Over the past 15 years, movie audiences all over the world have witnessed the emergence of one of the most revolutionary tools ever created to aid in the creation of films, the use of Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). Through the use of CGI, filmmakers have transported us to distant places, put us right in the middle of very dangerous shots, and introduced us to several “synthetic” actors, some of which were so convincing that they made you forget you were staring at a careful creation by a team of fantastic artists and technicians—a team that manipulates data that at its core is nothing but a bunch of ones and zeros.

None of these effects would have been possible without the use of 2D painting, 3D modeling, and animation software in conjunction with a rendering program that transforms 3D data into finalized frames for film. Of all the available rendering programs (which are also referred to as rendering engines) available today, there is only one that can trace its roots to the first CGI elements incorporated into a film. Pixar’s PhotoRealistic RenderMan (PRMan) was the first, and for a long time the only, commercial implementation of the RenderMan Interface Specification [pixar]. Audiences were dazzled by the genesis effect sequence on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which marked the first use of CGI in a film. They were flabbergasted by the stained glass knight from Young Sherlock Holmes, the first CG character ever in a film, and sat completely in awe when that first brontosaurus walked into frame on Jurassic Park. Visual effects would never be the same. Photo-Realistic RenderMan, or an earlier version of it, was used to render those CGI elements. In those early days, the only studios that had access to PRMan were ILM and its spin-off company Pixar until it became a commercial product in 1989. Back then, the price tag for a license of PRMan was astronomical. Therefore, only the big studios were capable of using it for generating special effects.

Years have passed and new rendering engines have hit the market along with more accessible 3D software. This has created a fertile market for smaller boutique shops that, even though they are incapable of handling big jobs (400 plus shots), are creating fantastic work within very reasonable timeframes and budgets. Even with the introduction of new rendering engines, PRMan is still the film industry’s most popular renderer, and the RISpec is slowly becoming the format of choice, or at least supported by several other renderers. Within the past five years, a vast number of new RenderMan-compliant renderers have become available, and most of them offer a number of the features found in PRMan at a much smaller cost. This means that the rendering technology that was once only available to the big studios is readily available to everyone who has the will to learn it. Learning RenderMan and the RenderMan Shading Language (RSL) is a great career investment. There is usually a shortage of knowledgeable RenderMan TDs and with the decreasing prices of software, things don’t look as if they will slow down soon.