Rif Management

RenderMan for Maya has a User Interface for accessing Ri Filters (Rifs), under the Advanced tab. The UI displays a list of Rifs and allows you to add, delete, or rearrange the list. Rifs are applied globally to all rendering passes, but there's a checkbox for globally enabling or disabling Rifs.

Rifs are represented as RenderMan settings nodes, much like displays and passes. When you add a Rif, a new node is created and wired into a message array attribute on the renderManGlobals node. The order of connections to the array indicates the order in which Rifs will be applied, and the connections are taken care of via the UI.

The RLFInjector Rif

RfM's shader binding system depends on RenderMan Look Files (RLFs). These files use a Rif to convert the "nuggets" deposited by RfM into the final shader calls. The Rif ships as part of RfM and is invoked via a #rifcontrol call in the RfM's RIB files. It is used whether internal or external rendering is selected. Put another way, to render RIB files generated from RfM you need to have the RLFInjector Rif.