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Here is an overview of the components and concepts behind 3Delight for Maya is a fully integrated Maya plug-in that lets you render Maya scenes using the powerful 3Delight renderer. The plug-in is designed to be easy to use and integrates all the features used in modern pipelines (Global Illumination, Re-lighthing, EXR File, Deep Image Files, ...).

Quick Start

To render a scene, one can simply:

3Delight

Render Settings

Components Overview

In a nutshell, 3Delight for Maya offers the following components:

3Delight Rendering Attributes

All rendering options for 3Delight for Maya All the rendering options can be edited in Maya's Render Settings dialog. Since all these options as are stored by 3Delight for Maya as attributes, they can also be edited in Maya's Attribute Editor as well. Note that the Rendering Attributes These attributes not only defines rendering options to control image quality and type of output to produced, but also the information defining the scene elements (such as sampling, filtering, etc.), they also specify the list of objects to use for rendering. The rendering options are neatly organised into five categories. See The Render Settings.

3Delight Render Pass

All the Rendering Attributes are encapsulated in Since 3Delight for Maya encapsulated all the options of the Render Settings into what we call a Render Pass. This offers , it it possible to save and name multiple sets of Render Settings. Although it is not necessary to have more than one, having the possibility to have multiple Render Passes. Render Passes add flexibility on top of the standard Maya layers.

 3Delight Geometry Attributes

Some parameters that are specific to 3Delight are stored in The Geometry Attribute Node. 

3Delight Light Attributes

3Delight for Maya supports all Maya light parameters and provides its own Light Attribute Nodes to set specific parameters. For example, the deep shadow map type is selected through the Light Attribute Node as explained in Deep Shadow Maps.

RenderMan Shader Nodes

It is possible to assign RenderMan shaders to scene elements (this will override any Hypershade material assignment). Assignment is done through the Assignment Panel or the The 3Delight Relationship Editor while the Attribute Editor is used to edit the shader parameters.

RIB Archives

3Delight for Maya can create and read RIB archives. This is done using the RIB Archive Nodes. This is a handy feature when efficient rendering of complex scenes is required.

The RenderMan Code Node

This advanced Hypershade node allows insertion of SL code (RenderMan Shading Language code) in a Hypershade network. See The RenderMan Code Node.

define multiple render settings gives increased flexibility in the production pipeline. See The Render Pass.

3Delight Attributes

3Delight for Maya defines additional attributes on some Maya nodes. See The 3Delight Attributes of Maya Nodes for a complete description.