Pixar Releases Free Version of RenderMan 198
jones_supa writes: A year ago, animation studio Pixar promised its RenderMan animation and rendering suite would eventually become free for non-commercial use. This was originally scheduled to happen in the SIGGRAPH 2014 computer graphics conference, but things got delayed. Nevertheless, today Pixar is releasing the free version into the wild. Free, non-commercial RenderMan can be used for research, education, evaluation, plug-in development, and any personal projects that do not generate commercial profits. This version is fully featured, without a watermark or any kind of artificial limits. Featuring Pixar's new RIS technology, RenderMan delivers extremely fast global illumination and interactive shading and lighting for artists. The software is available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. In conjunction with the release, Pixar has also launched a new RenderMan Community site where users can exchange knowledge and resources, showcase their own work, share assets such as shaders and scripts, and learn about RenderMan from tutorials.
We already got Blender? (Score:2, Insightful)
to make great stuff so why did we need Pixar's stuff to get charged/sued afterwards?
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I'm sticking to really free stuff now.
Re:We already got Blender? (Score:5, Informative)
And back in the 1990's we had BMRT (a free renderman clone) [www.tuco.de]; until they came and paid/threatened the guy to stop making the free clone available.
Sorta. Larry Gritz, the author of BMRT, went to work for Pixar and then left to start his own company, Exluna, whose main product was a Renderman competitor called Entropy. Unfortunately Pixar's lawyers jumped on Exluna and Exluna was vaporised. BMRT and Entropy were no longer available after this. Larry Gritz went to work for Nvidia after that on a GPU-accelerated renderer, I think.
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Re:We already got Blender? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cycles (Blender's built-in renderer) is slower and less-featured than PRMan. That doesn't prevent you from making great stuff with it, of course, but when scale becomes an issue, you'll want something a bit more industrial-strength.
Re:We already got Blender? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Up to eight cores only?
That's fucking useless with my 192 threads and 37,000+ GPU cores.
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Sounds like you have a tool that's too difficult to use effectively.
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Blender is a DCC tool. RenderMan is a rendering tool. Why do I need a microphone when I have a reverb unit? Exactly.
How to get into 3D? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd like to learn a 3D tool just for own self learning, I'd like to be able to add 3D animations to my videos, I'd like to be able to make 3D models using 3D printers etc.
I learned Photoshop, Sony Vegas, Xara and other graphic tools and am pretty proficient, but these are all 2D world. I don't know where to start with 3D. I once installed Blender but its all unfriendly as f*** with every action done its own way. I think that is for the Blender faithful only, I feared I'd be tainted by its quirkiness if I ever got into it, and I'd forget how a mouse is supposed to work.
So I see Maya 3D has a free download, and Renderman has a free download, and Renderman doesn't need Maya, (does Maya need renderman to render decent images?), and I see that these days decent 3D can be done even in the web browser (e.g. http://kottke.org/15/03/the-algorithmic-sea ), and I need a decent understanding of 3D to make 3D models that don't suck and that 3D printers are actually getting quite good.
What apps do I get?
What course do I take?
Which formats do I need for 3D printers?
Do the same packages cover both 3D for printer and 3D for animation? If not why is the main one in each field.
Best printer in the sub $5k range for those tools?
Base level PC CUDA cores needed etc.?
Physics how? including in the package? How to animate it.
What else?
Re:How to get into 3D? (Score:4, Informative)
There was a spinoff of 3dstudio called "GMax". It was a free version of 3dstudio without a renderer. The thing came with a really good tutorial on how to model (and how to do it effectively), texture map, animate and use inverse kinematics to animate complex models. If you can find it anywhere, that would be an excellent starting point.
This is where you learn to navigate 3D and how to use different methods layered upon each other to parametrically form a complex body out of a simple one.
Then get 3dstudio and play around with complex materials and rendering itself. Also, first contact with complex physics and particle systems.
i prefer 3DStudio over maya for learning because 3Dstudio historically came out of the "work with primitives" corner, while maya was about splines and curves to model stuff. Working with primitives (cubes, spheres and stuff) is more wysiwyg than a bunch of curves.
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At least when I used it, Maya did not use any CUDA cores, and the GPU didn't really matter as long as it had openGL. (At one point I was doing 3D modeling on my netbook). I am not familia
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Blender's not just for the Blender faithful, but yeah, the UI is quite a bit different than the other major 3D suites out there. The same skills apply, but there's an adjustment period if you want to switch from one to another.
(Note that ZBrush - considered the ultimate in sculpting programs - also has a completely weird interface)
Anyway:
Apps: Blender's nice because it does everything, although some things it doesn't do too terribly well (for instance, you can edit images in it, but you're better off using
Hardware requirements? (Score:3)
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You want as many cores as you can get and as much RAM as you can fit in the system. That, and a very fast graphics card.
Whilst this makes for a very expensive machine, it can pale in comparison to the licensing costs of some commercial software!
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Re:Hardware requirements? (Score:5, Informative)
Pros use fast workstations for modelling and rough/low-res rendering. Even those machines have lots of cores and RAM and fast storage.
All the heavy-lifting however then gets handed off to a render farm - which is generally a stack of computers, also with lots of cores and ram and fast storage, and they do all the number crunching.
They can be connected in a more traditional cluster style configuration, or they can be largely independent nodes all rendering individual frames.
Rendering like this is embarrassingly parallel - you get close to a linear increase in speed with more cores thrown at the problem - i.e. 256 cores will render a job roughly twice as fast as 128 cores, all other things being equal.
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There are various stories around about how Pixar do their dailies, such as switching over every workstation each night to being part of the render cluster etc, and I wouldn't see how the need to do that has been done away recently with performance increases in workstation hardware. They also have dedicated rendering clusters.
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That, and a very fast graphics card.
PRMan started to use the graphics card? When? They'd have to completely rearchitecture the whole thing to run on a GPU. Not to mention that REYES wasn't historically the best fit for GPUs.
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No, whilst rendering engines may not use GPUs, everything else that goes along with 3D modelling and rendering does - if you're designing a 3D workstation, you want a serious graphics card or three.
If you're designing a render node however, then CPU and RAM are your main requirements.
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I'm a professional animator. I use Maya, Modo, NukeX, PFTrack, VRay, Vue XStream, Harmony and the whole Adobe Suite. In software alone I have about $15K invested. My workstation, servers, etc come to an investment of around $8k so my software investment far exceeds my hardware. For batch rendering I use rendering services.
I just downloaded the free Renderman, and for someone like me, who actually makes a living doing this, this is a very good deal. Rendering software is quite non-trival and being saddl
This is the rendering engine, not a GUI (Score:5, Interesting)
For anyone hoping to jump straight in with the same tools that the pros use, note that this RenderMan is just the rendering engine, not a GUI for modelling.
You'll still need something like Maya or Katana to do the modelling in and then you use RenderMan for the final renders of your scene.
Re:This is the rendering engine, not a GUI (Score:5, Interesting)
Good point. How long, though, before RenderMan becomes another option in the renderer selection drop-down box in Blender?
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PRMan handles polygons *much* better these days, to the point that in the current architecture it sometimes converts high level geometry to polygons immediately. VFX studios keep blowing stuff up, explosions sims tend to output polygons, it had to adapt.
Disclaimer: I work on PRMan.
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That's true (Blender has supported Aqsis for some years now), however PRMan has quite a lot of features not in the RI spec.
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For anyone hoping to jump straight in with the same tools that the pros use, note that this RenderMan is just the rendering engine, not a GUI for modelling. You'll still need something like Maya or Katana to do the modelling in and then you use RenderMan for the final renders of your scene.
I suspect Pixar's hope is that the open-source crowd will do a lot of the work making wrappers to connect it to various other 3D GUIs (Blender will be first, no doubt).
Nice but ... (Score:2)
I'll wait for RenderWoman.
Re:Nice but ... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll wait for RenderWoman.
You might think you're getting a better deal because it costs 30% less than RenderMan, but you'll regret it eventually due to high maintenance costs and a tendency to stop working a few days every month.
Just get RenderDog instead, it's RenderMan's best friend.
Re:Nice but ... (Score:5, Funny)
Until the first time you start the program after not using it for too long, and you discover it's chewed up all your meshes, and shit all over your textures.
I'd be more interested in seeing the source (Score:2)
But i guess that will only happen once it's obsolete and only of historical interest.
Great news! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Free as in (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, as long as you don't re-sell the beer or use it somehow to make money (eg: in-house software for corp).
Re:Youtube? (Score:5, Interesting)
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The FAA?
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Re:Youtube? Your Questions Answered (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the FAA: Don't post drone videos on Youtube [wtop.com] Any more questions?
Also don't shoot video from upper balconies, GoPro headbands while skateboarding 'Ollies' in the air, while hanging from chandeliers, cliffs, standing on the transparent tourist platform atop the Eiffel Tower, from tethered balloons, while being shot from a cannon, while head-butting a ram, riding glass elevators, or suspended from suspenderences such as but not limited to rope or chain, or if you are tall, or if the subject is short.
These distinct camera angles strongly suggest drone use to busy compliance officers, who have been judicially empowered to employ the same 'presumption of use', 'intent to distribute' arguments that have made the War On Drugs the successful endeavor it is today. If your content is flagged, you will be pressed to supply proof that a drone was not present, and unmarked drones may appear next to your your house and photographs taken. Drawing on the 'admissibility loophole' that has made the partnership between Intelligence agencies and Law Enforcement the successful endeavor it is today, where the fact of warrantless, illegal surveillance need not be disclosed, these photos may be presented to Judge and Jury without comment or disclosure of origin.
To avoid unnecessary legal hassle, do not even post footage of model environments such as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood [youtube.com]. Even obvious depth-of-field artifacts may be targeted by zealous prosecutors if they allege the use of drones in pan-tilt photography [vimeo.com]. Due to the perceived nature of building giant models and the fact that bugs were in it, the movie "Bugs' Life" is exempt. There is also a blanket exemption for drone footage of cats, or drones that ARE cats [youtube.com].
Fortunately for us... Google has announced they have developed an AI program that detects the use of drone footage with 99% accuracy.
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Google has announced they have developed an AI program that detects the use of drone footage with 99% accuracy.
The pedant in me must know: you're referring to false-negatives, right?
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The pedant in me must know: you're referring to false-negatives, right?
The pendant in me says, just leave it dangling.
Re:Youtube? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, they are so strict about commercial use they don't even allow non-profit orgs to make money off it.
According to the ncr faq [pixar.com]:
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If a fee is charged to access content...
Your post clearly states that if money is required to view the video then it's commercial use.
So if you are required to be a member of the non-profit group (ergo you paid) then it's commercial use, but if the non-profit makes a video and slaps it up on its site or youtube for everyone to view then they're OK.
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It might be as simple as embedding a code into the data stream that flags the animation as something made by Pixar, and something that Google could easily be persuaded to watch for and flag for Disney. They won't even need to scan the video content itself.
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It's still incredibly time consuming and potentially people might notice the watermark and generate a lot of bad publicity. I suspect Pixar would just hope that users would pay for the commercial
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It doesn't even need a watermark. Simply a tag in the data stream. Yes, I know a clueful user could strip this out, but most people don't know enough about data streams to properly remove such tags, especially if there is a checksum or some other feature that needs to be recalculated. Such tags are commonly passed on when used in most editors, so it isn't even a new feature.
This isn't time consuming at all. YouTube and other similar channels commonly scan for tags as well for other kinds of meta data, s
Re:Youtube? (Score:5, Informative)
The FAQ posted by Pixar explictly allows this.
They only prohibit direct revenue.
Indirect revenue (e.g. YouTube ad fees) are permitted, but you must credit RenderMan.
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Simple how? Because it's clearly allowed, or because it's clearly not allowed? It sure sounds like a grey area to me, especially if you don't "monetize" the video and simply post it to share your efforts and successes with others.
It's not like this is some obscure corner case or thought experiment. In fact, I suspect it would be one of _the most_ common uses. Making videos and sharing them on Youtube is exactly what many hobbyists routinely do, and want to do. As such, whether or not that's an acceptab
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Simple how? Because it's clearly allowed, or because it's clearly not allowed?
Isn't there some birth control website you can go to and spread your happiness over when life begins?
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So, you can drink all you want, but you need to hold it in.
You have to pay for it whenever you 'go'.
Jesus Christ in a Tesla S, then don't use the software. There are other programs out there. You might not like the price.
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I believe Blender is still free.
And, if you don't mind renting your software and do the Adobe CC thing, After Effects includes Cinema 4D Lite which is pretty powerful and included in the price.
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I believe Blender is still free.
And, if you don't mind renting your software and do the Adobe CC thing, After Effects includes Cinema 4D Lite which is pretty powerful and included in the price.
If you are going to learn 3-D animation and try to make money from it, you should use the software your employer uses. If you are independent, you use whatever trips your trigger.
Where I was at, we used Lightwave. Using Blender would have prepared me to do what?
I'm trying out Maya now, I'll dl RenderMan when I get the chance. I'm independent how, and can try out what I like. Don't like free shit? Don't use it, You should be complaining about that goddamn Blender program while you are at it. Y'all are
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I don't think it is a matter of anyone complaining about anything being FREE so much as people complaining about the rules and restraints associated with it.
Blender being open source and free to use for most anything, even commercial, vs the Pixar product that is "free", bu
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FREE so much as people complaining about the rules and restraints associated with it.
To be certain, there is a vested interest here on their part. People will learn how to use their software, and may be employment opportunities later on. So we really need to send the entire company to gitmo, maybe attach batteries to their nuts then dump them in Northern Iraq with "Allah sucks" written on their T-Shirts so that ISUL lops thei rnoggins off? Would that be a proper punisment for their perfidy?
So if is so very important that you have no restrictions, then by all means use Blender.
But let
Emacs versus vi again? (Score:2)
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Blender being open source and free to use for most anything, even commercial, vs the Pixar product that is "free", but only if you don't try to make any money with any creations YOU make from it.
Why are you comparing Blender and Renderman? It's apples and oranges, they aren't even the same kind of tool!
Renderman is now free of charge for non-commercial use, i.e. for evaluating it, creating your showreel or learning it so that when you move into the commercial space you are familiar with the industry tools. If these terms and limitations confuse you or upset you then just ignore this announcement and continue using something like POVRay or BMRT.
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Yes, but it's also an opportunity for many nerds to learn 3D rendering using a professional tool, for free.
Re:When did Slashdot become a press agent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not seeing the downside yet. You want to cultivate a pool of bright, dedicated people to work for you one day. You give them a tool - free of charge - for them to play with, develop their skills, maybe use the tool in ways no-one anticipated, let their creativity run free, maybe one of them will produce a product you'd be prepared to buy or license from them, and then offer them a job. Can you point me to a loser in this deal? It's not like a free software advocate, i.e. a Blender user, couldn't produce an impressive CV to show the hirers at Pixar, right? When you have to choose between 2 applicants of equal merit EXCEPT one them knows how to use your tools, and the other doesn't, who do you choose? Who do you choose when the Blender user is *slightly* better than the Renderman user? Of course, someone *really* dedicated will have skills in both packages.
Apple do it. Microsoft do it - although their motivation is less to get you to work for them, than it is to advocate the purchase of their software, wherever you work. There is (or should be) no legal reason that schools can't install free alternatives (and some do just that). They make their decisions based on a lot of factors - the perceived market for their students' skills, the bias of selection committees, ease of use, and outright bribery in some cases - but free software needs to compete on more than its merits, unfortunately.
Show me an easy installation package (LibreOffice ticks that box), a series of relevant templates that meets the teachers' needs (not sure, haven't seen any, yet), and interoperability, and I'll advocate free software. Sadly, it misses out badly on the third criteria. Fortunately, MSOffice since 2007 has been less usable than before, and the free alternatives have become more attractive. I've had customers select LibreOffice over MSOffice 2010/2013 when upgrading, because they just want the old interface (and they've "lost" the Office 2003 installation disc).
All that said, I'm going to try Renderman.
Re:When did Slashdot become a press agent? (Score:5, Insightful)
As if there weren't a bunch of free tools already?
Dammit, get on the phone and tell them we already have enough!
I think anyone serious about making money is going to be either invested in a proper professional package,
Perhaps people who don't know if they are serious might find out if they are? Perhaps creativity can come from noobs. I'll note that the 3-D animation output these days is starting to look a little self similar.
I've done 3-D work since the frame buffer days of Imagine and Video Toaster/Lightwave on the Amiga to Lightwave on OSX, and am now switched to Maya. All different interfaces. There is a real interest in knowing the software package you might use. My switch to Maya has been a bit painful, having to unlearn all those years of Lightwave. I'm still much faster in Lightwave. The learning curve is very steep with 3-D, and remains steep
So why on earth would a company release a free version of their software? Given the differences between interfaces, you just aren't going to make that switch in 5 minutes.
If you are a Blender user, you'd better be working for a Blender house, or be independent.
So Pixar needs to be condemned for releasing a free version of their software, allowing people to learn and use it.? There is no doubt that they really want people to use Youtube, so they can sneak a peek at the results. Next thing you know, a person who does good work is offered a job. Then they settle in very quickly. Why? Because they already know the software.
Only on Slashdot, will people turn that into some sort of bad thing.
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As if there weren't a bunch of free tools already?
There are some but few of industry quality so the defacto in the industry for the most part is Renderman.
I think anyone serious about making money is going to be either invested in a proper professional package, or has devoted to Blender et al.
Blender? How is Blender in any way an alternative or competitor to Renderman?
If Pixar wants some space here, it's simply because they want young talent to use their stuff.
Of course it is, that's why it's for non-commercial use. It's so you can learn a professional tool without having to pay for it when you aren't going to use it to make any money.
I guess the end result is, if you are young and want to maybe work for Pixar someday, learn this software, that way they won't have to train you and you're in.
Yeah because nobody in the CG industry except Pixar uses Renderman right?
Re:When did Slashdot become a press agent? (Score:5, Funny)
This is nothing more than a press release for some software. It's literally an ad for something made by Pixar published on Pixar's website.
Then what would you like to talk about that doesn't involve mentioning any products at all? If you go to a website that talks about "News for nerds, stuff that matters" then you are going to find that the stuff that matters to nerds will often be products that people sell (or in this case, give away). We can't all be MacGyver building our own supercomputers from coconut shells and earwax.
If a story doesn't interest you, or you think that it is just blatant consumerism, then feel free to go do something else like watch another inspirational episode of MacGyver from the MacGyver Complete Series [amazon.com] box set, available at a cheap price and with free shipping at Amazon.
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If a story doesn't interest you, or you think that it is just blatant consumerism, then feel free to go do something else like watch another inspirational episode of MacGyver
And lest we forget, Slashdot has tools that will let you custom tailor what you see, so people who think that Slashdot should only be allowed to show topics that they think should be shown can modify what they see, and be forever happy
Maybe gain enough extra time to watch MacGuyver and Three's Company.
Hard to imagine that somehow a software package - for free to boot - would ever be considered by anyone here as not appropriate for Slashdot.
We should direct those tools to Yahoo.
Re:"Free" with restrictions is not Free! (Score:5, Informative)
Non-commercial use? How the fuck is that "free"?
Because it doesn't cost money. It's an accident of the English language that Free as in no-cost, and free as in freedom, share the same word. In pretty much any other language, they are separate words. In French, this is the difference between "Gratuite" and "Libre"
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Oh it gets worse...
In order to download this you are required to sign up for their spam newsletter AND their forum as well as register it. So in exchange for your personal email and other personal info they are giving you this "free" tool...
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That's where sites like spamdecoy.net come in, use that email address and make up any other information they ask for...
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You understand that Pixar is now Di$ney, right?
The rest of it then makes sense. These are the people who bought a copyright extension of practically forever.
Whatever Pixar (and Marvel) used to be, they're now part of the evil empire.
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Knowing this, Pixar should have released it free as in free, not free as a slave to Pixar.
You realize you lost this argument about 3 posts back, and now are just mired in asshattery?
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Knowing this, Pixar should have released it free as in free
Nobody except FSF devotees considers something offered "free" to mean anything other than free of charge. If you interpret something offered "free" to mean free of restriction with an onus on the provider to also provide you the instructions and material associated to re-create a modified version of it then you're an idiot.
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The headline was bad, as it doesn't include the qualification.
It is a limited qualified version of free.
Free to learn on, is about it.
If you get good at it and show some talent you might be suitable for hiring by pixar.
I don't think there is anything of interest for programmers there either.
It is kinda cool that they have released this cross platform, but you can see how its a little self serving for pixar. Clearly they seem to want a cut of any profits that might be made from a small independent film maker
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Yup, this is a 'free for training purposes' kind of 'free'.
Good for training young raw talent in Pixar's pipeline. Not so good for most other people.
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Depends. Is it easier/quicker/more powerful than Blender? If so, then it is useful to hobbyists. Is it easier/quidker/more powerful than commercial rivals? If so, then it is useful to professionals.
If you personally have no use for it, you are not obliged to download it.
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Good for training young raw talent in Pixar's pipeline. Not so good for most other people.
Well, good for training young raw talent in the effects industry in general, really. Photorealistic Renderman was THE standard in big-budget movie effects, and it's only very recently that other renderers have make real in-roads.
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It's free as in the sense of a "free lunch".
I.E. it's not free.
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Non-commercial use? How the fuck is that "free"?
Per the "projects that do not generate commercial profits" description, major motion pictures can now use it free of charge thanks to the favorable slant of Hollywood Accounting! [wikipedia.org] What's not free about that?
Re:"Free" with restrictions is not Free! (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't pay money for it. Outside the FOSS world, when talking about products, "free" has a particular meaning which this satisfies perfectly.
The only thing you should be angry with is your understanding of the world.
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The amount of stalking you do is truly creepy. Do you copy all of apk's schticks?
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Non-commercial use? How the fuck is that "free"?
Drinking free beer, then you have to piss? That's not free, that's only renting.
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How so?
Say you're tinkering about, and come up with something totally awesome which goes viral.
Now, you either need to rebuilt it all from scratch, or you're not allowed to make money off your work.
If they're putting the restriction on the outputs that you're not allowed to make money from it ... you're better off starting with something which doesn't constrain you. Otherwise, you're mostly just wasting your time.
This just sounds like it's hobbling you for no good reason, and makes it impossible to break i
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How so?
Say you're tinkering about, and come up with something totally awesome which goes viral.
Now, you either need to rebuilt it all from scratch, or you're not allowed to make money off your work.
First world problem. And one of those awesome special cases some slashdotters just love.
For crissake, just buy a full version of the software if you are so gadamned having to make profit off something like that, and laugh all the way to the bank.
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Useful how? I find a hell of a lot of use for free for non commercial use. Heck it's even better than free for educational use which is not suitable for personal use.
Re:"Free" with restrictions is not Free! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it is not free enough to be useful.
Define useful. Is it useful to a young person who might like to experiment to see if 3-D work is for them?
hint (yes)
Is it useful to a student who is in a college class oriented to 3-D.
hint (yes)
Is it useful to someone who might be wanting to work for Pixar?
hint (yes)
Is it useful to someone who just wants to dabble?
hint (yes)
Is it useful for a commercial enterprise that wants to produce 3-D work?
hint (not so much)
Then again, a commercial enterprise that wants to produce 3-D work will almost certainly have a software suite already in mind, because that's what they were planning on using. 3-D work is not like hiring an accountant out of college and having them use excel, just like every other accountant everywhere else.
Your points, while at some level correct, are completely meaningless.
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Why would getting a bootleg copy help with the licence agreement? The free version produces non-watermarked files so no-one can prove that any given video was produced with a free version or a bootleg version. If you're going to commit theft or copyright violation or whatever your legal system calls it, it doesn't really matter which route you take.
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So you want everyone to respect the GPL but you don't want to respect other licenses? Really? If you are using it for commercial purposes then you can afford to pony up the cash.
He didn't say that he was pirating it, just that the restrictions on the free version greatly limited its usefulness. I'm not sure how you jump from that to him not respecting the license.
Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth... (Score:4, Interesting)
I want it ALL and I want it FREE and I want it NOW and I deserve the SOURCE (and yet, if they hadn't released it for anyone who wants to play with it, at no charge as long as they don't use it to make money, we wouldn't even be having this discussion).
In contrast to companies like Adobe that charge ridiculously exorbitant fees even for students and home hobbyists to use their tools to learn on, I'd say this sort of thing is a big step in the right direction even if it's not the miraculous free-everything-utopia.
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Eh? Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 (when I bought it) was priced around AUD$2500 retail - lets not talk about the stupid markup we have to pay, here in Oz. My daughter bought it for me on educational pricing for about AUD$450.
For that I got Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Audition, Illustrator, OnLocation, Encore, etc, plus add-on tools like Media Encoder, and a bunch of user content such as templates. Also access to Adobe user forums (worth it at twice the price).
I also got a 32-bit version of PPro 4 - "
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Why is it released for "non commercial use", why does it matter to Pixar if it gets used in "perrsonal projects that do not generate commercial profits"? Does it stop RenderMan working for Pixar if a human or a commercial entity makes money from using it?
It requires a big team of senior engineers in mathematics and computer science to create and support something like RenderMan, so it's not unreasonable that they ask money for it.
The idea is probably that hobbyists (many of whom wouldn't have enough spare money to buy it anyway) can get familiar with the software, and then Pixar can sell the software to commercial use where the actual bucks are made. For a fully commercial tool I see this being a pretty nice deal.
Even then the real license costs just $495 p
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It requires a big team of senior engineers in mathematics and computer science to create and support something like RenderMan
RenderMan is pretty nice, but check out Slender Man [wikipedia.org].
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Even then the real license costs just $495 per seat, which is cheap. You can easily recoup that investment.
It used to cost a lot more than that, but if you consider the time you need to invest into learning working with it to get serious results, the money seems almost like a minor issue.
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Why is it released for "non commercial use", why does it matter to Pixar if it gets used in "perrsonal projects that do not generate commercial profits"?
Erm... maybe because Pixar make good money by selling RenderMan to the makers of films like Titanic, Star Wars I-III and the Lord of the Rings. RenderMan is the single most important rendering package in Hollywood at the moment, it would be a loss of millions.
It keeps working for you if someone makes money off it, guys. It still solves your necessary problem. If RenderMan didn't exist, you wouldn't have a job, and Pixar would not exist. So even if everyone else is "leeching" form your work, you still get to have Pixar do what it does and make money.
If RenderMan existed only to produce the kind of visuals you see in Pixar productions, it would be a much smaller and simpler package. Pixar doesn't do photo-realistic giant space-monsters stomping on green-screen live actors... but RenderMan does.
Pixa
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Erm... maybe because Pixar make good money by selling RenderMan to the makers of films like Titanic, Star Wars I-III and the Lord of the Rings.
IIRC, Industrial Light & Magic has a perpetual licence to use PRMan for free. Pixar, you may recall, used to be part of Lucasfilm. Of course, now Disney owns both.
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What? They are making and supporting a tool used to create and you're comparing them to vandals a thieves? Are you asking why they want to make money? Are you suggesting they change business models?
I can't understand your mindset.
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During the industrial revolution, manufacturers invented wonderful machines to make their factories more efficient, thus making it easier to produce goods at a competitive price-point. If they gave away the plans to their machines, they would still be able to keep doing what they were doing... but they would lose their price advantage, so they kept the designs to themselves. This was a loss to society, and thus was the "patent" born. By protecting the invention and allowing the inventor to charge for its us