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3d Placement

General Utilities

Projection

 

User Guide > Rendering and Render Setup > Shading > Shading Nodes > Maya Render Nodes > General Utilities > 

Plus Minus Average

Add, subtract, or average values in a list of input attributes. The Plus Minus Average utility has three parts—two or more input attributes, an operator that you apply to these input attributes, and an output attribute that holds the result of the operation.

Find this utility in the Create Bar (see Hide, resize or customize the Create bar).

To use this utility, see Use the Plus Minus Average utility.

Operation

Displays a pop-up menu from which you can select an operator

No operation

Copies the value of the Input1 attribute to the output attribute without making any changes.

Sum

Adds the values in the Input list, as in the following formula:

Output = Input1 + Input2 + ... + InputN

Subtract

Calculates the difference between one element in the list and another element in the list, as in the following formula:

Output = Input3D[1] - Input3D[2]

For example, if you want to subtract Input3D[1] from Input3D[2] of multi-attribute nodes, make the necessary connections using the right mouse button in the Connection Editor and then select Subtract.

Average

Adds the values in each Input attribute and divides the result by the number of input attributes, as in the following formula:

Output = (Input1 + Input2 + ... + InputN)/N

where N is the number of input attributes.

For example, if there are seven input values in the list, the values for each input in the list ranging from one to seven are added and the result is divided by seven.

Input1D

A list of elements composed of single-value connections. The values in the list can be added, subtracted, or averaged depending on the Operation you select.

Input2D

A list of elements composed of two-value connections. The values in the list can be added, subtracted, or averaged depending on the Operation you select.

Input3D

A list of elements composed of three-value connections, such as color. The values in the list can be added, subtracted, or averaged depending on the Operation you select.

TipGive nodes meaningful names to help you remember their functions. For example, rename the first Multiply Divide node to PowerSquare, the Plus Minus Average node to SumComponents, and the second Multiply Divide node to PowerSquareRoot.