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3.1 Using the RIB Renderer - renderdl

renderdl reads a file containing scene description commands and "executes" them. Such files are commonly called RIB files (RIB stands for RenderMan Interface Bytestream). There is two kinds of RIB files: ASCII encoded RIB files and binary encoded RIB files. A binary RIB file is smaller than its ASCII encoded equivalent, but an ASCII RIB file has the advantage of being editable in any text editor or word processor.

To render a RIB named `file.rib', just type:
 
% renderdl file.rib

It is possible to render more than one file:
 
% renderdl file1.rib file2.rib file3.rib

In this case, renderdl reads each file one after the other, and the graphic state is retained from one file to another (in other words, the graphic state at the end of one file is the starting graphic state for the next file). If a file cannot be found, it is simply skipped. This behaviour is useful to separate the actual scene description from rendering options. For example:
 
% renderdl fast.opt scene.rib
% renderdl slow.opt scene.rib
These will render the scene `scene.rib' twice but with different rendering optionts (note that `fast.opt' and `slow.opt' are normal RIB files). `file.opt' contains options for high quality rendering such as low ShadingRate and high PixelSamples, and `slow.opt' contains low quality (speedy) option settings.

If you do not specify a file name, renderdl will wait for you to enter scene description commands. This feature enables you to pipe commands directly in renderdl. For example, to enter scene description commands interactively (which is not really practical), do the following:

 
% renderdl
Reading (stdin)
<enter commands here>

If you wish to pipe the content of `file.rib' in renderdl, type:

 
% cat file.rib | renderdl

renderdl options are described in the following sub-section.

3.1.1 Command Line Options
3.1.2 The `.renderdl' File


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