Materials / Maya
Verge3D for Maya supports the following types of materials (shaders):
- aiStandardSurface
- Standard Surface (Maya 2020+ only)
- Lambert
- Blinn, Phong, Phong E
- Surface Shader
- aiFlat
- aiMixShader
- aiRaySwitch
- aiShadowMatte
In addition, you can use the following texture and utility nodes:
- 2d Placement
- animCurveTA
- animCurveTU
- Blend Colors
- Bump 2d
- Channels (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Checker
- Clamp
- Color Composite (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Color Constant (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Color Math (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Condition
- Env Sphere
- File
- Float Composite (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Float Constant (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Float Math (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Gamma Correct
- Layered Texture
- Multiply Divide
- Premultiply (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Ramp
- Reverse
- Sampler Info
- Set Range
- Unpremultiply (part of lookdevKit plugin)
- Unit Conversion
- Vector Product
- aiFacingRatio
- aiNormalMap
- aiOslShader
aiStandardSurface
This shader comes with Arnold for Maya (MtoA) and can represent many real-world materials (such as metals, plastics, glass, wood, textile etc) by using physically-based shading model.
The following aiStandardSurface settings are supported in Verge3D:
Base Panel
- Weight or (Base input in Hypershade)
- Color or (Base Color input in Hypershade)
- Metalness
Specular Panel
- Weight (Specular input in Hypershade)
- Color (Specular Color input in Hypershade)
- Roughness (Specular Roughness input in Hypershade)
- IOR (Specular IOR input in Hypershade)
Transmission Panel
- Weight (Transmission input in Hypershade)
- Color (Transmission Color input in Hypershade)
Coat Panel
- Weight (Coat input in Hypershade)
- Roughness (Coat Roughness input in Hypershade)
- Normal (Coat Normal input in Hypershade)
Sheen Panel
- Weight (Sheen input in Hypershade)
- Color (Sheen Color input in Hypershade)
- Roughness (Sheen Roughness input in Hypershade)
Emission Panel
- Weight (Emission input in Hypershade)
- Color (Emission Color input in Hypershade)
Geometry Panel
- Thin Walled
- Opacity
- Bump Mapping (Normal Camera input in Hypershade)
Additional Verge3D Settings
You can tweak your aiStandardSurface materials by using the following settings located on Verge3D panel:
- Alpha Mode
- select transparency mode: Auto, Opaque, Blend or Mask. See transparency guide for more info.
- Two Sided
- make your material two-sided. By default, Verge3D renders only front side of materials, enable this option to render their reverse side as well.
- Depth Write
- render material depth in depth buffer. Use this option for transparent materials to make them rendered in additive manner.
- Depth Test
- perform depth test calculations when rendering your material. Disabling depth test is useful when rendering objects inside semi-transparent objects to prevent them from being culled by the covering objects.
- Dithering
- reduce banding artifacts by using pixel dithering.
- glTF 2.0 Compatible
- force the material to be glTF 2.0 compatible. See the following guide for more information.
Standard Surface
Standard Surface shader was introduced in Maya 2020. It's based on and very similar to aiStandardSurface.
Since it's better supported in Maya Viewport 2.0 and does not require Arnold plug-in to be installed, we recommend it for use when authoring your Verge3D content in Maya 2020 or above.
Lambert
Basic yet highly efficient node which can be used to represent materials with no specular reflections.
The following Lambert settings are supported in Verge3D:
- Color
- Transparency
- Diffuse
- Bump/Normal Mapping
Verge3D settings are also supported, see above for more info.
Blinn, Phong, Phong E
In Verge3D, these materials will be approximated by the PBR shading model, thus they might look differently compared to Maya Viewport.
aiOslShader
Node to create custom OSL shaders.
Performance Considerations
Being the only choice for creating nice and realistic renders, Standard Surface (or aiStandardSurface) nevertheless require more computing power from your GPU and slows down app loading. This is especially true for scenes with lots of such materials.
To improve performance you can tweak Texture Resolution or IBL Environment Mode property.
Got Questions?
Feel free to ask on the forums!