mcjRIBCook ( for the PC )

mcjRIBCook

mcjRIBCook is an exe [PC] meant to be launched from the command line or through a batch file.

mcjRIBCook.exe and the manual (the page you are reading) are in the zip file at the bottom of this page.

As you know, Daz Studio can output a scene as a RIB file, which can then be rendered using any Renderman compliant renderer ...

As you also know, 3Delight offers a free Renderman compliant standalone renderer

http://www.3delight.com/en/

once installed

when the "license server" is running

you can render RIB files by double-left-clicking on them

or by launching renderdl.exe which is usually located in C:\Program Files\3Delight\bin

If the compiled shaders ( .sdl ) referenced by Daz Studio's RIB files are not of the proper version

the 3delight renderer will complain, and use its own default shaders. The results are usually not good.

If you have access to the source code of the shaders (.sl) you could compile them using shaderdl.exe

which is usually located in C:\Program Files\3Delight\bin

RIB files are often gigantic. In a few seconds, mcjRIBCook can parse a RIB file and substitute RIB

commands and values

the best example is, substitute all the surface shader names for one of your choice

the list of substitutions to be performed must be placed in an "opts file"

It's a simple ascii text file, each line must be two columns wide,

the column separator must be one TAB character

SearchKey SubstituteValue

In the first version of mcjRIBCook, leading blank spaces were taken in consideration, in the new version they are not. Which means, you can specify "Surface" as a key, and all lines in the RIB file starting with "Surfaces" will be "hits" without regard for leading blank spaces.

The substitute value will be written with the proper number of leading spaces to preserve the indentation on the RIB file.

Format Format 1280 720 1

Surface Surface "ptc_write"

Display Display "temp.tiff" "file" "rgba"

here is an example of an opts file, the filename is optsPCld.txt. ( it's part of the mcjRIBCook package )

changes all the surface shader names to "ptc_write" preceded by the addition of 3 new attributes

changes the shaders search path from whatever it is, to the path of the rib file

changes the shading rate to 1.0

changes the Format to 1280x720x1

changes the output image name to temp.tiff

Option "searchpath" "string shader" Option "searchpath" "string shader" [ "&:.:${RIBDIR}" ]

ShadingRate ShadingRate 1.0

Format Format 1280 720 1

Surface Attribute "cull" "hidden" [0]

Surface Attribute "cull" "backfacing" [0]

Surface Attribute "dice" "rasterorient" [0]

Surface Surface "ptc_write"

Display Display "temp.tiff" "file" "rgba"

here is the command line to use mcjRIBCook and the opts file optsPCld.txt to process the file noowone.rib and produce the file noowonePtc.rib

mcjRibCook noowone.rib noowonePtc.rib optsPCld.txt

if you render the resulting file noowonePtc.rib it will "bake" a "points cloud" as explained here:

http://www.3delight.com/en/uploads/docs/3delight/3delight_43.html

the "points cloud" file can be enormous, a scene with 400000 polygons, rendered with shadingrate 1.0 can me 250 MB

Using a shadingrate like 20 produces much smaller point cloud files much faster

here is another opts file, the filename is optsPOcc.txt. ( also part of the mcjRIBCook package )

changes all the surface shader names to "ptc_occlusion"

changes the shaders search path from whatever it is, to the path of the rib file

changes the shading rate to 1.0

changes the Format to 1280x720x1

changes the output image name to TestOcc.tiff

Option "searchpath" "string shader" Option "searchpath" "string shader" [ "&:.:${RIBDIR}" ]

ShadingRate ShadingRate 1.0

Format Format 1280 720 1

Surface Surface "ptc_occlusion"

Display Display "TestOcc.tiff" "file" "rgba"

here is the command line to use mcjRIBCook and the opts file optsPOcc.txt to process the file noowone.rib and produce the file noowoneOcc.rib

mcjRibCook noowone.rib noowoneOcc.rib optsPOcc.txt

noowoneOcc.rib will render the scene using "point-based occlusion as explained here:

www.3delight.com/en/uploads/docs/3delight/3delight_43.html

I also provide the shader ptc_occlusion_tinted.sl which combines the occlusion darkness with the diffuse color of each surface

the opts file optsPOccTinted.txt is exactly like the previous one except that is subtitutes the surface shaders for "ptc_occlusion_tinted" and the output image is "TestOccTinted.tiff"

so you use it with:

mcjRibCook noowone.rib noowoneOccTinted.rib optsPOccTinted.txt

note that if the image is too dark, sometimes setting "clamp", 1, in the shader (then recompiling it ) may help.

if an object in the scene has faulty normals (the object is defined inside out) then changing the "hitsides" parameter of the shader to "both" can resolve the problem, possible values are "front", back", "both".

/* A simple surface shader to compute occlusion (a.k.a geometric

exposure) using a point cloud file */

surface ptc_occlusion_tinted(

string ptc_file = "default.ptc";

float bias = 0.01; )

{

normal Nf = faceforward( normalize(N), I );

Ci = Cs - occlusion( P, Nf,

"filename", ptc_file,

"pointbased", 1,

"bias", 1,

"clamp", 1,

"hitsides", "front" );

}