RenderMania - About RenderMania

Firstly a disclaimer :o)

It think it may be a good idea saying straight off that I do not have any special access or priviledges to any big production/software houses - any information I have has come from freely available sources on the internet such as the RenderMan newsgroup at comp.graphics.rendering.renderman and the BMRT egroup or websites such as the BMRT website or The RenderMan Repository. I can strongly recommend checking these sources out yourselves. Very rarely is the information exclusive (although I welcome any you may have - email me at the usual address :o)

I am also not the world authority on RenderMan, but I have been learning it for about 18 months now and hope I have become fairly proficient - the guys who definitely are though can be found on the RenderMan newsgroup!

My renderer of choice is BMRT - it provides a good, free test bed and the global illumination features are very nice to play with. However as much as I will support the development of BMRT I know nothing of the inner workings of Exluna and do not even pretend to know what their development or business plans are. So if you need support or bug fixing go to the BMRT webpage and check under contacts. The BMRT site is also the only place for completely up to date BMRT information and updates - I just echo what's already there :o)

For any other RenderMan complient renderers please consult the relevant documentation, or contact the author - most of them are only too keen to know about bugs so they can be removed as quickly as possible.

So what is RenderMania?!

Now that I have said what this site is not, it may be worth saying what it is all about! I set up Rendermania for two main reasons. The first was because I saw a need for regular news and information on RenderMan much along the same lines of other noteworthy sites dedicated to other 3D systems such as Flay.com which mainly serves the Lightwave community (damn good site too!). I also realised there wasn't a lot of information aimed at people using RenderMan at the low end of the industry - amateaur, student and low budget users - who can easily be put off by the percieved costs - both monetarily and time wise - learning the specification. Hopefully I can help in both these areas, by providing pointers to useful information and tutorials to guide you through some common aspects (although you may have to be patient with this one as Rendermania is run on a zero budget in my spare time - all donations gratefully accepted :o)

The second reason is purely mercenary! :o) I wanted to show off what I have learnt to a wider audience and hopefully get some money out of it at some point. At the moment I am in the final processes of finishing off an Imaging Science degree in England - and Rendermania.com seemed to be the perfect vehicle to show off and get noticed. If you want to see some of my renders just look in my Gallery section - I'm especially proud of my forrays into high dynamic range imaging with BMRT. My CV (Resume) is also available online for your viewing pleasure.

I must be doing something right anyway as I am getting about 200 hits a day at present (December 2000) from around the world from Professional companies and individuals - many repeat visitors - so I must be doing something right! Of course I plan to make Rendermania even better in the future and any help the RenderMan community can give me will be very much appreciated.

If you have any queries, comments or suggestions about the website please don't hessitate to get in touch by email at simon@rendermania.com or click on the link to my discussion board on the menu on the left. And please remember to check regularly as I update all the time!

thank you

Simon Bunker (webmaster)
December 2000