The RenderMan Artist Tools consist of a suite programs which work together, forming a render pipeline from Alias's Maya to PhotoRealistic RenderMan, PRMan. If you're unfamiliar with all of the tools included in the RenderMan Artist Tools, or their general purposes, you might want to read a little more about the tools themselves before getting started here: About The RenderMan Artist Tools

The intention of this course is to give a general overview of how to use the tools, of how all the tools work together and interface with Maya.Many elements of the suite of tools will be presented, sacrificing depth for the sake of breadth. Readers are encouraged to refer to the greater whole of the documentation to follow up on the material presented here . . . 

1- Start Maya
 
Start up Maya. Either by clicking on the icon or by using the command line.
 

2- Load MTOR
 
Check that the MTOR plug-in has loaded in Maya. The "RenderMan" menu should appear in the hotbox. It should also be found in the Main Menu Bar, under the  "Rendering" menu set.

Note: If it is not there, see if the plug-in  has loaded . . .  Window-> General Editors-> Plug-in Manager

Load "mtor.so" & "mtorsubdiv.so" from the plug-in list. If the plug-ins do not appear in the list browse for them under the /usr/local/rat/bin/ directory.
(If the problem remains unresolved see the installation documentation.)

3- Set Project Location

Ok, Maya and MTOR have loaded. We have an empty scene, but before we do anything else, it's time to learn a good habit: Set the"Project Location"!

Having the correct project location is the first thing that should be checked when creating a scene in Maya. To do this, (from Maya):  File-> Projects-> Set 
A window will open. Set the project location to your working project directory. (Note: This will remain the projection location for all future projects, or until it is changed.)

Changing the projection location will take effect in the next Maya file to be opened, or when a new scene is started. When the project needs to be changed for a scene, always set the project correctly before opening the scene associated with it. 

MTOR will use this project location to place renderings and search for shaders and other file data. Setting the correct project location will greatly aid file management.
 

4- Render an Image

Now in order to have an image to render, we'll create some simple geometry and some lights. Quickly build something similar to the scene on the right: one plane, one sphere, and two directional lights. (Don't worry about getting an exact match.)
Now let's render the scene with RenderMan, simply go to the RenderMan menu:

• RenderMan-> Render

The image should render into a new window.  (Note: MTOR, by default, will render the view from the active window. Make sure the window to be rendered is the window that is active.)

We'll now take a closer look at what's going on during rendering.
 

5- Submitting a Render Job to Alfred

When the Render command is given, a couple things happen.

MTOR first converts the scene into a file format that the RenderMan renderer understands, a RIB file (short for RenderMan Interface Bytestream).

After MTOR creates the RIB file, it hands the file to Alfred, to  distribute the rendering job over a network.

When Alfred gets the job, the Alfred window pops up (see left). This Alfred window is a big queue, which can handle lots of rendering jobs. From here, jobs can be paused, prioritized, and deleted. The blue line shows the progress of an active job.
 

6- Keeping Tabs on Your Renders

In addition, another window, the job window, can be opened by clicking on the black triangle of a job in the Alfred window (as scene in step 5).

From the job window, we can find out even more information regarding the status of individual jobs. Here, each block represents a different part of a job, and the green block denotes what's currently active.

More information about what's happening with a particular node can be found by left clicking on the blocks.

Render again from the RenderMan menu, and watch the job complete in the job window.
 

7- The Image is Displayed in "it"

After MTOR has prepared the rendering job and Alfred has distributed the rendering job, it is time for the the image tool, "it", to display the rendering.

A window pops up, with a rendering of our scene. The image has been rendered to "it". (Alternatively, images can also be rendered to file. We will do this later.)

Right click in this window. "it"gives us a number of options. The image can be saved, re-rendered, or zoomed into, among other things.
 

8- "it" Supports Multiple Images

Now right click on the image window and bring up the main it window.

• Right click-> it

The main "it" window will appear. In "it" we have a notion of "catalogs". Catalogs allow a collection of images to be added to them. The image we just rendered is the first image of this catalog, "Catalog". More images can be added, and scrolled through within the image window. Even more catalogs can be added.

Notice if you render again more images will appear in the catalog.
 

9- Using Shaders

So we've rendered a simple image. MTOR has used default shaders to describe the geometry. That is only so useful. We have much more control over the appearance of the image by attaching RenderMan shaders to the objects in the scene. One of the great strengths of RenderMan is its powerful procedural shading language. 

We'll need to add some shaders to the scene before we attach them to the objects. This is where we'll use another member of the RenderMan Artist Tools, Slim. With Slim, we'll use a palette to organize and attach shaders.
That's what we'll do next.
 

10- Creating a New Palette

First create a palette with Slim. To this palette we'll add shaders, which  we'll attach to the objects in the scene. 

• RenderMan-> Slim-> New Palette

The palette appears. 

Now import a shader into the palette. So from the palette menu:

• File-> Import Appearance

The "Import Appearances..." window will open.

12- Creating Shaders

The palette now contains "Rsmetal".
We've successfully imported a shader into a palette, but that's not the only way to get a shader. Shaders can also be created, with Slim.

To demonstrate this, we'll create a velvet shader.  File-> Create Appearance-> Surface-> Velvet
Depending on your preferences, the velvet swatch will either appear empty or as a black square. To view the velvet icon, select the velvet by clicking on it, and then render the icon . . . Appearance-> Render Icons
Now your palette should look similar to the one on the left. Double click on velvet. The velvet shader window will open . . .

13- The Appearance Editor

This is the appearance editor for our velvet. These parameters can all be changed, but we'll just change the color . . . yellow is fine. Close this window.
 
 

14- Attaching Shaders

The shaders must now be attached in this scene. To accomplish this, first select the plane. Second, select the  shader, rsmetal. Now attach the two. To attach the shaders, from the palette,

• Appearance-> Attach

(or right click on the shader, rsmetal, and select "Attach").

To double check that the shader is attached, deselect all objects. Pick rsmetal, and see what objects it's attached to.

• Appearance-> Pick Objects

Now, using the same methods, attach the velvet shader to the sphere.

15- Rendering Selected Area with "it" 

Next we'll re-render the scene, but we'll just re-render part of it, to demonstrate another feature of it. 

Often it's only necessary to render part of a scene . . . when adjusting shaders, for instance. For this scene, we'll just render the ball.

First, click and drag a box around the sphere, in the image window, as seen here on the left. Now render. Make sure the correct window is active.
 

16- Deselect the Render Area

Only the area defined by the box is rendered onto the old image. To get rid of the box, click once in the image window. 

17- Rendering an Image to File

So we've rendered to "it", but you'll want to render directly to file.

To render directly to a file, open up the render globals. RenderMan-> Render Globals
The RenderMan Globals window opens. Here many different aspects of rendering can be controlled. In this introduction to the globals we'll concentrate on just a few key parameters. 

Bring up the tab that is displayed in the image on the left. 

First, we'll set the image to render directly to a file. The parameter, "display server" (denoted by the large "A") determines the file format of the rendering. Select the arrow and pick a different file format, "tiff rgba". Now Alfred will render to a tiff file, with an alpha channel. 
(Note: the file formats beginning with "it" render to the it window.)

Second, notice "B". Here you can enter a filename for the rendering. 

Third, note "Display Resolution". If the display resolution is set to zeros, the resolution of the active Maya window will be used. If a specific resolution is desired, enter that instead.
 

18- Viewing a Rendered Tif

Now render again.

Open the job window, as was described above. Watch the job render. When the green box goes gray, the image is done.

The image is placed in your rmanpix directory under the project location.
$PROJECT/rmanpix/filename.tif

The image can be opened from the command line, via "sho". To use "sho" get in the directory with the image:  sho filename.tif

More conveniently, the image can be viewed directly from the Alfred job window. When the rendering job is done, click on the "image box", which should be the box with the thick black line, the last box completed. Left Click-> Frame.0001_Done_(chaser)-> 
sho pathname/rmanpix/filename.tif
  The image should display in "it".

Well done.
This concludes the general introduction to the RenderMan Artist Tools. We've rolled over a lot of ground here.

Take some time experimenting with the RAT, search for more info on specific questions in the documentation, take the Slim Crash Course, or start the tutorials: try the general introduction or try the individual courses.

For more information refer to :
Where to Go From Here?