Rendering for Beginners: Image synthesis using RenderMan

This book is a perfect introduction or bridge between the other RenderMan books. The author does an excellent job at explaining RenderMan with tons of examples that you can get from his website. The book is easy to read and covers everything you need to get started. If you find the Companion just too "programmy", and the Advanced RenderMan book too... advanced, this book has the right balance of explanation and code samples... After reading this book, you will be able to go back or move to the other books without the fear of being lost in computation as the author really took the time to explain the why and how of things. Just to be picky: some of the RIB files from the site could be leaner (some Maya crap here and there), and some of the shaders could not work because of missing files. Also, if you do not have PRMan, install a copy of the other free renderers (3delight/Aqsis/Pixie); that will show you how they differ, as some of the code will work straight with one renderer, while others need some tweaking... Great studying material nonetheless.