However thesebare little or no relation to a real pinhole camera. Here we consider the pinhole camera in a little more depth, and discover some interesting results... |
Production Rendering, Design and Implementation
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This book on rendering considers REAL rendering systems,integrating complex geometry, procedural shading, and globalillumination. It is edited by Ian Stephenson, but each chapter has beenwritten by a software developer currently working on commercialrendering software. It includes contributions from Mark Elendt(SideFX), Rick LaMont(DotC), Scott Iversion(SiTeX Graphics), PaulGregory(Aqsis), Jacopo Pantalioni(LightFlow), and Matthew Bentham(ART).
You can order (or just get more info) from the Springer web site. It's also available through amazon, and all good bookshops. 此书我已经上传至此 |
RenderMan for Research at TPCG04 June 2004
I'll be presenting an introduction to RenderMan, combined with examples of how RenderMan can help the researcher at Theory and Practice of Computer Graphics 2004.The half day course will cover an overview of the RenderMan API, withparticular emphasis on integrating new techniques into existingrenderers, and consideration of alternative applications of theRenderMan interface, beyond standard production rendering.
Rendering Smoke with particle maps
Presentedat the Pixar User Group, SIGGRAPH 2003.By storing particles in a photon map-like data structure, they can beray marched in an atmosphere shader. The resulting shaders are fast,and controllable.(PowerPoint)
Implementing RenderMan on the Sony PS2
Presented at SIGGRAPH2003. This sketch considers how the PS2's graphics hardware can beexploited to speed up production rendering. If you have a PS2 Linux kityou can get the executables from the PS2 Linux site.(pdf)(PowerPoint)
Essential RenderMan Fast
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Essential RenderMan Fast is an introduction to RenderManI wrote for the Springer Essential series. It covers RIB, the C APi andshading, in a nice and friendly fashion. More info and code for all ofthe examples is available.
You can buy it directly from the publisher. It's also available from Amazon. |
Handbook of Computer Animation
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I few years ago I was invited to contribute a chapter on renderingto this collection of essays. I chose to take a practical approach andwrote about the problems I'd encountered writing Angel. The resultingchapter basically provides a roadmap for anyone planning to write abasic renderer, with emphasis on the shading engine.
It took over two years for the book to reach print, but its now its available from Amazon, or directly from Springer. |
Compressing RIB files using DIFF
Presentedat the SIGGRAPH 2002, Pixar users group. This discusses how inter-framedependencies can be exploited to reduce storage requirements durningrendering.(pdf)
Anti-aliasing Perlin Noise
Presentedat SIGGRAPH 2001. In Abstracts and applications. Inoise is a filteredverision of the standard Perlin Noise function, and producessignifigantly better images than simple frequency clamping.(pdf)
Vector Texturing (John Haddon and Ian Stephenson)
Presented atSIGGRAPH 2001. In Abstracts and applications. Vector texturingdemonstrates how vector graphics may can be applied as textures inrendered scenes. (pdf).
Buffy, an SL Development Environment
Presented at the Digital Content Creation conference, Bradford 2000. This discusess the contruction of a debugging tool for RenderMan shaders. Published by Springer.(pdf)
Creatures and Spirals (Ian Stephenson and Richard Taylor)
Long before I got interested in graphics, I researched SIMDarchitectures, similar to those found in shading engines. This paperwas published at the Euromicro workshop on parallel and distributedprocessing, in 1994.(pdf).
For completness you can also download a copy of my DPhil thesis (pdf).
Ian Stephenson.
DCT Systems
NCCA,BournemouthUniversity
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免费及开源的RenderMan渲染器
from http://bbs.chinadv.com/read-htm-383357.html
- 3Delight
Download your free version Now !
Before downloading 3Delight, please read the Software License Agreement. Also, you may want to read the following (includes installation instructions):
3Delight User‘s Manual (PDF version)3Delight User‘s Manual (Online HTML version)
- AQSIS
forums : http://community.aqsis.org/, IRC :#aqsis on irc.freenode.net.
- Pixie
Pixie is a RenderMan like photorealistic renderer. It is beingdeveloped in the hope that it will be useful for graphics research andfor people who can not afford a commercial renderer. Pixie is an opensource project licensed under Gnu Public License (GPL).The source code is provided without any guarantees for those people whowish to fix bugs, optimize the code or implement new features.
Visit Pixie homepage at SourceForge for downloading as well as any bug reports/questions or requests.
- AIR
renderman shader editor
http://www.renderman.org/RMR/Utils/
Renderman 入门教程
http://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/Renderman/index.html
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open source projects
http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=renderman&filter=0&start=0
cortex-vfx - Libraries for visual effects software development
understandingrenderman - Source code for Renderman chapter inside Understanding Maya book
ribclients -RIB client libraries for various programming languages
rmsproject =renderman for maya project
ribtools =Experiemental tools and applications related to the RenderMan interface
slum -Shader Language Unified Manager
delibrary -a library of 3Delight related code, aimed at making interactionwith RenderMan compatible renderers - particularly 3Delight, mucheasier for people to learn.
jupiterfilecache -general purpose file cache class
jupiterskin -jupiter jazz skin shaders
16StylizedShaderG1 - shaders (free), (other snow, water, fire, nature, scifi, ground, mixscifi, mixscifi2, mixscifi3, )
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網路上 RenderMan 的資源
from http://drakeguan.org/renderman_resources_on_internet
RenderMan 雖然沒有像 3DS Max, Maya 或 Photoshop這樣的火紅，也比較不容易買（比較貴，每年還要付錢）和拿到（海盜版? 我因為運氣很好，待在一家有買 license的公司，所以一直以來，都不覺得需要上網去找海盜版，而且也希望自己可以不用去找，這樣省得麻煩），所以網路上的資料本就不多。但隨著 Pixar這十年來的大紅大紫，全世界愈來愈多家動畫公司與投資者的關注與投入，的確是可以 google 到一些東西了。
但是呢，RenderMan 真的是很複雜的東西（Mental Ray也一樣很複雜，不見得就比較簡單），而且華文資料還不算多，於是就在前些日子決定寫這麼一篇文章了。這是一篇極度地個人看法，一點都不公正而且偏頗得很的整理文，列表的順序也是依自己的喜愛程度排列，但我盡量讓它看起來，對看官你有幫助，尤其是那些「開始使用 RenderMan工作的華人們」，大家一起加油吧 ;)
首要推薦網站：
- Pixar's RenderMan 官方網站, Publications rescources
- RenderMan Repository by Tal Lancaster
- RenderMania by Simon Bunker
- The RenderMan Academy by Rudy Cortes
- RManNotes by Stephen May
- CG References and Tutorials by Malcolm Kesson
- RenderMan by Ian Stephenson
- RenderDotC Toolkit 3.4 http://www.dotcsw.com/doc/
次要推薦網站：
- Renderman.ru
- Death Fall
- Renderman community @ hightend3d
- RenderMan Shader Language source code @ 'Texturing and Modeling: A Procedural Approach'
- Journal of Graphics Tools
- 中國 CG 聯盟 -- RenderMan
- RenderMan 華文社區論壇
- Materials and Shaders @ TurboSquid
- RenderMan @ wikipedia
- 更正一些人對Renderman錯誤的觀點 @ 不良牛 BBS
Pixar's RenderMan 官方網站
Pixar 的官網，主要就是可以拿到 RISpec （目前最新版面為 3.2）的官方完整版，再來就是它 Support 裏的官方討論版了。這是我使用過的軟體中，最棒最棒的官方討論版了（不過也有可能是因為，我沒買過什麼軟體，所以沒有看過其它官方支援的討論版什麼的），只要你有買Pixar 的軟體，就可以有一組存取的帳號，你在上頭的發問，只要是言之有物，官方一定會有「工程師」上來回覆，一直到問題差不多解決或確定是軟體bug 為止。上頭多的是 ILM、Blizzard、Dreamworks等工作室的使用者帳號在發問，所以即使官方沒有立即的回應，有時也會遇上好心人事的回應（像是 Dan Maas、TalLancaster、Ren-Wei Yang…等）。另一方面，你可以從中一窺有哪些 animation studio 或團體在使用RenderMan，然後他們使用的可能情況等。（舉個例子，我前些日子注意到，台灣的 SOFA Studio 也有了帳號，開始在上頭發問題，後來更進一步得知，Malcolm Kesson 今年夏天曾被邀請到他們那邊三週，上了一些課。）
一言以蔽之，如果你是 RenderMan 的重度使用者，且職位是 ooxx TD 或 RD 的話，那你不應該不使用這個官方維護得很好的討論區，不然就太失職了。
RenderMan Repository, RenderMania, The RenderMan Academy
這三個網站，某種層度上來說，性質差不多的。都是由個人發起與維護的網站，但是呢，卻有眾多的 RenderMan 使用者上去光顧與互動，所以嚴然是除了官方討論版外，最最重要的幾個地方了。
RenderMan Repository，簡稱 RMR，是個雜亂無章，但內容卻超乎你想像的一個地方。對於剛開始玩 RenderMan 這個玩具的人，我推薦先去它的 Pub 區（應該是 public 的意思吧），裏頭介紹了一些書，技術規格，SIGGRAPH 相關的 course notes，相當的寶貴。如果你開始自己寫 shader 的話，可以去 Shaders（Shading Section） 逛逛，裏頭多的是一些重要研究的 .sl 程式碼，重要人物的程式碼（ex, Larry Gritz），你可以好好地在這裏頭練功一兩個月也不成問題。如果你參加過 Stupid RenderMan/RAT Tricks，這個完全是 RenderMan 自行發展出來的小技巧展示，那可以在這邊找到一些投影片與資料。然後在它的 Offsite（Other Links），整理了大量的聯結，是我目前看過最全的清單了。
RMR 上頭還有放了一些 Kesson 教授的教學講義，挺棒的 :)
最後，我忘了說，RMR 是有一位自加州理工學院（CalTech）畢業，目前在 Disney 擔任 TD 的 Tal Lancaster 所維護，他在 RenderMan 官方討論版帳號是 tal。
RenderMania是由 Simon Bunker 獨立維護的網站，裏頭提供一些 RenderMan 相關的新聞，但這個網站最值得大家花時間的，其實是它的Links。裏頭的東西，是我看過最豐富而多的了（好吧，我承認我才剛剛說過類似的話，但是你一定要看看，就會知道我的意思了）。
TheRenderMan Academy，真的很像一所學壂，裏頭有很多教學性質的文章，而且不只是那種「教你怎麼做出某個效果的step-by-step文章」，還有一些觀念教學，打地基，練基本功的東西。這讓我整個人打從心底佩服原作者，從某種方面來看，教學，一直是一件偉大無比的行為。而且有趣的是，它真的被經營得很像一所大學，文件被分成一年級、二年級…四年級。網站主要是由 Rudy Cortes 維護，然後還有一位網路上叫 ZJ的大陸神人（我也許應該用對岸的說法--一位很牛的傢伙）!!! Rudy 目前在 Walt Disney Feature AnimationStudio 擔任 TD，著手寫一本叫 RenderMan Shading Language Guide 的書，是一本講解，如何利用寫出各式各樣 .sl 的經驗分享書，我非常的期待，但也已經從今年年初一路等到現在，卻還沒出 @@; 害我在 amazon 上的 shopping list 一直存著一本書…
如果你或你待的組織沒有向 Pixar 買 RenderMan，所以沒有辦法存取RenderMan 官方討論版，但你以某種方式使用到RenderMan（細節請容大家自行發揮，但我並不是鼓勵大家盜版，事實上，有很多正當的方式可以讓你把玩到而不用花錢的），請努力 k上頭這三個網站的文章，收獲一樣會非常可觀的。
CG References and Tutorials
這個網站是由一位叫 Malcolm Kesson ，目前在 Savannah College of Art and Design任教，教導的東西遍及 Maya programming, RenderMan 等一堆，嚴然就是一位汲汲努力，很像是shading/rendering/pipeline TD的學者兼教授，他的網站資訊量一樣多到讓人得花上個把個月才有辦法全數消化。我和他通過數封信，發覺他是一位嚴以律己，網站上的東西都是自己一點一點驗證出來的心得筆記，一位值得欽佩的教授。他同時使用 Java 開發了一個叫 Cutter 的編輯器，這個編輯器主要針對 MEL, slim,RSL, Tcl, Shake, Perl, Python, RIB等語言（這些全數出現在動畫產業…），換句話說，這是一個他在課餘時間，開發出來供動畫產業的工程師用的編輯器，我用過一陣子，感覺挺不錯的，除了Java 的 GUI 比較醜，熱鍵不能隨自己高興亂設這兩點以外。
RManNotes
由 Stephen May（叫 Steve May 也行）寫的筆記，反正就是筆記，然後我很推薦，而且我的同事 Mao 爺也很推薦 :) 同時，它裏頭提供的一些程式碼，還被我們直接拿來使用，感謝 Steve May 的分享。
RenderMan by Ian Stephenson
IanStephenson 出過兩本書，分別是 Essential Renderman Fast 與 ProductionRendering，前者教人怎麼快速進入狀況，使用 RenderMan；後者是一本教人怎麼寫一套 RenderMan 的 renderer出來的書，相當的酷。這個網站是他的一些個人收集，無聊時可以看看 :)
Materials and Shaders @ TurboSquid
上頭有一些別人放的 shader，可以用買的，大致上就是這樣。
後記
原本，只是想弄個列表給自己平時查閱，有關 RenderMan 的網路資源清單而已。就在新增一筆又一筆資料到清單的同時，突然想起有次ypcat（peter）問說：「Drake，網路上有哪些網站，是在講 RenderMan 和 shader的?」雖然說，我第一反應式的答覆一定是：「去 google 吧」，但經過幾晚的反覆徹夜難眠…好吧，就當作是幫自己一個大忙（其實只是讓自己更忙而已）吧，把這份清單整理得好一點，同時加註一些個人的看法與經驗，就成了這一篇 blog 了。
寫的時候，有位友人問說：「為什麼你不也弄個台灣的 RenderMan 社群呢?這樣就可以讓更多人參與，更多人分享與發表，更多人受惠了…?」我的回覆大致是這樣的：「應該是不可能做這種事的。一來我懂的東西實在太少了，我頂多就像其它人一樣，汲汲於網路上的文章、工作經驗與書本上的知識而已。二來，我不認為自己知道怎麼經營這樣的一個社群，感覺「經營社群」是一個離我還非常遙遠的東西，所以比較希望有這方面能力的人跳出來主持，一定全力支持。最後，真的是太懶了，光是這個網站就夠讓我忙錄的了，並不希望把自己搞得灰頭土臉的~」
最後，因為這是一篇只靠一個人完成的清單，有很多不足或錯誤的地方，非常地希望，你在看完這一篇的同時，能給些回應、修正或是建議什麼的 :)
网上（或emule上）还有个压缩包：Renderman Companion.rar, 里面是Renderman的相关文档，sgi course，and demo
Digital-VFX http://digital-vfx.co.uk/, renderman shaders
