When building a ShaderFX or Stingray Physically Based Shader network, you can do the following in the ShaderFX editor.
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Create a node. |
Do one of the following:
After you have created a node, you can connect it to your existing TraditionalGameSurfaceShader and Material nodes (for Shaderfx Shader) or Standard Base node (for Stingray PBS). |
Create advanced mathematical and coding nodes. Note: Only applicable to
Shaderfx Shader networks.
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Select Settings > Toggle Advanced Mode from the ShaderFX menu bar to enable advanced mode. Advanced Mode gives you additional nodes, such as Bool AND, If Else, and so forth. |
To... | Do this |
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Connect nodes. |
Drag to create connection lines between output and input attributes. The results of your shading graph automatically update in the ShaderFX editor and in the scene view. |
To... | Do this |
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Select a node and its upstream nodes. |
Ctrl + Shift + click. |
Remove a node from the selection. |
Ctrl + click. |
Add a node to the selection. |
Shift + click. |
To... | Do this |
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Delete a node. |
Select the node and press Delete. Note:
In a Shaderfx Shader network, you cannot delete the Material node and TraditionalGameSurfaceShader nodes (created by default) unless you have toggled on advanced mode (select Settings > Toggle Advanced Mode from the ShaderFX menu bar). If you delete these nodes, your shader does not render in the scene view and you must create and connect a new material or surface shader to your node network before you can do so. You can set any group node to be deletable only in advanced mode by going into the group view, selecting the group node, and selecting Deletable only in Advanced mode in the Attribute Editor. |
By default, you cannot overwrite nodes that are provided with Maya.
You can adjust the attributes of your graph nodes via the Attribute Editor. Alternatively, you can select Settings > Show Property Panel in the ShaderFX menu bar to display the properties within the ShaderFX editor, without the need for the Attribute Editor.
When adjusting the properties for Stingray PBS nodes, you must select the individual attribute on the node. Unlike Shaderfx Shader nodes, the properties displayed for a Stingray PBS node can change depending on which node attribute you click. For example, selecting the Base Color input of the Standard Base node displays a different set of settings in the Attribute Editor than does selecting Opacity Threshold.
Select a node, then right-click and select Tools > Save Selected Swatches to Images to bake your preview swatch to a 2kx2k texture. A tooltip appears in the ShaderFX editor, indicating the location to which your swatches are saved. You can also select multiple nodes at the same time and save their swatches simultaneously.
In addition, you can also bake the unwrapped UV's of your geometry to a texture. To do so, select the node, right-click and select Tools > Save Selected Swatches to UV-unwrapped Image.
The Node Browser is a convenient way to create nodes. However, if you want to increase the amount of available space in your work area for creating your shader graph, you can hide it by disabling Node Browser from the Settings menu. You can then create nodes by right-clicking in the work area and creating your node from the marking menu.