what's rendermonkey?

[gjspear]

is rendermonkey from ati the same as cg from nvidia. or is it something different.

 

[lifeguard1999]

From Tom's Hardware:



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RenderMonkey

Last but not least, I will only briefly mention our first glimpse at ATi's 3D development tool suite, 'Rendermonkey.' This software can seamlessly be used as a plugin with any of the current 3D-development suites, generating vertex and pixel shader code. Rendermonkey is very comfortable to use for developers as well as artists, and should make the development of titles that use vertex and pixel shaders a lot easier than it has been thus far. Additionally, ATi includes a compiler for Renderman and told us that another compiler for Maya is in the works. Rendermonkey will be available from ATi's website once it has officially been beta-released at SIGGRAPH next week, and it will be free of charge. What we heard is that it is currently regarded as much more useful than NVIDIA's pseudo-standard Cg.

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From Extreme Tech:



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In addition to debuting two new VPUs, ATI also took the occasion to showcase a new development tool they've dubbed RenderMonkey, which is a kind of Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that allows immediate visualization and manipulation of vertex and pixel shader code from several languages, and can compile down to Direct3D vertex/pixel shader assembly language, and also to OpenGL vertex and fragment shader language. One of the larger challenges with programmable shaders, despite the promise they hold, is getting them into the hands of 3D artists in a form where the artists can easily work with and manipulate them. Graphical tools and 3D modeling app plugins have been few and far between, although tools like Alias Wavefront's Maya actually now have their own shading language that some artists have begun to use. But several crucial pieces of this puzzle have been missing up until now. With its Cg initiative, one of the things nVidia is providing is plugins for four of the major modeling tools. The arrival of RenderMonkey represents yet another step in the ongoing quest to get shader-enabled content out there to drive content forward into this brave new era, and hopefully sell a few million new VPUs in the process.

RenderMonkey is an Open XML representation of shader effects, and describes all of the effects' parameters. The tool's format is extensible through a plugin architecture. RenderMonkey can take all of the parameters for a given vertex or pixel shader effect and turn them into slider controls that allow an artist or programmer to tweak them in real time. This key feature lets you see the net effects immediately. It will doubtless help to reduce artist frustration in the gaming universe. Better still, RenderMonkey's ability to understand DX9 High-Level Shader Language, RenderMan, Maya Shading Language and VEX could also potentially reduce the amount of time movie CG houses need to produce their effects. The IDE also has useful features like color-coded syntax, and a compiler that helps track down erroneous shader commands. The arrival of tools such as this, coupled with the ever-growing installed base of DX9 hardware is hopefully setting the table for DX8 and shaders to finally have their big splash arrival this holiday season.

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You can also download the SIGGRAPH 2002 presentation from :



SIGGRAPH 2002 Presentations

 

[Stremik]

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RenderMonkey can take all of the parameters for a given vertex or pixel shader effect and turn them into slider controls
that allow an artist or programmer to tweak them in real time.This key feature lets you see the net effects immediately.
It will doubtless help to reduce artist frustration in the gaming universe.
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Now, why would I want that? If I wrote that GIVEN shader I may as well tweak all the parameters in it without help from ATI.
Better yet.If I'm writing a shader myself this means I allready have all needed software to compile that shader.What the heck
do I need this RenderChimp for?

QUOTE
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Better still, RenderMonkey's ability to understand DX9 High-Level Shader Language, RenderMan, Maya Shading Language
and VEX could also potentially reduce the amount of time movie CG houses need to produce their effects.
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Ha! Four languages out of the box! Now I've seen everything!
Other companys spend years developing some plugin that outputs to one renderer and still can't get it right but ATI, with it's
poor to the core drivers.... I guess they know something everybody else don't.