bedney@lanl.gov (Bill Edney) (05/03/91)
To All - OK, folks, here's the current scoop (which made me feel like a stoop). I just talked to a Lola Gill at Pixar (415-215-3480). Pixar will be releasing Renderman for the NeXT in June. It is with extreme disappointment that I must tell you all that, contrary to my previous messages, Renderman will NOT be bundled with OS 3.0 (at least for the time being). It will cost $2500 from Pixar. The only bright side to this is that if you have a NeXTdimension board, the i860 will indeed be able to shade in real-time (in what is to be called Interactive Renderman). I thought that bundling it would sell a LOT of NeXT machines, but I guess Steve decided differently. Down and out (another $2500) in Los Alamos - Bill Edney - Los Alamos National Laboratory "I don't speak for my employer and they don't speak for me. Kind of a nice arrangement."
thomsen@spf.trw.com (Mark R. Thomsen) (05/04/91)
In article <23077@lanl.gov> bedney@lanl.gov (Bill Edney) writes: > Pixar will be releasing Renderman for the NeXT in June. It is with extreme > disappointment that I must tell you all that, contrary to my previous > messages, Renderman will NOT be bundled with OS 3.0 (at least for the time > being). It will cost $2500 from Pixar. The only bright side to this is that > if you have a NeXTdimension board, the i860 will indeed be able to shade in > real-time (in what is to be called Interactive Renderman). I thought that > bundling it would sell a LOT of NeXT machines, but I guess Steve decided > differently. This has been a topic near and dear to my heart. From that day in January 1989 when Dan'l Lewin told me that NeXT is working 24-bit color, megapixel, Renderman, color printing, and a seemless path from then to the future I have been hooked. Renderman is fundamental to moving from the daisy wheel age of color graphics into the laser printer age (metaphor stretch). Dan'l left eventually, but back then he was an inner circle guy and I believed. Today I still believe in that vision - more so. Renderman is part of the surge forward and has been instrinsic to NeXT's long term plans. Some day it will be bundled. Some day. For now, NeXTdimension is essentially 2D color graphics ... pretty much like most graphics systems are used. Renderman is critical to 3D color graphics. When NeXT moves into 3D (which will be market driven and technology dependent to get cost reasonable) then I would bet Renderman will be there. Fortunately for them, SGI is confused on how to proceed and are not going to commit to Renderman. I thought, BTW, that Steve sold his shares in Pixar to Vicom last April. Vicom owns Pixar, right? Can anyone elaborate on this? Mark R. Thomsen P.S. "Bright side" and "shade" in the same sentence qualifies as a pun in my book. Wit on the network?