Provides you with information about each point on a surface as it is being sampled, or calculated, for rendering purposes. Sampler Info can give you information about a point’s position in space, its orientation and tangency, and its location relative to the camera.
Many of the attributes for this node provide values in camera coordinate space, the local object space of the camera. Each camera (in its own space) is located at the point 0, 0, 0. It looks straight along the negative Z axis, and the positive Y axis points up.
Find this utility in the Create Bar (see Hide, resize or customize the Create bar).
To use this utility, see Use the Sampler Info utility.
Sets the surface tangents in camera space (as opposed to world space or object space). For polygons, the tangents are generally not defined. NURBS have a well-defined tangent space (as visible in Maya; create a NURBS object, display its CVs and notice the NURBS object has a U direction and a V direction).
Mathematically, tangents provide an instantaneous direction perpendicular to their point of origin on a surface. Their magnitude is affected by the rate of change (curvature) of the surface. A good math book should have a diagram showing the tangent to a curve, which can then be extrapolated to give you an idea of what tangents on a surface look like. Tangent UCamera and Tangent VCamera attributes are for advanced users only.
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