Discover how to achieve the stunning imagery and dazzling effects that wow audiences in animated and live action motion pictures. "The RenderMan® Shading Language Guide" shows you how to master this powerful rendering program, used by filmmakers in conjunction with 2D and 3D painting, modeling, and animation software to transport audiences to faraway lands and awe them with fantastic creatures. A comprehensive guide to the RenderMan Shading Language (RSL), the book teaches experienced 3D animators and artists fundamentals through advanced RSL and image synthesis concepts. Beginning with an introduction to RSL, you'll learn about the shader writing process and how to set up a proper shader developing environment. After that you'll try your hand at some simple shading methods such as light and volume shaders. Once you have the basics down, you'll move on to more advanced shading skills including raytracing, global illumination, pattern anti-aliasing, and DSO shadeops. The book presents over 80 complete shaders and teaches good coding style and techniques. "The RenderMan Shading Language Guide" presents the skills you need to become proficient with RSL so that you can use them to create amazing special effects for use in movies, video games, and more.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Practical and methodical approach:
This book presents a well organized approach to shader writing. It is focused on practical advice and application that a beginner can use in the industry. An example would be the chapter on setting up the development environment,things like which were not the focus of Advanced Renderman. The technical content has been diluted to expand the readership-I think antialiasing is covered better in Advanced Renderman. In this book that chapter comes at the end. Note also that this is a shading book, so don't... more info
One of the best RenderMan book available on earth !!!:
I have all RenderMan books on the market.
This one is impressed me!
The authors explain step by step and that make readers understand RenderMan more. Same as other reviews, lacking of CD is the shame.
However, overall still be very good to me.
And if you consider the price is very worth for money.
That's why I think this book should be given 5 stars.
Hopefully, There will be more good RenderMan books available soon. Tee
Excellent resource for learning how to write RenderMan shaders:
The RenderMan Shading Language Guide is an excellent resource. It contains numerous examples of shader code, to help get you started with writing your own shaders. I was happy to see the robust section on illumination models, with some sl code provided for most of them. I found the section that had common functions (like gamma() and remap()) very helpful, and appreciated the disscussion on more sophisticated components of the shading language (like subsurface scattering and global illumination). In... more info
The Wait is Over!:
I caught wind that this book was coming out well before it actually came out and could hardly contain my excitement. I had it ordered before it was even off the press. Let's face it, trying to learn Renderman online is like trying to ride a bike with a flat tire. You can go, but not very fast or very far. I own several other renderman books but found them to be a bit out of date and lacking in areas. Since leaving school and entering into the industry I had actually been considering writing a Renderman... more info