Overview
3Delight for Maya can render any Maya HyperShade network. Scenes that are setup using the usual Maya workflow will work out-of-the-box with 3Delight for Maya. On top of that, 3Delight for Maya provides additional utility nodes and additional materials for physically plausible shading.
3Delight's Materials and Shaders Library
In addition to standard Maya nodes and materials, 3Delight for Maya comes with easy to use and physically plausible materials.
3Delight Material – A hightly versatile dual-layer material to simulate a large variety of surfaces.
3Delight Skin – For rendering (human) skin.
3Delight Glass – For rendering glass.
3Delight Hair – For rendering realistic hair.
3Delight Metal – For rendering physically correct metallic materials.
3Delight Sky – For rendering physically correct sky dome.
In addition to these materials, uses can define their own OSL shading nodes as explained in Creating Custom OSL HyperShade Nodes.
Supported Maya Shader Nodes
Follows is a list of all these supported nodes, in alphabetical order.
| Supported Standard Maya Shader Nodes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| addDoubleLinear | anisotropic | blendColors | blinn | brownian | bulge |
| bump2d | bump3d | checker | cloth | cloud | condition |
| contrast | displacementShader | distanceBetween | envChrome | file | |
| fractal | gammaCorrect | granite | grid | hsvToRgb | lambert |
| layeredTexture | leather | luminance | marble | multDoubleLinear | multiplyDivide |
| noise | ocean | place2dTexture | place3dTexture | plusMinusAverage | psdFileTex |
| quadShadingSwitch | ramp | remapColor | remapHsv | remapValue | reverse |
| rgbToHsv | rock | samplerInfo | setRange | smear | snow |
| solidFractal | stencil | stucco | studioClearCoat | surfaceLuminance | surfaceShader |
| texture3d | tripleShadingSwitch | vectorProduct | volumeNoise | wood | |
About Physical Plausibility
"Physically plausible" terminology has been introduced in the computer graphics literature to described a certain category of BRDFs [1]. In technical terms, a physically plausible BRDF:
- Is energy conservative (e.g. doesn't emit energy that it doesn't receive).
- Is reciprocal (respects the Helmholtz reciprocity principle).
- Doesn't return negative values (this last point is not always mentioned in literature).
In simpler terms, it just means that the BRDF acts as a real life surface would act.
The expression "physically plausible material" is used in the VFX industry, somewhat loosely, to indicate that the material is based on such BRDFs. In reality, it is very difficult to design materials that are physically plausible since many useful BRDFs are not even energy conservative [2]. So it is often more accurate to talk about visually plausible materials.
Physical Plausibility vs. Realism
It's possible to design physically a plausible BRDF, respecting the three rules sited above, but still produce images that do not render real life phenomena. In a sense, physical plausibility is not a guarantee of a realistic material.
Realism in look development is achieved by a mix of sound science, intelligent parameter design and a clear understanding of what is being simulated. As an example, many available materials provide a choice of BRDFs and an extended choice of parameters. These materials are not suited to render some of the most common real-life objects such as a table or a car. These types of materials are usually coated and it takes a two-layer material and special care to properly render them. Our 3Delight Material provides this possibility.
[1] Robert R. Lewis. 1993. Making Shaders More Physically Plausible. Technical Report. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Canada.
[2] This is the case because many of the BRDFs rely on lobe-shaped distributions that could go under the horizon for grazing view angles. Most implementation simply ignore this limitation — but strictly speaking, this is an energy conservation problem.
wood