RenderMan

For most RenderMan compatible renderers you will find following shader types:

• Surface Shaders: Surface shaders are attached to all geometric primitives and are used to model the optical properties of materials from which the primitive was constructed. A surface shader computes the light reflected in a particular direction by summing over the incoming light and considering the properties of the surface.

• Light Source Shaders: A light source shader calculates the color of the light emitted from a point on the light source towards a point on the surface being illuminated. A light will typically have a color or spectrum, an intensity, a directional dependency and a fall-off with distance.

• Volume Shaders: Volume shaders modulate the color of a light ray as it travels through a volume. Volumes are defined as the insides of solid objects. The atmosphere is the initial volume defined before any objects are created.

• Displacement Shaders: Displacement shaders change the normals and/or position of points on the surface and can be used to place bumps on surfaces.

• Imager Shaders: An imager shader manipulates a final pixel color after all of the geometric and shading processing has concluded.

A good source for RenderMan shaders is the following web page:

http://www.renderman.org