Overview

About MTOR
MTOR provides a seamless interface between Alias' Maya and Pixar's RenderMan.  MTOR  automatically translates a wealth of data from Maya, including Maya's subdivision surfaces and particle systems. MTOR, however, is much more than a simple file format converter, offering many advanced features for the management of complex scenes to allow a high degree of scalability. Automatic RIB archiving, conditional shader attachment and enhanced scriptability allow a high degree of control.

The MTOR Plugin
The most important MTOR components are mtor.so and Slim. These interactive tools are the primary means by which you attach RenderMan attributes to objects in your scene. They are seamlessly integrated with the Maya environment by way of the Maya API architecture. MTOR also employs Alfred to cause RIB files to be renderer on multiple (local or remote) processors. In addition to translating geometric primitives, MTOR provides tools to attach and edit RenderMan shaders and establish connections between Maya attributes and RenderMan shader parameters. In addition, MTOR automates the process of depth, environment and reflection map computation and allows complete control over parameters governing this process.

Maya Support
MTOR supports many different aspects of Maya. MTOR will automatically translate everything from lights to particle systems to maya subdivision surfaces. MTOR can inherit many settings directly from Maya automatically, while also providing enhanced control over your renderings with RenderMan shaders. With that said here's a rather comprehensive list: MTOR's Support for Maya Attributes.

Batch Rendering
An additional program, mtor, provides script-based control over most of MTOR's capabilities. Additionally, it supports a mode in which RenderMan attributes and Appearance parameters can be edited without launching the Maya app. Out of the box, mtor is primarily used in conjunction with Alfred during batch renderings. If you wish to integrate MTOR scripting into your production flow or are interested in a level of control beyond the standard scripts output by the MTOR plugin, this may be of interest.

More MTOR
As you delve more deeply into MTOR, you'll begin to appreciate some of these powerful features: 

Support for RenderMan Shaders 
Rich Collection of Standard Looks and Shaders
Interactive Shader Generation (with Slim)
Shader Parameter Editing and Animation
Custom Support for Slim Templates (for shader developers)

Control over RIB Contents 
Interface for Arbitrary RIB Archiving with AutoArchivers
Scriptable RIB Generation 
Plugin Architecture for RIB Generators

Control over Rendering Jobs 
Use Computed Maps for Automatic Shadow and Reflection Computations
Efficient Render Tuning Workflow with the RenderMan Globals
Sophisticated Network Rendering Job Control (with Alfred)
Scripted Compositing Integrated Into Design Phase (with "it")

The MTOR Menus

The menus of the RenderMan Artist Tools can be accessed from the main Maya menus or from the Maya Hotbox. These menus offer a wide varieties of tools and controls for setting up and rendering your scenes with PRMan.  

 Where do I go now, you ask? Well, we suggest one of the following:

• walk through the RAT Tutorials

• read the Slim introduction

• take a nice walk outdoors, followed by a bath, a warm glass of milk and a good night's sleep.

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MTOR and Slim Integration

When Maya loads the MTOR plugin, MTOR, in turn, launches Slim in server mode.  At this time a communication channel between the MTOR plugin and Slim is created and it is over this channel that MTOR and Slim communicate. Also during this launch phase a sequence of initialization and preferences files are loaded. The details of this process are discussed elsewhere but you should know that you can extend MTOR and Slim's scripting environments jointly (via TOR.ini) as well as independently (via mtor.ini and slim.ini).

Generally, Slim acts as an appearance server by responding to MTOR's queries about individual appearances.  Appearances are attached to Maya objects by MTOR via custom Maya attributes.  This topic is discussed in more detail in the MTOR docs. In this context, appearances are identified by their unique ID (an odd-looking collection of 16 characters) and it is this ID that MTOR uses as the basis for most Slim queries.  

To intercommunicate,  Slim and MTOR employ a simple RPC-like protocol through which flows standard Slim scripting commands.  The Slim Console window provides you with access to the same Tcl interpretter that MTOR sees and can be an invaluable tool for programmers and TDs as you develop expressions and Tcl procedures.

When Slim is started in server mode, the standard Slim hub window isn't presented.  Rather all Slim controls are provided by MTOR via its Slim menu, below. But before getting into the details of the Slim menu we should delve briefly into the mechanics how Slim data is stored in Maya scene files.

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