[Bf-committers] Renderman

[Campbell Barton]

About storing renderman data, Even if C/C++ is used object properties 
need to be stored.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Blending_Into_Python/CustomProperties

- Could somebody with renderman experience evaluate this wiki and add 
examples of how datablock properties could be used for renderman. - 
Linking to textblock data to a material with shaders eg.

- Cam

Robert Wenzlaff (AB8TD) wrote:
> On Thursday 03 November 2005 17:49, Paul Volpato wrote:
>   
>> I'd love to work on this project (in a coding capacity).  I  
>> don't have extensive experience in Renderman, but I've read the  
>> specs, I have some code, for python exports, but this would involve  
>> integrating it into the C part of blender yes?  (like yafray)
>>
>> And if someone has fleshed the API (in anyway) then we could get  
>> things rolling on this fairly quickly.
>>     
>
> While Renderman is general enough to probably qualify for direct inclusion 
> into the code base, what would be better IMHO, is an intermediary library 
> that takes a standard output from Blender and can convert to whatever 
> renderer you like (one per lib), thus making external renderers a "plug-in".
>
> BlendSceneData->IntermedOut ->Lib4RendererDeJour->RendererDeJour
> |----Blender Internal Code-------|      |---- External Code ----|
>
> Want a new Renderer?  Now you just need to compile a .so or .dll for it.
>
> Since may renderers accept RenderMan, maybe using Renderman as a guide to 
> making this "standard output" would be a good place to start.  Thus the 
> LibExportRendermanPlain.so would basically be a pass-thru (maybe just 
> correcting for particular packages' dialects).
>
> It would allow other options, too.  Instead of trying to translate a Blender 
> material into a shader, you could have the shaders in a separate file and 
> have the translator lib do a substitution along the lines of:
>
> if (HaveShaderWithSameNameInFile) {
> 	GetShaderFromFile();
> }.
> else{
> 	BlenderMaterial2Shader();  // As best we can . . . .
> }
>   


-- 
Campbell J Barton

133 Hope Street
Geelong West, Victoria 3218 Australia

URL:    http://www.metavr.com
e-mail: cbarton at metavr.com
phone: AU (03) 5229 0241