surfaceShader

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Use a Surface Shader when you want to completely control the color, transparency and matte opacity of a material. This kind of shader does no shading calculation of any kind. Rather, it allows you connect other attributes directly to its color, glow color, and transparency. It completely ignores everything else that would normally affect a shader.

For example, if you connect the Translate attribute of an object to the Out Color attribute of a Surface Shader, then the color of the shader will depend on the position of the object in space. As the object moves, it will change color.

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

This node is MP safe

Related nodes

lambert, reflect, phongE, phong, blinn, anisotropic, volumeShader, simpleVolumeShader, displacementShader, layeredShader, useBackground, defaultShaderList, shadingMap

Attributes (17)

materialAlphaGain, outColor, outColorB, outColorG, outColorR, outGlowColor, outGlowColorB, outGlowColorG, outGlowColorR, outMatteOpacity, outMatteOpacityB, outMatteOpacityG, outMatteOpacityR, outTransparency, outTransparencyB, outTransparencyG, outTransparencyR

Long name (short name)	Type	Default	Flags
materialAlphaGain (maga)	float	1.0
Material Alpha Gain
outColor (oc)	float3	0.0, 0.0, 0.0
Out Color. Connect another attribute to this to control the color of the material with that attribute.
outColorR (ocr) float 0.0 Out Color red value
outColorG (ocg) float 0.0 Out Color green value
outColorB (ocb) float 0.0 Out Color blue value
outGlowColor (og)	float3	0.0, 0.0, 0.0
Out Glow Color. Connect another attribute to this to control the glow color of the material.
outGlowColorR (ogr) float 0.0 Out Glow Color red value
outGlowColorG (ogg) float 0.0 Out Glow Color green value
outGlowColorB (ogb) float 0.0 Out Glow Color blue value
outMatteOpacity (omo)	float3	1.0, 1.0, 1.0
Out Matte Opacity. Connect another attribute to this to control the opacity of the material's matte (alpha) channel.
outMatteOpacityR (omor) float 0.0 Out Matte Opacity red value
outMatteOpacityG (omog) float 0.0 Out Matte Opacity green value
outMatteOpacityB (omob) float 0.0 Out Matte Opacity blue value
outTransparency (ot)	float3	0.0, 0.0, 0.0
Out Transparency. Connect another attribute to this to control the transparency of the material.
outTransparencyR (otr) float 0.0 Out Transparency red value
outTransparencyG (otg) float 0.0 Out Transparency green value
outTransparencyB (otb) float 0.0 Out Transparency blue value