The RenderMan Artist Tools on

OS X

Introduction

In order to bring the RenderMan Artist Tools to OS X for the first time quickly and efficiently, it was decided to use the X 11 windowing mechanism. As a result, there are certain elements of the Artist Tools that are not in the strictest sense, Mac-like. That is, some things that Mac users might take for granted are not available. On the other hand, there are certain aspects of OS X that will be unfamiliar to users who are experienced with the Artist Tools on other platforms, particularly in regard to environment and path setup. The following is a summary of those things — Caveat MTOR, as it were.

RAT and X11

• Users can drag and drop (using the middle mouse button) within the X11 windows (e.g. from one Slim palette to another), but cannot drag and drop to or from other windows (e.g. the Desktop).
• Keyboard shortcuts are accessed using the “control” key rather than the “Command” key (e.g. Undo is "control + z" rather than "Command + z").
• Bringing windows to the front or focusing windows is not, strictly speaking, as straightforward as one might expect, requiring the user to explicitly bring the target window to the front with a mouse-click or two (e.g. clicking on an application's icon in the dock will not “maximize” windows that have been “minimized”, one must click directly on the minimized window).

Environment Variables

The basics of configuring your environment are covered in the installation documentation, however, there are a few additional particulars regarding environments and OS X. Basically, although adding $RMANTREE/bin to your path is all that you need to do to be able to use the various RenderMan Pro Server programs via the command line (e.g. prman, netrender, txmake, brickmake, etc.), the path to the Artist Tools programs is a little more involved. The path to Alfred, for example, would be:

	$RATTREE/bin/alfred.app/Contents/bin/alfred

Needless to say, adding separate entries to your path for each of the Artist Tools could prove a bit cluttered and cumbersome. There are two alternatives, however, each a different variation on creating an alias.

• Create an “alias” entry in your resource file (e.g. .cshrc):
  1. Open your resource file for editing with your favorite editor (vi, emacs, etc.).
  2. Insert an alias entry. If you are using bash it would be something like:

         alias foo="$RATTREE/bin/bar.app/Contents/bin/bar"
     

     If you are using csh it would be:

         alias foo $RATTREE/bin/bar.app/Contents/bin/bar
     

     (NOTE: “foo” is the name of the alias and “bar” is the name of the program.)
  3. Save/write/source your resource file.
• Create a symbolic link to the program in your $RATTREE/bin directory:
  1. cd to the $RATTREE/bin directory.
  2. Create your own personal symbolic link via the following command:

         ln -s foo.app/Contents/bin/foo bar
     

  3. Look in the $RATTREE/bin directory with the finder; you will see your symlink, called “bar”.
• You will now be able to run the aliased/linked program from the command line by typing “bar”.
• NOTE: you do not need to call your alias or your symbolic link “bar”. Indeed, you may call it whatever you wish, including the actual name of the program (e.g. your symlink for Slim can be called “Slim”).