Ayam Files

[readme.txt - 15. Jan 2025]

This directory contains Ayam and Pixie set up to to work together, as this
is one of the harder combinations of Ayam and a RenderMan renderer to set
up successfully, especially on Windows.

The purpose of this combined distribution is to enable image rendering with
Ayam using a RenderMan interface compliant renderer in the most simple way.
Just unpack and go.


Usage:
======

Double click on "start.bat" to start Ayam.

For your first rendering, just create a sphere by clicking on the
corresponding icon and select one of the
"View/Quick Render"
or
"View/Render"
menu entries.
Your rendering appears in the corresponding view window.

"Quick rendering" is set up to use the stochastic hider, this fast
rendering algorithm does not support reflections, refractions, or
raytraced shadows.

"Rendering" is set up to to use the slower raytracing hider, enabling
raytraced reflections, refractions, and shadows.


Bonus content of this distribution:
===================================

The shaders directory contains all shaders normally distributed by Pixie
and Ayam in compiled form leading to a good starting point of available
materials without the immediate need to learn to write shaders.

In addition, there are scenes that demonstrate how to set up Ayam to use:
o displacement mapping - displace.ay
o raytracing to simulate glass - raytrace.ay
o raytracing to create shadows - shadows.ay
o raytracing to create soft shadows - softshadows.ay
with Pixie.


Notes:
======
o this installation of Ayam is using* the already existing "ayamrc" file
  from the distribution directory and _not_ the one from the users home
  directory; this ayamrc file contains vital preference settings wrt.
  direct rendering from views and shader parsing; do not remove or reconfigure
o this installation is also using its own environment scene file "env.ay"
  containing pre-configured Root object tags and RenderMan interface options;
  do not remove or reconfigure
o the TmpDir preference is set to ".", temporary RIB files will appear here,
  but will also be removed on orderly shutdown of Ayam


* reading from _and_ writing to