VEX and SHOPs in Apprentice have all these nice and ununsed Renderman nodes. Wondering, sence BMRT is free, can it be uised with Apprentice. Latest BMRT is lighter version of Entropy (minus GI and radiosity), so would selecting Entropy in Mantra ROP work.

Also, Entropy is DEAD. Thats D-E-D dead. Killed, gone, passed away, history, a happy memory. Looks like Larry Gritz(God bless his soul), sold Exluna to nVidia, and settled with PIXAR. The casualty of the situation is Entropy. Too bad, it looked damn good. I got a beta test of it under MAX, and even shorter glint with Maya on ‘War Against Chtorr’. RIP.

Dave Rindner

The obvious answer is no. Because, if it did, then the rendering wouldn't be limited to 640x480 or enforce the houdini logo. That would defeat the whole purpose of a non-commercial, free edition.

Anyhow, if you search on the mailing list archives, various people have used the full version of Houdini to render using BMRT, Entropy, RenderDotC, etc. via Houdini's RIB output.

Those renderers are mostly public free and open source. I wish I knew more about PRMAN rendering. As a non-programming type 3d modeler, I can use renderers with GUI, such as Mantra, MayaRender, BRAZIL, Lightwave. But PRMAN renderers, I find confusing.

DaveR

Actually David, renderman isnt that tough to use. All you need is a command line to launch a render. As far as configuring shaders you can use a great free app called shaderman that lets you build shader networks much like houdini. Shaderman gives you a swatch on each tile in the tree so you know what you're creating at every stage. And with Houdini Master, you have a complete renderman GUI right there. Much more flexible than Brazil. However, those brazil renders are yummy.



http://www.dream.com.ua/thetool.html [dream.com.ua]
http://www.renderman.org/RMR/ [renderman.org]