| Illumination | Transparency/Reflection | Indirect Illumination | Render Tree Usage
Category: Illumination
Shader Family: Surface Material
Output: Color
Controls the ambient, diffuse, and specular RGB colors, as well as RGB reflectivity, translucency, and transparency.
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The shader's name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.
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Illumination
Diffuse
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Switches on or off the Diffuse illumination component of the shading model.
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Defines the Diffuse surface color in the illuminated area of the object. The value is blended with the object's Ambient value.
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Determines how much the global ambience (indirect illumination) affects the object.
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Specular
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Switches on or off the Specular illumination component of the shading model.
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Defines the Specular surface color in the illuminated area of the object. The value is blended with the object's Diffuse and
Ambient values.
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Defines the rate at which the specularity decays outward.
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Transparency/Reflection
Transparency
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Switches on transparency. When off, no transparency is possible on an object.
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Mix Color
The Mix color controls are a subset of the Transparency controls. They include the Color, Use Alpha, Invert, and Scale controls.
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Defines the material's color transparency. Black = opaque; white = transparent
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Uses the material's alpha channel, instead of its RGB, channel to control transparency. This is especially useful when you
are driving the transparency with an image that has a matte.
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Inverts the color or alpha value that is driving the transparency, depending on whether or not Use Alpha is enabled.
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Adjust this value to adjust the intensity of the transparency. If the Invert option is enabled, the scaling is applied to
the inverted value.
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Determines the smoothness of the surface. 0 = glossy; the higher the value the more diffuse, or "frosted," the effect
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Specifies the number of times the light ray is sampled. Low sample rate for a grainy; high for smooth
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Controls the bending of light through a transparent material. Defines the index of refraction, which varies according to the
nature of the material. (The refractive index of water is roughly 1.33, and that of vodka is about 1.36.)
Default = 1 (the refractive index of air), which allows light rays to pass through a transparent material without distortion.
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Reflection
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Switches on reflection. When off, no reflections are possible on an object.
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Mix Color
The Mix color controls are a subset of the Reflection controls. They include the Color, Use Alpha, Invert, and Scale controls.
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Determines the blending factor between the illumination of the front and back of the object. The default value of 0 results
in no blending.
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Uses the material's alpha channel, instead of its RGB, channel to control reflection. This is especially useful when you are
driving the reflection with an image that has a matte.
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Inverts the color or alpha value that is driving the reflection, depending on whether or not Use Alpha is enabled.
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Adjust this value to adjust the intensity of the reflection. If the Invert option is enabled, the scaling is applied to the
inverted value.
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Determines the smoothness of the surface. 0 = glossy; the higher the value the more diffuse, or "frosted," the effect
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Specifies the number of times the light ray is sampled. Low sample rate for a grainy; high for smooth
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allows rays to reflect off the surface to produce realistic reflections. This option is slower to render than , which performs a quick reflection of a scene's environment shader.
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Indirect Illumination
Global Illumination / Caustics / Final Gathering
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Used to control the color and intensity (strength) of the GI/FG/Caustic effect over the object's surface. Also, you can texture
this parameter in order to reveal a GI/FG/Caustic effect on a given location on the object.
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Translucency
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Switches on translucency. When off, the surface has no translucent qualities.
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Determines the blending factor between the illumination of the front and back of the object. Default value of 0 gives no blending.
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Incandescence
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Switches on incandescence.
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The color of light that a material appears to be emitting. Note that incandescent objects do not actually illuminate other
objects.
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Sets the pixel brightness of the incandescence.
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Render Tree Usage
This surface shader can be used almost anywhere in a render tree. Although it is most commonly connected directly to a material
node's Surface input (as well as Shadow and Photon), you can use any number or combination of surface shaders to control various
parts of your effect. Surface shaders are often mixed (as the Base Color using a mixer shader) with textures to add realism
to them. Also, you can use textures to control color inputs (such as Diffuse or Ambient) or scalar output nodes (such as gradients
or fractals) to control refraction or translucency.