RenderMan will be free for non-commercial usage !

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#1

"
With the upcoming release RenderMan will be free for non-commercial usage.
Examples of non-commercial use-cases include evaluations, personal learning,
experimentation, research, and the development of tools and plug-ins for RenderMan.

For more information :
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/DP25849
"

#2

Guess they’re feeling the squeeze of not being the only dog in Hollywood anymore :wink:

#3

heheheh @m9105826 , thought the same.
Arnold gave them a bit of a kick to start looking at their business plan again :wink:
L.

#4

I think Ed even says something about the fact that they are aware that there are new good and fast solutions out there… so at least it is nice the honesty :slight_smile:

btw I use 3delight at work (rm compliant) and to be honest I am not a big fan of it.

Sure it is fast, it is good, has a lot of nice features. But I feel like it is an army to kill a fly in most cases and it is incredibly complex to use. I am sure in a really big production environment has its big plus, but in a small studio it is not the right choice IMHO.

#5

That’s nice, I’ve used 3Delight a little bit but I’ve always wanted to try out Renderman.

Hopefully someone will continue the work on Matt Ebb’s exporter to include support for Renderman as well.

#6

great! now we have a good render engine! finally!!!

#7

so i can render images but if i want to render videos and upload them to youtube then i have to turn off monetizastion… because that would be seen as commercial use wouldn’t it?
then they are asking you to notify them on their e-mail address… if say. i were to notify them about that video what would then happen,
would they then start charging me money? how would they stop from people using it for commercial purposes when they wouldn’t come to know?

#8

Ah, the classic “what if” scenario; there always seems to be some critical hypothetical quandary (read: perceived loophole) whenever anyone does something generous while asking people to respect the honor system.

There really is a simple answer, believe it or not; read the EULA, send customer support an email if you have specific questions about usage and licensing restrictions (they actually respond to emails from non-paying customers, it’s true), them go about your business with integrity.

#9

Off topic: I just noticed they dropped the price of RenderMan to $495!!! Whaaaaaaat?!?

#10

hehehe Good Arnold kicked their ass :smiley:

#11

yep… major studios are paying million of dollars to change from render man et similia to arnold. For something like this to happen the difference of ease of use and quality must be quite huge…

#12

render man was very behind with features and photorealistic lightening it was all old fashion way. but very fast…

Really a lot of studios swaped for Arnold or V-ray… for example… the Flight with denzel washington was rendered in vray.

renderman changed after monster university… and now it is back in game :smiley:

#13

Cool this new and for price tag is now below from competitor ! And it’s nice to have free for non-commercial too, they will integrate RIS a new engine for global illumination like path tracer and bidirectional path tracer with VCM, surely one of better that i would like to try it :slight_smile:

More info from fxguide

#14

I wonder if their commitment to open source projects could possibly lead to a renderman funded blender integration? far fetched perhaps but… hmm

#15

well surely a nice integration with blender would be mostly appreciated! Despite my thoughts about 3delight, I still think it is an awesome engine.

#16

Serious question, I’m not all that familiar with the features of renderman anymore. The last time I looked at it must have been 10 years ago. Is there any good reason someone like me (mostly interested in still renders, product viz, and such) would want to learn Renderman? What are its main advantages?

#17

From what I understand it’s main advantage is also it’s main issue: customization. Supposedly you can make pretty much anything with Renderman, if you know how to use it and you’re good at writing C++ shaders. That’s the part that has been a problem for freelancers and hobbyists. It takes a lot of time, knowledge, and troubleshooting to use Renderman properly, as it’s a system designed to be used in big facilities with a dedicated support staff.

#18

THIS IS THE COOLEST NEWS right now for me!

  1. It can be fully implemented in Blender! (with plugin) :smiley:
  2. Because there is NO difference between the free and commercial version, but only an agreement EULA.
  3. There is FULL access for the backend, so Blender can be FULLY integrated with PRman
  4. The new VCM PRman engine is BIDIRECTIONAL and BOY FAST! And heavy multithreaded also on the GPU!
  5. It is CLEAN :smiley: Noisefree, and with REYES in combination a trillion-displacement-joy!
  6. Beacause of the open backend it will be also EASY to implement into Blender.

Gosh i REALLY want this so bad right NOW :-D!

#19

Cool. I started getting into 3Delight about a 18 months ago and for most of that time I figured I was the only person in the world doing “Blender to Renderman” stuff - maybe this news will spawn so new and interesting things. :slight_smile:

take care

#20

Yay competition!

I’ve always wanted to play around with Renderman. The last version I used was from circa 2002. Not exactly cutting edge.

I doubt this will have much of an effect on the ultra-high-end, since the costs and issues there are very different than for hobbyists and small shops. But this could give Renderman a much bigger slice of the small market, and lord knows, there’s still a fair amount of money to be made there.