Getting Started

You can follow along with the tutorials using the tutorial scene files.

If you're a new user to the RenderMan Artist Tools, you may want to take a look at the RenderMan Artist Tools Crash Course, which is a quick introduction to the workflow. There's also a Slim Crash Course for designing shaders with Slim.

For a more in depth look of workflow related issues take a look at the tutorial collection Intro to RAT and the collection of Individual Tutorials.

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Where to Go From Here?

After completing the tutorials you'll be ready to start digging into the documentation. The search engine is a huge help for picking out specific little tidbits. But there are some general places to start looking for info, depending on your interests . . .
 

What's New?

Want to learn more about what's new and improved in the latest version of the tools? All of that information can be found packed into the Release Notes. You'll find concise descriptions of all of the new features, and for more in depth info there are many links pointing directly into the main documentation. The release note are always the best place to start to see what's new!

Have a question or problem?
renderman.pixar.com -- The RenderMan support site has FAQs and moderated discussion forums. Post questions and get answers direct from our development team and from other users as well, or just see what others have written in about.   

Building Shaders with Slim
Many of the concepts used in the tutorials transfer directly to building shaders with Slim. Take a look at Shader Design where you'll find lots of helpful information about the right way to build shaders, along with a number of helpful Shader Recipes, where all sorts of shader networks are described. If you want to read more about the many core functions provided with Slim you can read more about Slim's Core Functions. One of the best ways to learn how to build shaders is by picking apart some examples, and a number of Great Examples can be found online in Pixar's depot . . . right under the Shader section. Of course, a grasp of general shader concepts is essential -- from what a shader is to "shader space" to the notion of using computed maps -- and all that information is available under Shader Concepts, a highly recommended read.

Using MTOR's Advanced Features
There're lots of special features encompassed by MTOR, including direct support for many unique abilities of PRMan. You can explore many of these features under Modeling Tools & the Feature Guide. MTOR provides support for Subdivision Surfaces, Particle Systems, CSG, and Fur Generation.

Modeling and Rendering with PRMan
Efficient Modeling -- Learn some tricks to building models for PRMan. 
Render Configuration -- This can be a little dense, but this is where you'll find all of the "knobs and buttons" that you can use to control your render jobs. Find out how to control a wealth of settings, from quality to job distribution, and pick up some good strategies for rendering with PRMan, too.

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Tutorial Scene Files

A collection of tutorial files has been provided to accompany the tutorials. These tutorial files are included in the installation of the documentation set you are reading. The tutorial files are ready to use as a Maya project. Probably the best way to work with the files is to copy the directory containing the tutorial materials to the location of your Maya projects and work from there, using it like a regular project.

You can find these tutorial files in this documentation set, under this path (relative to where you documentation is installed) . . . 
/ratdocs/rattutorials/mtor/

Simply find the location of the documentation and then copy the "mtor" directory, to your Maya projections location. This directory contains all the materials you will need to complete these MTOR tutorials. Note: Maya 4.5 is required for some tutorials.

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