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Rendering for Beginners: Image Synthesis using RenderMan | 
 enlarge | Author: Saty Raghavachary
Publisher: Focal Press
Category: Book
List Price: $57.95
Buy New: $30.34
You Save: $27.61 (48%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 387718
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 7.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0240519353
Dewey Decimal Number: 778.5345
EAN: 9780240519357
ASIN: 0240519353
Publication Date: December 13, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Excellent condition! Paperback, as shown. Fast shipping.--H5
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Product Description
'Rendering for Beginners is bound to become a must-read for anyone interested in Pixar's RenderMan. Saty's experience as both RenderMan practitioner and RenderMan teacher gives him a unique and valuable perspective. I can't wait to add a copy to my own graphics library.'
Dana Batali, Director of RenderMan Development, Pixar Animation Studios
Whether you are an animator, artist or 2D illustrator looking to move to 3D rendering you will be amazed by what can be achieved with RenderMan. Saty Raghavachary offers a complete, non-technical introduction to RenderMan and rendering in general - finally a guide you dont need a math degree to follow!
Full of clear explanations and plenty of samples on the associated website - www.smartcg.com/tech/cg/books/RfB - for you to play with, this color guide will quickly get you up to speed with this powerful, professional program so you too can harness the power of the program to create top quality imagery.
The book features:
* Clear explanations of rendering concepts to get you up and running fast
* Extensive color illustrations to inspire you to make the most of your skills
* An associated website with numerous self-contained examples which you can download, reproduce, modify and learn from
* Comprehensive coverage of RenderMans functionality to show you how to get the most out of this powerful renderer
* Coverage relevant for all versions of the package, including a section on global illumination introduced in Release 11, as well as the key, general rendering concepts
Pixars award-winning RenderMan is one of the best renderers available and has been used to create visual effects for dozens of movies since 1985. It is also the renderer used to make blockbuster animated movies such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. As the beautiful images in this book show, in addition to photoreal imagery you can also use it to create illustrations, visualizations, simulations of natural media and even abstract art!
Contents:
Rendering; RenderMan; RIB syntax; Geometric primitives; Transformations; Camera, output; Controls; Shading; What's next; Resources
Saty Raghavachary is a senior graphics software developer at DreamWorks Feature Animation. He has written software used in The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas and Shark Tale. He is also a part-time instructor at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, USA where he teaches RenderMan and MEL (Maya) programming.
* Harness the power of Pixar's RenderMan with this introductory guide for the artist - you don't need a maths degree!
* Coverage is relevant for all versions of the package, including v11 and also explains general, key rendering concepts too
* Fully illustrated in color with numerous examples to inspire you to make the most of your skills
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
GET HOOKED TO RENDERMAN! March 15, 2007
If you are a beginner to Renderman like I WAS go and get this book. ... This book will give you enough confidence and get you hooked to Renderman...big time!!..So you have been warned!!..The title should read "Get hooked to Renderman"...or "Get high on Renderman"...:). It was a little hard when I started reading the Advanced Renderman book sometime ago..Having almost gone through much of the RfB book a lot of things that were "deep" in the advanced Renderman book is very clear now...This book is simple enough to read and yet the topics are covered in great detail and depth...Can't wait to get my hands on the RSL Guide book from the same author.Indispensable if you want to learn Renderman.
 compact and versatile language June 21, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Renderman is one of the most powerful rendering packages out there, and this book forms a good guide to the self motivated reader. The author assumes little previous graphics knowledge. The basic ideas of matrix algebra and how these can be applied to graphics operations are demonstrated. Aided by numerous clear figures.
More involved operations are also explained. Bezier surfaces, NURBs, anamorphic warping etc. The Renderman language is seen as compact and versatile.
GREAT BOOK May 22, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a terrific book - and not just for beginners. The author gives a very clear grounding in the concepts that underpin 3D rendering applications, and shows his own deep experience with Pixar's Renderman specification and the implementations built on it by Pixar and others. He also conveys very strongly his own enthusiasm for Renderman and the underlying REYES algorithm, and this is infectious. After a few pages, you will certainly want to access one of the free or trial implementations, and give them a go for yourself.
The book is informed by extremely attractive and colorful images that very clearly illustrate the specific tools and techniques available to Renderman users, and these are fully supported by code snippets (within the text and on the companion website) that make the Renderman structure fully transparent for beginners - just as the title promises!
This is no small accomplishment as the power of Renderman - as exampled in the Pixar and many other movies made with it - arises from the extremely fine degree of control over visual phenomena that it makes accessible to users. First time exposure to the range and precision of these controls can be daunting even for experienced 3d users, but the author's explanations of the RIB and SLIM shader language scripts that drive Renderman are all you need to begin experiments of your own, and to take advantage of more specialized/advanced titles like Advanced Renderman by Apodaca and Gritz.
Renderman is great for photorealistic rendering, but it also excels for non-photorealistic techniques like 'tooning and beyond, and one exceptionally interesting part of the book (again well-supported by the website) provides plenty of illustrations and code for exotic techniques that emulate all sorts of effects from impressionist paintings to woodblock illustrations, and more.
For anyone into 3d, Renderman for Beginners makes clear that rendering packages are not just the back end of a modeling process, but are absolutely central to the practical and artistic effects that define the amazing potential of today's 3d/CG work. To understand the conceptual framework of a high-quality renderer is also to understand, and to be thrilled and amazed by the remarkable workings of our own visual engagement with the world. And, after many years of working in this field, Saty Raghavachary, the author, is obviously still very much under the spell of this excitement. Whether you read Renderman for Beginners as a practical introduction to a prospective career, say as a Technical Director in CG, or whether you read it just for a general understanding of how our contemporary visual culture is evolving, this book will satisfy you fully. Thanks, Saty.
Its a wonderful book May 16, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
i have been reading this book for some time now and frankly the much i have read i am fully satisifed with it. its well written and clears lot of concepts.
Regards
Excellent book for beginners and those needing some reinforcement May 10, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a grad student in graphics, I've found that creating nicely rendered images is essential for effectively displaying results. I began learning RenderMan with a more advanced book, but found that my overall understanding was lacking. "Rendering for Beginners" has filled in the gaps, giving me a much better foundation for generating images. The book is easy to read and understand, and it is full of images and code snippets (full code is available on the web - which is great!)
The book and companion website has greatly enhanced my understanding, from rendering basic scenes such as wire-frame meshes to writing complex shaders. I highly recommend this book to both those beginning to learn RenderMan and people who want to strengthen their understanding of the basics.
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