Phenomena

 
 
 

Phenomena are mental ray for Maya components that look and behave like shaders but, unlike custom shaders, they require no programming knowledge of C or C++ code to create.

By exporting an assembled shading network (or portions of it) and designated attributes, you create a Phenomenon, a single node that you can then use just like a regular shader: you can build shading networks with them; save, load, and export them; write your own Attribute Editor templates; and provide icon, swatches, and help files. See the devkit for more information and examples.

Phenomena:

Previously generated phenomena

In order for the Node Factory to find and generate in Maya previously exported Phenomena, you need to export the file (for example, my_phenomenon.mi) to the directory specified in the environment variable: MI_CUSTOM_SHADER_PATH. The default value of this environment variable is: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2013\mentalray\shaders\include.