Rendering Software Used In LoTR Goes Open Source 225
donglekey writes "The software used by Weta to output scenes to be rendered on the LOTR trilogy has been made open source under the Mozilla license. Called Liquid, it outputs from Maya to any Renderman compliant renderer. This is extremely good news as it may quickly become a standard in high end 3D, as well as greasing the wheels for Aqsis, a GPLed Renderman renderer."
BMRT no more, Aqsis suggested by Exluna... (Score:5, Informative)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/aqsis/ [sourceforge.net]
Re:Sweet ... "Toolchain" is getting free (Score:1, Informative)
Read the post one more time
*hint* Aqsis *hint*
Used to hav MULTIPLE RenderMan compatible programs (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.renderman.org/RMR/OtherLinks/blackSIGGR APH.html [renderman.org]
As you will see on the page, Pixar made BMRT and entropy 'go away' in July of this year. So, it looks like that is why Aqsis is being suggested as the only remaining contender.
Aqsis is from scratch (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Not such a big deal (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Used to hav MULTIPLE RenderMan compatible progr (Score:1, Informative)
Re:povray's still the best (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Informative)
Gimp, from what I have heard, will have CYMK capabilities in the 2.0 release along with a ton of other improvements...but who know's when this will actually get released.
and check out Scribus"
it's still fairly young in development but is pretty nice.
Homepage [altmuehlnet.de]
apps.kde.com entry [kde.com]
I have already used it to create some pretty nice PDF files.
Re:Connection Maya-Liquid-Renderman ? (Score:5, Informative)
Renderman itself is just a standard which defines a couple of things including which functions a compatible renderer must provide and what a bytestream sent to a renderer looks like. Pixar's renderer is called PhotoRealistic Renderman (or PRMan for short). The main reason the final output of a RenderMan-compatible renderer surpasses Maya's and Blender's built-in output routines is that textures and surfaces and lighting can be defined by shaders. These are little C-like programs which calculate what a given pixel will look like based on its position, lighting and so on.
This is roughly the order of creation:
Disclaimer: I am not a professional rendering artist/shader writer/modeller, but I have played around with all three to produce some amazing results. It's great fun to get into - but to make any progress you need serious CPU cycles.
Excuse me, Aqsis compilation just bailed with some error...
radiosity used to be a feature of BMRT/entropy (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.dctsystems.freeserve.co.uk/rmanBasics.
It was later commercially expanded into a faster program called 'entropy'. Exluna was a company that Larry Gritz and some coworkers from Pixar (Gritz joined and then left Pixar) founded. Apparently entropy was fast enough for commercial use (eg. LOTR-scale projects that required photorealistic scenes). Pixar did not like this. At all. The sequelae were as documented here:
http://www.renderman.org/RMR/OtherLinks/blackSIGG
Now this is probably not relevant to you if you're working at wetafx or ILM or other big shops, but it's still kind of a shame that, when a product came along that WAS able to compete with PRMan, Pixar chose to squash it with lawyers rather than innovation. I'm not claiming that the case was clear-cut, but the original lawsuit apparently lacked legal merit, and Pixar then went after the individual founders of the company in an effort to drain their resources, which is rather unimpressive.
So the point is that, for a time, there WAS an alternative to PRman for big (cinematic) projects, and Pixar used lawsuits to bury it.
D'oh.
Better lawyers (Score:3, Informative)
Patents and copyrights. The prepress industry has happily allowed itself to standardize on patented Pantone technology and copyrighted fonts.
The movie industry understands the value of ownership and control, since that's how they make their money. So they go out of their way NOT to get locked in to other people's property, if possible. When they do license patents and copyrighted materials, they negotiate better deals - if there's any extortion involved, they want to be the one's doing it.
Re:Not such a big deal (Score:5, Informative)
Ehhhh, First LOTR was rendered with the standard Photorealistic RenderMan, they didn't use radiosity or global illumination.
Second you don't get MTOR automatically, it's part of the RenderMan Artist Tools (RAT). You can also buy PRMan separate with no RAT, after all why would you need RAT in render nodes.
Third over 90% of movies VFX are rendered with PRman and most of the time with no GI of any kind, for over 15 years that PRMan and Pixar came to being. That's what good lighting TDs do. GI is not the be all end all for movie VFX production work.
Fourth, Pixar announce this past SIGGRAPH that PRMan 11 will support GI via photon mapping, which included many interesting new shading language calls. This seems to have been in response to Exluna's Entropy before it's demise:
Pixar Announces Ray Tracing and Global Illumination in RenderMan® Release 11 [pixar.com]New RenderMan Shading Language Functions [deathfall.com]
On RenderMan 11 - Interview with Dana Batali from Pixar [3dfestival.com]
Re:Used to hav MULTIPLE RenderMan compatible progr (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Beats me (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not all good news... (Score:3, Informative)
Aside from coming up with new software, there's also improving on an existing one for private companies. People actually get paid to develop opensource software and some of these improvements actually go back to the community.
Re:Could someone explain this to me? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, Liquid only allows you to connect (seamlessly) Maya to a RenderMan renderer. PRMan is U$5000 per license. RAT is even more expensive. Maya Complete now is U$2000, but Unlimited is U$7,000:
Pixar software price list [pixar.com]Maya store [aliaswavefront.com]
As you can see from the list prices with Liquid you are partially subsituting RAT, which is $8,500. Specifically you are substituting MTOR which is the bridge between Maya and PRMan, You would still miss on things like Alfred, Slim and It.
Why it does matter is that now small studios or even artists can afford a Maya to RenderMan bridge. Potentially they could combine it with cheaper alternatives like RenderDotC, AIR or 3Delight on the renderer part, and something like Smedge for distributing the rendering jobs. So potentially it could be easier to save the cost of RAT for artists workstations. Also if a studio has in house tools, they could potentially integrate them easier since the code for Liquid will be available.
Why I think this is a big deal (submitter) (Score:5, Informative)
First of all I will say that I have known about Blender for quite a while, and while it does share many of the basic features of other high-end software (basic being the key word), it really is not acceptable to use for anything except as an intoduction to 3D. The magic 4 programs that are used for professional 3D are Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, Softimage | 3D and XSI, and Maya. They are very well architectured, very fast, and very elegant to use. There are many others but these are the programs that are used to make 90 % of the 3D CGI out there.
Maya does have Renderman output, but it is abysmal and not suitable for anything but experimentation. I have used it to test Renderman shaders and I still needed to edit the actual
This is important because it encourages standards and it encourages open source. By far the area that Linux is penetrating the fastest is the high end computer graphics market. Large studios have made sweeping conversions, not just on render farms, but on workstsations. Softimage 3D and XSI now run on Linux as does Maya. Almost every software based compositor out there runs on Linux (the exceptions being After Effects and Combustion). Many studios that have proprietary software are porting it to Linux. ILM , Digital Domain, PDI, and Weta have very big investments in it. Being open source helps, but open source is not the reason it is there. This tool being open source is one more piece of the puzzle as far open source penetrating large graphics studios. High end studios will be going to sourceforge to get a tool that they may end up depending on to get the job done. Some will start becoming active in its development, and this is very good. Its sets a precedent for releasing proprietary tools into the OS world. There are many extremely skilled programmers working in 3D.
More importantly than open source being furthered however is that it encourages standards. There are many Renderman compliant renderers out there, (Renderman is a frame description standard) Pixar's own implementation, Photorealistic Renderman is the most popular one. Most people just use the internal renderer of the software package they are using because the only standard for going between a 3D package and a renderer is Renderman, and a plugin is needed to facilitate that. Until now all of the choices were very expensive (somtimes more expensive than Maya itself believe it or not). Now that this part is free, people may start to see the benefits that come along with having a standard in place.
Aren't those graphics applications still ungodly expensive? Yes and no. Maya is now at $2000 USD for the base version (everything you need is there) which is one hell of a deal. Don't I still need Pixar's PRman? Yes and No. It is not the only Renderman renderer, but it is the best. It is sold alone or with many tools to go between Maya and itself (more expensive). If someone uses Liquid, eighther way they are saving alot of money and getting a production proven tool.
So is the entire pipeling Free? No, of course not, but that isn't the point. Open Source getting into 3D graphics studios is a very good thing, and this is a pretty cool step in the right direction. You want open minded people who just want to get the job done, and use the very best tools for their situation? That's 3D, perhaps overall one of the most intelligent and dynamic industries out there. They do their own thing and that's why Linux is taking over and OS can too, it just has to meet extremely high quality standards.
P.S. No Hollywood is a hyprocrite crap today please. Visual effects and computer graphics as a whole is so far removed from the issue that making a connection between the MPAA and a visual effects house just shows how little you know about it, and it isn't fair to the people working in the 3D industry.
Re:Could someone explain this to me? (Score:2, Informative)
Maya's renderer is pretty good, but doesn't quite handle many things as well as most people would like. It could be faster, and its handling of large scenes and high resolutions needs to be improved, although it is still workable. Its depth of field and motion blur are 2D, and its 3D motion blur is very slow to get looking artifact free.
Re:Sweet ... "Toolchain" is getting free (Score:2, Informative)
Not by any means, but it does have a couple of things that come to mind, and some that sound familiar...
Besides, some features you list (such as fur) are something that should be implemented in the render end rather than the modeling end... and if Blender ever gets that Renderman output thing I dreamed of, it will be there. One day.
NURBS are there, and also lattice deforms too (I know they're there, I've used them myself =) Particles likewise (though the UI for them is admittedly a bit cryptic). UV mapping, yep (since 1.8, I think). IK - sounds familiar, but not sure. And I'm not sure what you mean with "SubD" (not used other 3D apps that much), and the only web page I found quickly seemed to talk of stuff that's similar to Blender's subsufs, so maybe it's there...
Thanks for $2000! I think I'll use this for something that's more important for a poor student like me - pasta, tuna, and microwave pizzas - and program-wise use stuff like Blender that gives much more bang per price and has all features I need. =)
Re:Ask Slashdot... (Score:3, Informative)
I have said it many times and most people (not you specifically of course) refuse to believe that Blender is not even in the same world as Maya. No way no how, there is absolutly no comparison. The differences are too extreme to list and I wish I could give more examples, but it isn't one big thing, it is many little concrete things, like driven keys, nurbs tools, subdivision surface tools, customizable interface, particles handling, hardware buffer rendering, and on and on and on. It is also big abstract things, like node based architecture, ( or object architecture like Softimage or 3D studio), and underyling scripting language called MEL, which is the foundation of Maya.
Professional 3D programs have lots of documentation. I GUARANTEE learning Maya will be easier than Blender. Companies depend on people learning their software well and using it to its fullest extent. Piracy comes into play here, and it is pretty much not something the companies worry about on an individual level, because it increases mindshare. If you want to learn 3D, you have to pirate software, it just works like that. Professionals ( eighther at studios or freelance ) buy the software when they use it professionally, because it is well worth it , is the legal thing to do, and is the right thing to do. No one cares if you pirate Maya to learn it.
If you want to get into 3D, go get Maya 4.5 (and a 3 button mouse). Load it up, watch the intro movies and you will be navigating around in no time. Then, hit F1 to see all the wonderful tutorials it comes with and you will be able to go through and learn all the features of the program easily. To take it further, practice sculting or go and get a book on cartoon animation, or lighting, or photography. Softimage XSI is also very easy to learn, although there is not as much documentaion as Maya. Learning the features is easy, learning the artistic side is hard. But it's great fun.
Re:Connection Maya-Liquid-Renderman ? (Score:3, Informative)
We used it for a feature film... and it turned out great.
Jonah: A Veggietales Movie [jonahmovie.com]
-Tim
Yeah, pretty much... (Score:1, Informative)
Max is always a step behind, copying features from other packages a version later. Maya is the future.
Re:povray's still the best (Score:1, Informative)
Looks [irtc.org]
pretty good [zazzle.com] to me. [povray.org]
Sure, it's hard to compare a ray tracer and a scanline renderer, but with enough patience you can do amzingly beautiful things.
This is great! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not such a big deal (Score:5, Informative)
The other thing, well did you really miss the or notice any GI absence problems in Monster's Inc. Animated films are very art directed. One example, say you wanted to modify where a shadow falls without altering the compositon of the rest of the elements. With raytrcing and other such GI solutions it would be difficult or at leats much more than say in a renderer like PRMan wher you can generate the shadow map independently or even use a paint program. A specific example is Geri's glasses in Geri's game. The refraction you see there is not realistic, it was cheated to make his eyes look bigger and angelic. A raytacer would have put something else, not what the director intended.
As I mentioned Entropy was quicly catching up to PRman to the point where major Pixar clients were starting to use it. ILM needs a raytracer for specific techniques, like generating reflection maps, handling HDRI, and the all important occlusion maps used since Pearl HArbor and JP3. From what an important ILM VFX supervisor mentioned they were excited about a RenderMan renderer where they could combine the best of both worlds, the speed, flexibility and robustness of REYES plus the specific features of GI.
I doubt Ice Age had anything to do with it. After all PDI uses some sort of A-buffer scanline renderer as far as I know with no GI, or at least none for quite some time. Shrek looked fantastic basicly with no GI either. The lighting philosophy of both these places doesn't hinge on having GI on the renderer.
But you are also right, they might have the best of both worlds to compete, not only on their coomercial products, but on their animated movies. Last SIGGRAPH at the photon maps course, one of the presenters was a guy from Rhythm and Hues, so I guess their propietary renderer might get GI. I also saw people frmo ILM, PDI and a whole other studios. So maybe in the end or in the future you are absolutely right. Just to many facts and changes to deal with