The RenderMan Interface - Paul Bourke

Using RIB File structuring conventions
These conventions are designed to facilitate communication between modeling/animation
systems and network rendering management systems. In a distributed environment
many decisions relating to the final appearance of rendered frames may need to be deferred
until the selection of a particular renderer can be made. A render management
system should provide the ability to tailor the scene to the resources and capabilities of
the available rendering and output systems. Unfortunately, a modeling/animation system
cannot, in general, assume that any particular render management services are available.
The following strategies should thus be adopted with the goal of making a RIB file reasonably
self-contained and renderer-independent:
• Any nonstandard shaders, optional RenderMan features (motion blur, CSG, level of
detail) or textures should be flagged as special resource requirements.
• Renderer-specific options or attributes should be specified according to the special
comment conventions described below.
• Display-dependent RenderMan options should not be included except to indicate to
Render Managers that such options are mandatory.
D.1.2
RIB File structure conventions
Following is a structured list of components for a conforming RIB file that diagrams the
“proper” use of RIB. Some of the components are optional and will depend greatly on the
resource requirements of a given scene.
Scope
Indentation indicates the scope of the following command.
Preamble and global variable declarations (RIB requests: version, declare)
Static options and default attributes (image and display options, camera options)
Static camera transformations (camera location and orientation)
Frame block (if more than one frame)
Frame-specific variable declarations
Variable options and default attributes
Variable camera transforms
World block
(scene description)
User Entity (enclosed within AttributeBegin/AttributeEnd)
User Entity (enclosed within AttributeBegin/AttributeEnd)
User Entity
more frame blocks
This structure results from the vigorous application of the following Scoping Conventions:
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