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Related nodes. Attributes.
The shading engine node (also known as the shading group node) is the
node that associates shaders with geometry. The shading group is a
special type of object set that, in addition to containing geometry,
defines a number of "shading ports" that control how the geometry in
the set will be shaded. Each port is the starting point of a
shading network.
The shading group has 3 shading ports:
1) surface shading port - The shader that is connected to this port will
control the appearance of the "surface geometry" contained in the
shading group. Maya currently has 4 surface geometry types:
- NURBS surfaces
- polygonal meshes
- subdivision surfaces
- particle systems using the "blobby" software render mode
For each of these object types, the renderer will evaluate the
"outColor" and "outTransparency" attributes of the shader attached
to the surface shader port to determine the color and transparency
of the objects, respectively.
2) volume shading port - The shader that is connected to this port
will control the appearance of the "volume geometry" contained
in the shading group. Maya currently has 3 volume geometry types:
- light fogs
- environment fog
- particle systems using the "cloud" or "tube" software render modes
The renderer will evaluate the "outColor" and "outTransparency"
attributes of the shader attached to the volume shader port to
compute the color and transparency of these volume objects.
3) displacement shading port - The shader that is connected to this
port will be invoked for the purpose of displacement-mapping all
of the surface geometry in the shading group. The renderer will
evaluate the "displacement" attribute of the shader attached
to the displacement shader port for this purpose. The surface
shader port will then be used to shade the displaced geometry.
Following shading port is for mental ray for maya exclusively.
1) material shading port
2) shadow shading port
3) volume shading port
4) photon shading port
5) photon volume shading port
6) displacement shading port
7) environment shading port
8) light map shading port
9) contour shading port
It should be noted that the type of the actual shading port attributes
is irrelevant, as they exist only to establish a connection between the
shading group and the root node of a shading network. Connecting *any*
attribute of a shader to the shading port is sufficient to establish
this connection. For this reason, the port attributes are declared as
type Tdata, meaning that any type of attribute can be connected to them.
Node name | Parents | MFn type | Compatible function sets |
---|
shadingEngine | objectSet | kShadingEngine | kBase kNamedObject kDependencyNode kShadingEngine |
Related nodes
objectSet
Attributes (26)
displacementShader, imageShader, miContourAlpha, miContourColor, miContourColorB, miContourColorG, miContourColorR, miContourEnable, miContourRelativeWidth, miContourShader, miContourWidth, miCutAwayOpacity, miDisplacementShader, miEnvironmentShader, miExportMrMaterial, miExportShadingEngine, miExportVolumeSampler, miLightMapShader, miMaterialShader, miOpaque, miPhotonShader, miPhotonVolumeShader, miShadowShader, miVolumeShader, surfaceShader, volumeShader
Long name (short name) | Type | Default | Flags |
---|
|
surfaceShader
(ss )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
displacementShader
(ds )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
volumeShader
(vs )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
imageShader
(is )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miExportMrMaterial
(mimt )
| bool | false | |
|
|
miOpaque
(miop )
| bool | false | |
|
|
miCutAwayOpacity
(mico )
| float | 0.0 | |
|
|
miExportShadingEngine
(mise )
| bool | false | |
|
|
miMaterialShader
(mims )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miShadowShader
(miss )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miExportVolumeSampler
(mism )
| bool | false | |
|
|
miVolumeShader
(mivs )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miPhotonShader
(mips )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miPhotonVolumeShader
(mipv )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miDisplacementShader
(mids )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miEnvironmentShader
(mies )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miLightMapShader
(milm )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miContourShader
(mics )
| generic typed data | NULL | |
|
|
miContourEnable
(mice )
| bool | false | |
|
|
miContourColor
(micc )
| float3 | | |
|
| miContourColorR
(micr )
| float | 1.0 | | |
|
| miContourColorG
(micg )
| float | 1.0 | | |
|
| miContourColorB
(micb )
| float | 1.0 | | |
|
|
miContourAlpha
(mica )
| float | 1.0 | |
|
|
miContourWidth
(micw )
| float | 1.25 | |
|
|
miContourRelativeWidth
(mirw )
| bool | false | |
|