layeredShader node

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Use a Layered Shader to combine two or more shaders into a single shader, or to combine two or more textures into a single texture.

To do this, connect the Out Color attribute of two or more shaders (or textures) to the Color attribute of this node. Then use the Transparency attribute for each input color to control its contribution to the output color of this node.

You can also connect the Out Transparency attribute of the other shaders to the Transparency attribute of this shader. These transparency values will then determine the contribution of each input shader to this Layered Shader.

Similarly, the Out Glow attributes of other shaders can be connected to the Glow attribute of this shader. These glow value will be combined, just like the colors.

In the table below, important attribute have their names indicated in bold in the description column.

This node is MP safe

Node name	Parents	Classification	MFn type	Compatible function sets
layeredShader	shadingDependNode	shader/surface:drawdb/shader/surface/layeredShader	kLayeredShader	kBase kNamedObject kDependencyNode kLayeredShader

Attributes (41)

color, colorB, colorG, colorR, compositingFlag, glowColor, glowColorB, glowColorG, glowColorR, hardwareColor, hardwareColorB, hardwareColorG, hardwareColorR, hardwareShader, hardwareShaderB, hardwareShaderG, hardwareShaderR, inputs, matteOpacity, matteOpacityMode, outColor, outColorB, outColorG, outColorR, outGlowColor, outGlowColorB, outGlowColorG, outGlowColorR, outMatteOpacity, outMatteOpacityB, outMatteOpacityG, outMatteOpacityR, outTransparency, outTransparencyB, outTransparencyG, outTransparencyR, renderPassMode, transparency, transparencyB, transparencyG, transparencyR

Long name (short name) Type Default Flags

compositingFlag (cf) enum 0

Use the Compositing Flag to control how the different input shaders or textures are combined together. It has two modes:

Layer Shaders: Use this setting if you are combining multiple shaders into a single new shader.
Layer Texture: Use this setting if you are combining multiple textures into a single new texture.

hardwareColor (hc) float3

Hardware Color tells Maya what color to make the material appear when you are looking at the view in shaded mode. This is not used when rendering, only for faster display. When the final image is rendered, you will see the layers in the layered shader.

hardwareColorR (hcr) float 0.5

hardware color R value

hardwareColorG (hcg) float 0.5

hardware color G value

hardwareColorB (hcb) float 0.5

hardware color B value

hardwareShader (hws) float3

Attribute to be connected to a hardware shader in order to override drawing in the 3d view.

hardwareShaderR (hwr) float 0.0

Red component.

hardwareShaderG (hwg) float 0.0

Green component.

hardwareShaderB (hwb) float 0.0

Blue component.

inputs (cs) compound n/a

This is the list of input colors, transparencies, and glows that will be combined in this Layered Shader.

color (c) float3

Color affects the final color of the layered shader. Connect the output color attributes of other shaders to this attribute to combine them into a single shader.

colorR (cr) float 0.0

color red value

colorG (cg) float 0.0

color green value

colorB (cb) float 0.0

color blue value

transparency (t) float3

Transparency controls the amount each color input contributes to the final color of this shader. This attribute has a different value for each input color. Set this darker to make the layer more opaque (that is, to make the layer contributes more). Set this brighter to make the layer more transparent.

transparencyR (tr) float 1.0

Transparency red value

transparencyG (tg) float 1.0

Transparency green value

transparencyB (tb) float 1.0

Transparency blue value

glowColor (g) float3

Glow Color allows you to combine the glow attributes of the input shaders into a single glow, just as you combine the colors. Connect the Output Glow Color of the other shaders to this attribute. The Transparency values above will be applied when combining the glow values.

glowColorR (gr) float 0.0

glow color red value

glowColorG (gg) float 0.0

glow color green value

glowColorB (gb) float 0.0

glow color blue value

matteOpacity (mog) float 1.0

Matte Opacity is used (along with Matte Opactiy Mode) to affect how the matte (i.e. alpha channel or mask) for this material will be calculated. See Matte Opacity Mode above for full details.

matteOpacityMode (mom) enum 2

Matte Opacity Mode controls how the system will use the Matte Opacity attribute (below). When you are rendering with a matte (i.e. an alpha channel, or mask), these two attributes are used to control how this material will show up in the matte. This is useful if you will be compositing your rendered images later on.

There are three settings, used for different purposes:

Opacity Gain

Solid Matte: This is like Opacity Gain, except that the normally-calculated matte values are ignored in favor of the Matte Opacity setting. The entire matte for the object is set to the value of the Matte Opacity attribute. If there are transparent areas on the object, their transparency is ignored in the matte. Use this setting to composite an object with transparent parts, when you don't want the background to show through them.

Black Hole: The value of Matte Opacity is ignored, and all the matte for this material is set to be transparent. Use this when you are creating substitute geometry in a scene, which is standing in for objects in a background image that you will be compositing with later. Your stand-in objects will 'punch a hole' in the matte. This allows other computer-generated geometry to pass behind your stand-in objects. Later, when foreground and background are composited, the results will be correct, with the background object showing through the 'black hole' areas.

outColor (oc) float3

output color

outColorR (ocr) float 0.0

outColor red value

outColorG (ocg) float 0.0

outColor green value

outColorB (ocb) float 0.0

outColor blue value

outGlowColor (ogc) float3

output color

outGlowColorR (ogr) float 0.0

outGlowColor red value

outGlowColorG (ogg) float 0.0

outGlowColor green value

outGlowColorB (ogb) float 0.0

outGlowColor blue value

outMatteOpacity (omo) float3

output Matte Opacity

outMatteOpacityR (omor) float 0.0

output Matte Opacity red value

outMatteOpacityG (omog) float 0.0

output Matte Opacity green value

outMatteOpacityB (omob) float 0.0

output Matte Opacity blue value

outTransparency (ot) float3

output Transparency

outTransparencyR (otr) float 0.0

outTransparency red value

outTransparencyG (otg) float 0.0

outTransparency green value

outTransparencyB (otb) float 0.0

outTransparency blue value

renderPassMode (rpm) enum 1

controls how the node affects material render passes.