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RenderManShaders
From Odwiki
RenderMan performs all shading using programmable shaders which are written in RSL (Renderman Shading Language). There are several different shading contexts which can be invoked during the rendering process.
[edit] What are Renderman shaders?
A DisplacementShader is used to displace geometry prior to rendering. A SurfaceShader is used to compute the color of a surface. A LightShader is used to compute illumination from light sources. An AtmosphereShader is used to modulate the resulting colors of a SurfaceShader. Typically this computes atmospheric effects.
When generating photon maps, PrMan doesn't use programmable shaders, but instead uses one of several pre-defined photon materials.
[edit] Generating RenderMan Shaders from within Houdini
Houdini can genererate RenderMan shaders by way of VOPs. Most VOPs in the shading context have equivalent Mantra and RenderMan definitions so often its possible to easily build the equivalent shader network for either renderer by using the exact same nodes. RenderMan has different DataTypes however, so there would often need to be care taken to make sure that these DataTypes are correctly converted.
[edit] Links
A large number of shaders may be found at the RenderMan Repository
