Welcome to RenderMan 21.0!

Welcome to RenderMan 21. This release introduces improvements to the previous RenderMan in very significant ways.

There are many additions: New lights and materials from Pixar Animation Studios. We've also added amazing new studio light filters, new patterns, and improved displacement. In addition there are changes to APIs and new APIs for the developers. Workflows have been greatly simplified and performance enhancements abound.

There have also been important subtractions:

Please note that the Reyes rendering architecture has been removed from RenderMan 21.0. RenderMan is now based on modern and improved pathtracing technology and C++ plug-ins. Scenes using old RSL lights, displacements, and imager shaders will fail to render or render black because of this change.


Please dive right into the release notes below for more detailed information on the rebirth of your favorite renderer!

New Features in 21.0

New Pixar Materials

New PxrSurface material used by the Pixar Animation Studios in actual production is now included! This includes solutions for all imaginable effects and are physically based but artist-friendly. You may also combine and layer these materials for added flexibility and artistic control.

New Pixar Studio Lighting

New studio lights from actual Pixar productions are also included to compliment the studio workflow and materials. Improved light filters developed in production are included with the studio lighting package. The lighting services API has also been updated and the new lights take advantage with vastly improved performance. Scenes with over 1 million lights render more quickly and easily!We also reintroduce an improved Portal Light for difficult interior lighting situations.

New Integrators

PxrOcclusion is a non-physical integrator that can easily and quickly generate occlusion renders for adding details in post compositing work. This integrator includes many of the controls artists require for tuning the look of their results.

Denoise Improvements

Continued improvements in performance of the Denoise feature improves speed and quality. Also, using Denoise with CUDA capable GPUs could reduce Denoise processing times compared to the CPU. Using the GPU requires CUDA 7.0 (compute capability 2.0 or later) and a capable graphics card with support. GPU denoising is enabled by default with an automatic fallback to CPU denoising if no compatible device is available.

Texture Baking

It's now possible to bake patterns into 2D textures or point clouds using RenderMan. This allows artists to simplify complex networks to a single result for rendering. This can improve performance by reducing the cost in evaluating these patterns. Point clouds may be converted to ptex as a post process.

Relative Pixel Variance

It's now possible to assign a different Pixel Variance threshold to individual objects to improve render quality on especially troublesome areas visible to camera rays.


PxrDirt is a new pattern made for artists wanting to create useful effects like procedural dirt maps or weathering. With useful controls and the new PxrBakeTexture pattern, artists can quickly generate and use results instead of hand painting maps.

Transparent Alpha

Shader writers can take advantage of a new feature to accumulate transparent alpha along the path. This allows compositors to use the semi-transparent alpha in later compositing. For example: A car render could composite the final render onto a background without having to "bake in" the background to the windows.

Keep Rendering

Recently introduced: the ability to mark a final render as a checkpoint. This allows the user to pick up a "finished" image and continue to render. Using either an .ini setting or a RIB option, with the later overriding the former, you can render a "completed" EXR with the option to continue as if it's a checkpoint. If neither is present it defaults to off. The final image will essentially be just another checkpoint, rather than a slimmed down image:

/prman/checkpoint/asfinal [bool]
Option "checkpoint" "int asfinal" [0|1]

Additional Features and Improvements Include

Important Differences


Reyes Rendering is Removed

RSL is Removed

EXR Orientation has changed

RiPoints as Spheres

Better Defaults for Rendering


Diffuse and Specular Depth defaults have changed

API changes

Miscellaneous Changes

Bug fixes in 21.0

Known Limitations

RenderMan Pro Server