System Requirements

Hardware

RenderMan now requires CPUs capable of running the full SSE4.2 instruction set. A minimum of 4GB of RAM is recommended. Your scene data may require more.

For A.I. Denoising in "it", Optix 7 supported hardware, Nvidia Maxwell and newer.



Operating System

Linux: CentOS/RHEL 7.2+

Windows: Compatible with Windows 10 and 8.1

Apple OSX: Compatible with 10.13, 10.14 and 10.15* (*we do not support 10.15 using the installer. You must manually install the packages after the main installer has downloaded them)



Bridge Products

Maya: Compatible with 2020, 2019, 2018 Update 3+ (we do not support 2018.1 or 2018.2 due to Autodesk changes)

Katana: Compatible with 3.5, 3.2, 3.1, and 3.0

Houdini: Compatible with 18.0, 17.5, and 17.0 production versions (Indie available on the recent release of 17.5 and 18 Houdini)


Building Plugins and Tools

Plugins for RenderMan: Custom RenderMan plugins now require C++14 in order to be compiled and must be compiled with gcc 6.3 / Visual Studio 2015 / Xcode 10

You can find similar requirements in the 2018 VFX Reference Platform.



The Download Menu. Choose the main installer highlighted here at the top. Versions below are useful for sys admins creating deployments.



On Centos/RHEL, the RtxSVG.so plugin requires the compat-expat1 package be installed.


Installing RenderMan With a Floating License

Pixar's RenderMan is best installed with our integrated installer. Using your forum login and password and the serial number from your purchase, you can use the installer to automatically download the license and install both the license server software and the applications, plugins, and examples.

Only one machine on your network needs to have the Pixar License Server installed, and that machine can be the same machine you install the applications and plugins on. However the machine that runs the license server does not need to have the RenderMan application itself installed. It is recommended that you first run the installer on the machine you want to designate as your license server, before running the installer on other workstations.

For further details, visit each section for the operating system you're installing on:

Linux

Windows

macOS

Installing RenderMan With Node-Locked Licenses

Pixar's RenderMan is delivered as a single installer. The steps to install a Node-locked licenses are the same as the floating-license however there will be no need to install or run the floating license server.

Using your forum login you can use the installer to automatically download the license and install your node-locked licensed copies of the RenderMan Software.


Installing for Large Sites


RenderMan installation is automated and installs to your system drive by default. Other system variables are automatically set to allow:

If you choose a non-standard installation location you may be required to customize these environment variables yourself to complete the installation.


While it may be possible to install and use RenderMan on a different operating system or even a different version of the supported operating systems, it is not recommended. It may be unstable and a general headache, therefore it is not supported for the sanity of everyone involved.