RenderMan (RIB) export plug-in

User Guide > Translators and Exporters > Translators > Export plug-ins >

The ribExport plug-in adds the new file format RIBexport to the File > Export All options menu. This lets you export scenes created in Maya to the RIB (Pixar^® RenderMan^®) format.

The ribExport plug-in supports ambient, directional, point, and spot lights. Simple non-textured shaders are supported, although only the shader color is exported. All other shading attributes are ignored. Phong and Blinn shaders are exported as “plastic”; Lambert shaders are exported as “matte.” Per-face shading groups are not supported; only shading groups that are assigned to objects or object instances are exported.

When exporting Maya scenes into RIB, note that the # character is a special formatting character in RenderMan image names. To include a real # character in a RenderMan image name, you must use “##”. (See section 4.1.10 of the RenderMan user manual for information on formatting.)

The image name constructed by the ribExport plug-in includes the contents of the “imageName” attribute of the renderable cameras. If you want to include the special RenderMan formatting characters in an image, the imageName attribute is the place those characters should be placed.

NoteAutodesk provides source code for the ribExport plug-in as part of the Maya Developer’s Toolkit. If you install the Toolkit, you can find the source code in .../files/devkit/plug-ins/ribExport.cpp.

RIBexport Options

Single File Output: If Yes, all frames is written to a single .rib file. If No, all frames are written to separate .rib files.
Extension Padding: If the Single File Output option is off, this option specifies whether the RIB file extensions is padded with 0’s.
Geometry Motion Blur: Specifies if geometry motion blur information is written to the RIB file.
Pixel Samples: Specifies the number of samples taken for each pixel. This value is used for both the X and Y directions.