Best editors to create RIB files

Coding
1

Hello Gentlemen,

I am studying how to create RIB files using the free version of 3Delight but I am not sure which is the best editor(hopefully free as to I can’t afford Renderman Studio yet) to use. I am a Maya/Mental Ray guy who wants to expand my skills over to Renderman. Any advice on this? Thanks in advance!

Michael Harants

2

Take a look at Cutter (http://www.fundza.com/cutter/about/index.html). Cutter was developed expressly for working with RIB/RSL files. The price is right, and it’s an excellent general purpose text editor as well. Goodness knows that I got plenty of use out of it in my VSFX classes. : )

Download link for the latest version -> http://www.fundza.com/cutter/installation/cutter.jar

3

Thanks Eric! Appreciate the response. I downloaded Cutter and tried to install it and I get an error that the .jar file is corrupt.

Just curious if you ran into any similar problems and found a work-around. I am running Windows 7 and I haven’t been able to find anything unique about my particular issue.

Thanks again brother for your help!

4

[QUOTE=Micharan;7209]Thanks Eric! Appreciate the response. I downloaded Cutter and tried to install it and I get an error that the .jar file is corrupt.

Just curious if you ran into any similar problems and found a work-around. I am running Windows 7 and I haven’t been able to find anything unique about my particular issue.

Thanks again brother for your help![/QUOTE]

It seems to be working properly for me (now that my paths are all sorted out). Did you create a .bat file in order to launch the jar? You cannot launch the jar directly (e.g. by double-clicking it). See the link below for detailed instruction. The short of the install process is as follows:

  1. Download the cutter.jar file http://www.fundza.com/cutter/installation/cutter.jar.
  2. Create a .bat file and place it in the same directory as the cutter.jar file. You can download the contents of the .bat file here.
  3. Next, make sure that your PATH variable in Windows (see the “full” instructions link below for other operating systems) contains the path to the Java bin directory. You can test this by typing “java -version” in a command prompt window that is pointing to a directory other than the java bin directory. If the version information comes back, you’re in good shape. Just run the .bat file and Cutter should start right up. *Otherwise if you receive an error, the path has not been set (or it has been set incorrectly). If you receive an error right-click the “Computer” icon on your desktop and select “Properties”. Then, click “Advanced system settings”. The “Systems Properties” dialog should appear (I’m on Vista, but I think the process should be nearly identical for Win7). Click the “Environmental Variables” button. In the “Environmental Variables” menu under “System variables” click the “Path” variable, and then click “Edit…”. In the “Edit System Variable” menu, scroll to the end of the “Variable value:” edit box and append the path of your Java bin directory preceded by a semicolon (e.g. ;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin). Confirm these changes. Verify that the path has been correctly set by typing “java -version” as before. If the version information is returned, the .bat file should now work.

Hopefully, this gets you up and running. : )

http://www.fundza.com/cutter/installation/installation.html

5

Eric,

Thanks again. You are a lifesaver. Appreciate the time you dedicated to helping me. I am up and running and loving Cutter. I was not aware of the .bat file and I was trying to double-click. Have a wonderful weekend and I hope to someday repay the favor. Take care!