Shaders are basic rendering tools that you use to create anything from basic object surfaces to a variety of special effects, such as lens flares, fog, textures, surfaces, and more. Shaders help you achieve just about any visual effect you can imagine.
Materials define how objects look in the rendered image. Each material provides connection points — or ports — for all of an object’s attributes. By attaching shaders to these ports, you define the object’s look.
This section describes how to work with materials and shaders in Autodesk® Softimage®:
• Shader Basics
Describes the different types of shaders available in Softimage and explains, generally, how to work with shaders.
• Materials and Surface Shaders
Describes how to work with materials and material libraries. Also describes how to work with surface shaders and provides an overview of basic shading models and surface shading attributes.
• The Render Tree
Explains how to create networks of shaders that work together to define the way an object looks.
• Geometry Shaders
Explains how to work with geometry shaders, which are used to create geometry at render time.
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5