Raghavachary S. Rendering for Beginners. Image Synthesis using RenderMan

Focal Press, 2004, -385 p.This is an introductory-level book on RenderMan, which since its inception in the 1980s has continued to set the standard for the creation of high quality 3D graphics imagery.
The book explores various facets of RenderMan, using small self-contained RIB (scenedescription) files and associated programs called shaders.
There are three threads interwoven throughout the book. First, 3D graphics rendering concepts are thoroughly explained and illustrated, for the sake of readers new to the field. Second, rendering using RenderMan is explored via RIB files and shaders. This is the main focus of the book, so nearly every chapter is filled with short examples which you can reproduce on your own, tinker with and learn from. Third, several of the examples present unusual applications of RenderMan, taken from the areas of recreational mathematics (a favorite hobby of mine), non-photoreal rendering, image-processing, etc. Take a quick look at the images in the book to see what I mean. I also use these examples to provide short digressions on unusual geometric shapes, pretty patterns and optical phenomena.
Here is how the book is organized:
Part I consists of chapters 1, 2 and 3 that talk about the 3D graphics pipeline, RenderMan and RenderMan’s scene description format called RIB (RenderMan Interface Bytestream).
Part II is made up of chapters 4 and
5. Here we cover RenderMan’s geometry generation features and transformations.
Part III comprises chapters 6, 7 and
8. Chapter 6 covers the basics of manipulating cameras and obtaining output. Chapter 7 explains ways in which you can control RenderMan’s execution. Chapter 8 is about coloring, lighting and texturing, topics collectively referred to as shading.
Part IV (chapters 9 and 10) wraps things up by offering you suggestions on what to do next with RenderMan and listing resources to explore.
A different way to present the materials in this book might have been to classify them along the lines of Hollywood’s lights/camera/action/script. Chapter 9, What’s next?, lists an alternate table of contents based on such an organization.Rendering
RenderMan
RIB syntax
Geometric primitives
Transformations
Camera, output
Controls
What’s next?
Resources