ShaderFX menu bar

File menu

Export Graph / Export Graph Selection

Select this option to export your graph, or the selected nodes of your graph, for use in a different scene.

Import Graph

Select this option to replace the current graph network by importing a previously saved one.

Merge Graph

Select this option to import a previously saved graph network and merge it with your current graph.

Edit menu

Copy / Paste

Use these copy and paste options to duplicate your nodes.

Group menu

Note: Only applicable to Shaderfx Shader networks.

Create Group

You can create a group to encapsulate a set of nodes inside another node. To create a group, select the nodes that you want to group and select this option. You can even nest groups. For more information, see Working with groups.

Ungroup

Select your group node and then this menu option to ungroup the encapsulated nodes.

Make Group Unique

This feature allows you to make changes to your group, but only limit your changes to a specific scene. Select your group node and then this menu option. A tooltip appears indicating that the group is now unique and does not refer to the node on disk. Any changes you now make are only applied to the current scene and are not saved on disk and not propagated to other scenes.

Save Group to Disk

Save your group to disk and it is thereafter available from the marking menu and can be added to any network. This feature is useful if you want to reuse the same set of nodes and connections multiple times. See Save a ShaderFX group node to disk.

Tools menu

Compute Graph

Each time you update the ShaderFX editor, the scene view also updates automatically.

If you notice that this is affecting performance, you can change your settings to only update the scene when you choose to compute manually.

To do this, first enable Settings > Manually Compute Graph, then select Tools > Compute Graph each time you want to manually update your scene.

Settings menu

Play Animated Shaders

Select this option to visualize the animation for animated shaders.

Manually compute graph

Enable this option to manually update your scene (instead of automatically). See Tools > Compute Graph for more information.

Lock Group to Sides

By default, the group nodes are locked to the sides of the ShaderFX editor. Disable this option to customize their location and move the nodes.

Overwrite System Nodes

By default, you cannot overwrite nodes that are provided with Maya. To do so, you must enable this option.

Note: Overriding system nodes provided by Maya is not recommended.

Use 3dsMax Control Scheme

Select this option to switch to 3dsMax mouse navigation mode.

Show Property Panel

Select this option to show the Properties panel within the ShaderFX editor. This feature allows you to change the attributes of your graph nodes without the need for the Attribute Editor.

Node Browser

Select this option to show the Node Browser within the ShaderFX editor. The Node Browser provides a convenient way to create nodes: select the node that you want to create, and drag and drop it into the work area. Use the search field to easily locate the node that you want. You can also create nodes by -clicking in the work area and creating your node from the marking menu.

Show Swatch Compile Errors

Select this option so that, if your render swatch cannot be calculated, a tooltip appears at the bottom right corner of the ShaderFX editor, indicating the error.

Show Node ID

Select this option to display the unique node ID of each ShaderFX graph node, so that you can use this node ID with other node/connection MEL commands.

Toggle Advanced Mode

Note: Only applicable to Shaderfx Shader networks.

Select this option to toggle on and off advanced mode. In advanced mode, a larger selection of nodes is available to you for creation. In addition, you can perform tasks such as replacing the default material (by deleting the default TraditionalGameSurfaceShader node and Material node, and creating your own).