It's one thing to translate 3DS's triangles to RIB polygons, and it's another
to write a RenderMan shader that can reproduce all the material and texture
mapping properties of 3DS. So far, every 3DS to RIB translator I've seen,
including my own, only translates the polygons. Even still, that's helpful if
you simply want to move the models to a RIB editor and re-apply other shaders
there…
John: I played around with Renderman and RIB files a few year back before 3DS
came along. Although, the renderer is the highest quality in the world (all
movie houses and special effects ultimately render with Renderman) it is
difficult to work with specially on the PC platform. As someone mentioned
already, you need a lot more than a simple RIB conversion to get the most out
of Renderman. But if you still must use it then call Pixar to see what they
have.
-Reza