RenderMan/RIS and the start of next 25 years by Mike Seymour.
From the post:
At SIGGRAPH last July, Pixar celebrated 25 years of RenderMan (see our story here). Today the company has announced new breakthrough technology, a new commitment to R&D and massive pricing changes including free access to RenderMan for non-commercial use. Ed Catmull, President, Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, along with Dana Batali, VP of RenderMan Products, Chris Ford, RenderMan’s Business Director and the Pixar RenderMan team have introduced sweeping changes to the way RenderMan will be developed, sold and the very latest technology that will ship before SIGGRAPH 2014 in Vancouver. This is clearly the start of the next 25 years.
The new product is a combination of RenderMan Pro Server and RenderMan Studio. There will now be one product, used by artists or on the farm, and movable between the two. The new RenderMan has a powerful bi-directional path tracer and serious new technology from Disney Animation, which underlines a new unified approach to rendering from the House of Mouse – the amazing powerhouse that is Disney today.
….
If you appreciate high-end graphics, you owe it to yourself to read Mike’s post and watch the videos.
And if you want to try the software, you have to appreciate the simplicity of their license:
There is only one RenderMan and the free non-commercial RenderMan is exactly the same as the commercial version. There are no watermarks, no time limits, and no reduced functionality. The only limitation is that upon acceptance of the EULA at initial installation, the software is to be only used for non-commercial purposes. We want to keep it very simple, and as importantly, RenderMan highly accessible.
Enjoy!