Installing RPS on OS X
Installing RPS on OS X
Introduction
This document describes how to install RenderMan Pro Server on your Macintosh.
Licensing Information
Before installing, a basic understanding of Pixar license types, and how to retrieve a license is helpful.
Installing with PKG Files
RenderMan Pro Server for OSX is distributed via pkg package files.
- RenderManProServer-version-osxflavor.pkg - The RenderMan Pro Server rendering toolkit.
Users may also need to install the PixarLicenseServer, provided as a separate pkg:
- PixarLicense-version-osxflavor.pkg - The Pixar license server; it only needs to be installed on the machine designated as your license server.
The flavor string includes the common distribution, e.g. Lion, the gcc/icc versions, and the microprocessor instruction set, e.g. i686. Putting them all together provides, for example, an OSX Lion package named RenderManProServer-19.0-osxLion_gcc44icc121.x86_64.pkg.
Each .pkg file is independent of each other, and may be installed separately. As mentioned, the License Server package needs only be installed on the one machine that is designated as your license server.
GUI-based Installation
RenderMan Pro Server is installed using the Mac OS X installer. The programs, in their entirety, are contained in a single pkg file (unzipped from a .tgz/.tar bundle). The installer can open and install this package from a Downloads directory, your desktop, or wherever it resides on your Mac.
To Install RenderMan Pro Server
Start the Installation
Double-click on the RenderManProServer-version-platform.pkg (e.g. RenderManProServer-19.0b4_1345948-osxLion_xcode4icc121.x86_64.pkg) to start the installation.
Important
Due to changes in the OS X security protocols, users on 10.8.x (Mountain Lion), and users on 10.7.x (Lion) who have installed Gatekeeper will see a warning and be unable to proceed with the installation when opening the package by double-clicking. These users can, instead, right-click (or control + click) on the package file and select Open; this will still cause the warning to appear, but with an Open button that can be clicked, allowing the installation to proceed.
Introduction
After double-clicking on the installer package, you will be greeted by an introductory screen. Please click Continue to proceed with the installation.
License
Next is the Software License Agreement. You can print or save this information, or just read it, then click Continue. A new window will appear and ask you to agree or disagree to the terms. If you disagree, click disagree, and the installer will quit. If you click Agree the installer will proceed and you will be bound to the terms of the license agreement, whether you read it or not.
Select a Destination
The installer may require that you select a disk upon which to install the software, but it is also smart enough to skip this step if there is only one viable destination. If you must choose, please do so, wisely, then click Continue to continue. You will be asked to authenticate yourself. Please note that you need "Administrator" privileges to install the software.
Installation Type
If this is the first time you are installing RenderMan Pro Server, you will be asked to click Install to proceed with the installation. You can also opt to choose a different installation location from this screen.
Installation
Note: As mentioned in the licensing documentation, near the end of the installation a licensing application will run. There is one major difference on OSX: the installer checks to see if a pixar.license file is already present in the root location, and will forego opening LicenseApp if pixar.license is present.
If you are installing on multiple machines you may not want to repeatedly close the LicenseApp on each machine. Because the installer will check for the existence of /Applications/Pixar/pixar.license, you can easily copy that file into position on a new machine before starting the installation.
Finish Up
The installation is hereby complete. Go ahead and click Close. Now you can start rendering.
Command Line Installation
The software can also be installed via command line using a terminal window.
Installing to the default location
To install the software to the default location, first change to the directory where the .pkg files are located, and from a root shell type:
> installer -pkg RenderManProServer-version-osxflavor.pkg -target /
For example:
> installer -pkg RenderManProServer-19.0-osxLion_gcc44icc121.x86_64.pkg -target /
Installing to a drive other than /
To install the packages to a different drive, the / target of the default path can be replaced. For example, to install to a second disk /Volumes/HD2/, from a root shell type:
> installer -pkg RenderManProServer-19.0-osxLion_gcc44icc121.x86_64.pkg -target /Volumes/HD2
Preventing the LicenseApp application from running
As mentioned in the licensing documentation a licensing application will automatically run near the end of the install process. If you are installing on multiple platforms you may not want to continually dismiss the LicenseApp application.
You can prevent the application from launching with a command line option. From a root shell type:
> installer -pkg RenderManProServer-version-osxflavor.pkg -target /
Setting Up the User's Environment
Environment Variables
There are several environment variables that users should set. These can be added to your .cshrc (or other startup) file, like so:
setenv RMANTREE /Applications/Pixar/RenderManProServer-19.0
or, if you are using bash:
export RMANTREE=/Applications/Pixar/RenderManProServer-19.0
The following environment variables are recommended:
- RMANTREE - establishes the location of your PRMan distribution.
- RMANFB - establishes your framebuffer display program.
- path - establishes the searchpath for the execution of programs, this probably already exists, so it is just a matter of adding $RMANTREE/bin to your path.
- RDIR - speficies a directory where additional configuration files can be found, e.g. a site-specific rendermn.ini file.
Systems administrators may also choose to use the PIXAR_LICENSE_FILE variable to point to their software license, in lieu of using the defaults, or may point to an arbitrary location for their license via the /licenseserver preference in their own custom, site-specific .ini files, and absolutely should not add that preference to a factory-shipped .ini.
RenderMan for Maya users should consult the RenderMan for Maya documentation for more information about RMS-specific environment variables.
Help
If you require further assistance, please check out the RenderMan Support Forum. Note that registration is required.