How does RenderMan Studio fit into my Maya pipeline?
RenderMan Studio can be used in one of two ways: A) The “standard” RenderMan Studio ($2,000) including a “pro” version of RenderMan for Maya as the interface to a remote render farm using RenderMan Pro Server. It does this by generating RIB files that are sent to Renderman Pro Server via the Alfred dispatcher that handles all the job scheduling. Renderman Studio also includes the Slim shader creator/editor that enables artists to set up custom shaders in a GUI, and the “it” image compositing tool. B) The “standard” RenderMan Studio as described above, ($2,000) plus an additional internal RenderMan Embedded Renderer ($1,500) for either render preview or final output. (Exactly the same way the renderer works within the standard RenderMan for Maya) For final rendering this is more integrated, but it is not as efficient or configurable as the batch RenderMan Pro Server as it has to run within the software limitations and memory footprint of Maya.
