User Data

data "name"
    [ tag label_int ]  
    bytecount_int [ bytes list ]

data "name"  
    [ tag label_int ]  
    "filename"  

data "name"  
    [ tag label_int ]  
    declaration_name ( parameters )

User data is arbitrary data stored in the scene file, which can be passed to shaders as a shader parameter of type data. This is useful for large amounts of data that is shared by several shaders, or too large or complex to be defined with individual shader parameters. There are three ways to define user data:

as a raw byte list: The list is a sequence of hexadecimal byte strings, each consisting of pairs of digits in the range 0..f, and enclosed in single quotes. Each string can be no longer than 1024 bytes (2048 digits); if this is not sufficient more strings must follow. Note that the angle brackets must be in the scene file literally. The bytecount is the total byte count in the square brackets, regardless of how many quoted strings it is split up into.
as a file name: The file will be opened and its binary contents are read into memory.
as a structured parameter list: This is the only user data type that will be properly byte-swapped if used on a network of hosts with different byte orders. The parameter definition works exactly like the definition of shader parameters, and also need to be declared in the same way except that the declaration begins with "declare data" instead of "declare shader".

Shaders see a tag if they evaluate a parameter of type data. This tag can be accessed with the mi_query modes miQ_DATA_*, especially miQ_DATA_PARAM for accessing the data payload, and miQ_DATA_NEEDSWAP for determining if a raw byte block (the first two data definition methods) need swapping by the shader. Note that the result returned by miQ_DATA_PARAM must be cast to the appropriate data type.