Override an attribute connection with a connection override

Create a connection override to override any attribute connection; for example, a connection on your surface shader.

The following guidelines and example describe how to create a connection override to override any attribute connection on your surface shader. Although shaders are used as an example in this case, you can follow the same guidelines to override any attribute connection. Instead of adding your shader to the collection, add the node for which you want to override to your collection.

Note:

Only input connections are supported. Output connections are not supported.

This workflow is aimed at advanced users.

Create a connection override to override any attribute connection on your surface shader

  1. Create a collection and add to it your object(s).
  2. Create a second collection and add to it your shader(s).

    In the Property Editor, select Shaders from the Collection Filters drop-down list to include shader nodes in this collection.

  3. Right-click the shaders collection and select Create Connection Override.
  4. Middle-mouse drag and drop the attribute you want to override (for example, Transparency) from the shader Attribute Editor to the Property Editor.

  5. Click the map button beside the attribute in the Property Editor to connect to a new render node.

    To connect to an existing render node, middle-mouse drag and drop from the Hypershade Browser panel to the Override attribute.

    6. Note: If you import a connection override into a scene that does not contain the new render node that you are connecting to, an ! appears beside the override. To resolve this problem, recreate the render node that is missing to reconnect it to the override. After you recreate the missing node, a red border may appear around the layer visibility icon ; click this to refresh your layer and see the updated result.
    Tip: You can experiment with different results by creating multiple overrides on the same attribute and enabling/disabling each override to switch among them.

Example

Create a connection override to override the texture assigned to the Transparency attribute of the shaders assigned to the lamp_body and lamp_brassFixture.

Tip: You can also accomplish the same result by creating a relative or absolute override on the Transparency attribute and connecting a texture to the override. See Connect a network to an attribute using a value override.
  1. Right-click the layer and select Create Collection to create a collection LampBase_shaders.
  2. In the Property Editor, select Shaders from the Collection Filters drop-down list to include shader nodes in this collection.
  3. In the Outliner, ensure that Display > Assigned Materials is enabled. Expand lamp_body and lamp_brass_Fixture in the Outliner to display their materials. Select these two materials and click Add in the Property Editor to add them to the collection.
  4. Right-click the LampBase_shaders collection in the Render Setup editor and select Create Connection Override.

    Drag and drop the Transparency attribute of any Maya shader from the Attribute Editor to the Property Editor, and map the override to a any texture, for example, Fractal. The result is as follows.

Note:

You can apply a connection override to more than one shader simultaneously. The override node searches for the specified attribute in all of the shaders in the collection. In this case, because both blinn and lambert have a Transparency attribute, the override is applied to the transparency of both shaders.

Connection overrides are applied to all shaders in the collection; for example, in this case: lampBody_blinn and lampBase_lambert in the LampBase_shaders collection. If the fruit bowl also had been assigned either the lampBody_blinn or lampBase_lambert shader, it would have the transparency override applied, even though the original intention may have been to override only the transparency of the lamp. It is therefore worthwhile to verify the shaders applied to the each object in your layer to avoid inadvertently overriding the shader of an object. To do this, select Display > Assigned Materials in the Outliner.

Related topics

Parent topic: Override the shading of your objects