Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!mips!pacbell.com!tandem!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Subject: Photo Realistic Rendering (Re: What is...) Message-ID: <1991Apr27.002509.12326@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 27 Apr 91 00:25:09 GMT References: <3921@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 41 lou@flipper.Corp.Sun.COM (Lou Ordorica - SunU Field T & D) writes: > Photo Realistic Rendering? It's a term that keeps popping up in > magazines and product brochures, especially those of the M*c variety. It means what it sounds like, pictures so realistic that the eye can't decide whether a camera or a computer created the image. This implies, in general, no consideration of rendering speed is allowed to take precedence over a consideration of rendering accuracy, and the most scientifically valid light, texture, etc. models are used. As a result, for any practical application, Photo Realistic Rendering is limited to still images until the hardware speeds go up roughly a millionfold. (It can typically take 24 hours of highest speed computer time to render one image.) > Does the Amiga support PRR via 3rd party software or hardware? Yes, as does any computer; just keep throwing in more software and RAM and waiting longer. The Amiga cannot _display_ such images currently; screen resolutions need to go to about 3K by 4K, and pixel depths to a minimum of 24 (and for most good algorithms perhaps double that), before the eye is fooled into ignoring the computer artifacts. You can nevertheless use the Amiga, just as any general purpose computer, to compute the images to data files, and then arrange to have the images transferred to film for a visible image. > On the same note, is there support for Pixar's Renderman algorithms > that seem to be rapidly becoming a rendering standard? "Renderman" _is_ a standard; Pixar's algorithm to perform the actions standardized in the Renderman applications programmer's interface are proprietary and likely to stay so forever; they are a valuable corporate asset. There have been local mutterings to collectively implement the Renderman interface, but nothing has come of them; it is a _huge_ project of the kind that takes highly skilled talent, Kent, the man from xanth.