Soul © Disney/Pixar

Integrators take the camera rays and return results to the renderer. For the main integrators these are estimates of the light energy (radiance) from the surfaces seen from the outside along the rays. These main integrators are responsible for computing the overall light transport, that is, light that travels from a light source through your scene from object to object (or through objects and volumes) to reach the camera. Interior integrators assist in specialized cases by handling the light within surfaces or volumes. We provide three main production quality integrators, though users can substitute their own.

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PRMan includes example RIB files and shaders demonstrating the integrators, at the heart of RenderMan. These examples can be found in the /lib/examples/RIS/scenes directory of your RenderMan Pro Server installation, in the /spt and /vcm subdirectoriesthe PixarRenderMan-Examples-XX.X/scenes/integrator directory. Some of the examples are discussed in detail in the pages below. Whether or not you're inclined to open up a terminal window and render along, these pages serve as a broad overview of the features and capabilities of PRMan.

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