What is RenderMan and Fusion 7

Hi Guys,
I was listning to a podcast on Blender Guru the other day and they where talking about RenderManAnd Fusion 7 but im not sure what they are.

So let me explain my thinking. Renderman, is going to be a Rendering softwear, similer to VRay for maya and 3ds max if im not mistaken.

Fusion 7 is im not sure if it is a whole software like blender or just a rendering and animation based software.

If anyone has used these or has experience with them, please help me out, so i decide if i should learn how to use them for my blender projects.

P.S, These two software’s have just become free so im note sure if i should get them or not.

Renderman, is only free for non commercial purposes. Fusion is free though.

Renderman is similar to cycles / vray / mentalray / blender internal / arnold / insert other renderers here… It takes a 3d scene description and outputs a coloured image with shadows / lighting / indirect lighting / subsurface scattering etc.etc.etc.

Fusion, is like Nuke / Blender Compositor… Which is more like after the renderer happens, extra effects happen to make it look more realistic… it is all 2D based… no 3d rendering happens here… they are like after effects but with nodes instead.

fusion has a 3d system where you can render stuff using an OpenGL or a Software Renderer, this isnt advanced as Cycles or BlenderInternal but for a lot of stuff its enough (take a look at videocopilots Element3d for AfterEffects. its also a OpenGL render and similar stuff you can do with the Fusion OpenGL renderer)

Thanks for the Replys guys,
So no need for them then ? Because i feel like blender can do things very very well, so why use these ? unless you dont want to pay for vRay i guess.
The only one i would use is the Dysion 7 i guess, or is the blender Compositor better ?

There is another open source 2D compositor call Natron. It is quite good. Basically, you can apply Nuke tutorials for it.