Installation Path Variables

You will need to set a few environment variables to get RfK up and running with PRMan and Katana. RfK looks for RenderMan on the $RMANTREE environment variable.  As long as $RMANTREE is set correctly, RfK will find the appropriate PRMan libraries and commands.  Katana finds RfK in the same way it would find any other plugin - through the $KATANA_RESOURCES environment variable.  The paths for these environment variables will depend on whether you install RfK/PRMan in the default locations or not.  

Environment VariableDefault Installation Paths
RMANTREE 
/opt/pixar/RenderManProServer-22.0

KATANA_RESOURCES 

/opt/pixar/RenderManForKatana-22.0-katana2.6/plugins/Resources/PRMan22

 

Default shader search paths for RenderMan match the default paths in the rendermn.ini file. If additional search paths are needed then you will need to set up the RMAN_SHADERPATH and/or RMAN_RIXPLUGINPATH environment variables to include your specific paths.

Output Path Variable
 

You can direct the render log output to another location if necessary using the following environment variable: RFK_REDIRECT_OUTPUT

Shader Discovery

During startup RenderMan for Katana will automatically load all "discoverable" shaders. Shaders are discoverable if they are found in a search path and (for non-OSL shaders) have an associated Args file.  The standard shader search path mechanism is used when searching for shaders with search paths specified either with PrmanGlobalStatements settings or environment variables:

 

ShaderTypeEnvironment VariablePrmanGlobalStatements attributeDefault Path
OSLRMAN_SHADERPATHoptions.searchpath.shader$RMANTREE/lib/shaders
Plugin (C++)RMAN_RIXPLUGINPATHoptions.searchpath.rixplugin$RMANTREE/lib/plugins

 

If both the environment variable and the attribute are set the resulting search path will be the union of the two strings.

Recursion

RfK will automatically recurse down a shader path to find shaders in subdirectories. By default it will recurse down 3 subdirectories. This is configurable using the shaderPathRecursionLimit setting in the RfK config file, config.xml.

Args Files

The args files need to be in an Args directory. See the setup in RMANTREE/lib/plugins for an example. Something like this:

RMAN_RIXPLUGINPATH directory:

$RMAN_RIXPLUGINPATH/pattern_remap.so
$RMAN_RIXPLUGINPATH/Args/pattern_remap.args


You can find out more about Args files in the developer docs download.