Advanced Rendering Interface

On Sunday, December 22, 2002, at 10:17  AM, Philippe C.D. Robert wrote:

> Hi,
>
> while working on the new, simplified foundation of the 3DKit I'm 
> getting more and more convinced that what we really need is an 
> API/language which gives us great flexibility w/o limiting us to a 
> particular gfx implementation or pipeline. As a consequence I am 
> interested in a RenderMan like interface to be part of the 3DKit. This 
> would simplify the API and implementation of the RenderKit itself, 
> moreover it would ease the design of backend renderers - all this has 
> to be investigated more carefully, though.
>
> I'd like to hear your opinions about this, let me know if it fits into 
> your ideas and plans for the 3DKit.

I read the RenderMan FAQ and I'm still a bit unclear on the exact 
nature of the RenderMan system. I'll have to read some more documents. 
The key seems to be the API/RBI. Does the language involve the 
production of geometry as well as the submission of triangles and 
shader instructions? Is the model data maintained by the renderer and 
accessed/modified through the use of the API/RBI? If so, that really 
changes my understanding of the best way to organize things, but I can 
see that it would allow for many improvements to the performance. 
Perhaps you don't intend to go quite that far. Please expand on how you 
would manage models.

Are you thinking about defining a new shader language as well?

Brent Gulanowski
--
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