{3}Delighted with Affogato
Affogato, Wiki says, is a coffee-based beverage or dessert, which also refers to the act of topping a drink or dessert with espresso. Interesting. I have no idea about the ritual, really, but no problem. It’s not about that Italian affogato. It’s about Affogato, a RenderMan interface for Softimage|XSI developed by Rising Sun Pictures to translate a bunch of shots for Charlotte’s Web.
The good news is, it’s the first renderman interface to XSI to be available for public, as now being shared as open source. Being an interface, it requires a renderman compliant to render a scene, and thankfully, it couldn’t be more delighting as 3Delight is right there at the other end of the pipeline (again, it’s free for a single license). It’s been long time anticipated, as Renderman implementations have always been the first choice in big VFX studios since the very beginning of CGI for very obvious reasons.
Despite its great level of customization, Affogato looks no more than a black box for most regular end-users. It’s certainly not a single click rendering workflow. I once had a discussion with Raffaelle Fragapane —the very guy who was responsible for a large part of shots in Charlotte’s Web—in XSIBase, and he suggested that it’s a production proven interface (well, he’s been using it in real productions). It’s a basic bridge but nonetheless as powerful as any RenderMan-interface in philosophy.
One of main advantages using Affogato is its capability to produce RIB (RenderMan Interface Bytestream). In other words, it’ll need RIB-hacking to bring the best out of it. All I can get is gray phong for now, until I get into tinkering. Raffaelle was right about the importance of this RIB-hacking habit. It may be hard for a script-blind like me, but as an all-time coffee man, having affogato in the pipeline won’t be too far off.
