e.g: can I make an animation movie using only moonray? what other tools are needed? and what knowledge do I (we) need to do that?
Offline being the opposite of realtime. I.e. a frame taking possibly hours to render whereas in a realtime renderer it must take fractions of a second.
Maybe think of it like a physical camera in a movie. And a very professional one for that. But then a camera doesn't get you very far if you consider the list of people you see when credits roll by. :]
Similarly, at the very least, you need something to feed the renderer a 3D scene, frame by frame. Usually this is a DCC app like Maya, Houdini etc. or something created in-house. That's where you do your animation. After you created the stuff you want to animate and the sets where that lives ... etc., etc.
Moonray has a Hydra USD delegate. That is an API to send such 3D scenes to a renderer. There is one for Blender too[1]. That would be one way to get data in there, I'd reckon.
Hope that makes sense.
[1] https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/BlenderUSDHydraA...
A scene is made of objects, light sources, and a camera. The renderer calculates the reflection of light on the objects' surfaces from the perspective of the camera, so that it can decide what color each pixel is in the resulting image.
Objects are made up of a few different data structures: one for physical shape (usually a "mesh" of triangles); one for "texture" (color mapped across the surface); and one for "material" (alters the interaction of light, like adding reflections or transparency).
People don't write the scene data by hand: they use tools to construct each object, often multiple tools for each data structure. Some tools focus on one feature: like ZBrush for "sculpting" a mesh object shape. Other tools can handle every step in the pipeline. For example, Blender can do modeling, rigging, animation, texturing and material definition, rendering, post-processing, and even video editing; and that's leaving out probably 95% of its entire feature set.
If you are interested at all in exploring 3D animation, I recommend downloading Blender. It's free software licensed under GPLv3, and runs well on every major platform. It's incredibly full-featured, and the UI is excellent. Blender is competitive with nearly every 3D digital art tool in existence; particularly for animation and rendering.
The source files contain the algorithms/computations needed to solve various equations that people involved in Computer Graphics research have came up with to simulate various physical - optical phenomena (lighting, shadows, water reflections, smoke, waves) in the most efficient (fast) and and usually photorealistic sense for a single image (static scene) already created (character/landspace models, textures) in a program.
Since there are various different techniques for the simulation of one specific phenomenon, it's interesting to peek into the tricks used by a very large animation studio.
The renderer is only one piece of the entire animated movie production pipeline.
Modeling -> Texturing ~ rigging /Animation -> post processing effects -> rendering - > video editing
That's a simplified view of the visual part of producing a short or long cgi film
It is a lot of knowledge to aquire so a production team is likely made of specialists and sub specialists (lighting?) working to a degree together.
The best achieving software, especially given its affordability is likely Blender. Other tools lile cinema4d, Maya and of course 3d smax are also pretty good all in one products that cover the whole pileline, although pricey.
Start with modeling, then texturing, then animation. Etc. Then dive into the slice that attracts you the most. Realistically you aren't going to ship a professional grade film so you may as well just learn what you love, and who knows perhaps one day become a professional and appear in the long credit name list at the end of a Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks hit.
In animation (and VFX), editing comes at the beginning. Throwing away frames (and all the work done to create them) is simply too expensive. Handles (the extra frames at the beginning and start of a shot) are usually very small. I'd say <5 frames.
Also modeling & texturing and animation usually happen in parallel. Later, animation and lighting & rendering usually happen in parallel as well.
MoonRay is a renderer that creates photorealistic images of computer-generated 3D scenes, using a technique called Monte Carlo ray tracing. MoonRay can be used as part of an animation project, but it is not an animation tool itself. Instead, it is a rendering engine that produces the final images that make up the animation.
To create an animated movie using MoonRay, you would need to use other tools to create the 3D models, textures, and animations that make up the scenes in your movie. Some examples of these tools include Autodesk Maya, Blender, and Cinema 4D. These tools allow you to create and manipulate 3D models, animate them, and add textures and lighting to create the final look of your scenes.
In addition to these 3D modeling and animation tools, you would also need to have a basic understanding of computer graphics and animation principles. This includes concepts such as keyframe animation, camera movement, lighting, and composition.
Once you have created your 3D scenes, you can use MoonRay to render them into high-quality images that can be used in your final animated movie. MoonRay can render images on a single computer, or it can be used with cloud rendering services to speed up the rendering process.
In summary, MoonRay is a rendering engine that produces photorealistic images of 3D scenes created using other 3D modeling and animation tools. To create an animated movie using MoonRay, you would need to use additional tools to create the scenes and have a basic understanding of computer graphics and animation principles.