# hypershade editor The Hypershade Editor is a node-based interface for building complex materials directly in Maya. It is a fancy visualization of the settings for material that you can find in the Attribute Editor. It allows for quick programming of materials by connecting different nodes together. This page is just a quick introduction to getting around. It takes time to explore and practice with the tool to make sense of things. Be patient and take the time to experiment. ## open the hypershade There are at least three ways to open up the Hypershade. 1. click the little blue shader ball icon in the render section of the main menu 2. use pull-down menus for **Windows > Rendering Editors > Hypershade** 3. convert one of your 4-up panels by using the panel pull-down menu for **Panels > Panel > Hypershade** --- ## hypershade interface The interface of the Hypershade Editor can be a bit confusing at first, however it does get fairly easy to use once you explore a little bit. ![[hypershade.png]] _Map of interface_ - **Browser**: where the different materials and other elements live. use this to browse different assets - **Create**: make new elements to work with - **Work area**: where you build and tweak your materials - **Material Viewer**: preview of what the current material or asset looks like - **Property Editor**: slider and adjustments for the currently selected assets. Basically the same as the Attribute Editor in the main workspace ## using the work area The work area is where you build a graph of your material. It is filled with different floating elements that you connect together to create the material. This is an open area where floating elements can be arranged and rearranged as needed. You connect outputs of some nodes to inputs of other nodes. Don’t worry, this is easier than it looks. ![[Pasted image 20221024101037.png]] Across the top of the work area is a row of icons. The first set of white boxes and arrows lets you limit the view to inputs and outputs. To get started with an existing material, Middle-Mouse drag from the browser into the work area. Select the material node and press the icon with arrow coming in and coming out of it to open up the graph. The next set of icons with blue outlines lets you hide or show different graphs. The section of white stacked boxes lets you see more or less detail for each of the floating nodes. The icons that look like tic-tac-toe board and magnet turn on the graph and snapping if you want a bit more order to your layout. ## building a material ![[Pasted image 20221024102019.png]] _This image is a graph of a blinn material with a few nodes boxes added to it._ On the right side of the image is Property Editor. This is the information that can be adjusted for whatever node is selected. The Property Editor will change to reflect whatever option are available for the currently selected node box. In the image, you can see the highlighted blinn1 node box. There are a number of settings for different parameters like Color, Reflectivity, Translucence, etc. There are little circle dots on the left side which means information can be plugged into them. In the example image, there is a fractal texture added to the Color setting for the material. Clicking on the fractal node box will give options for tweaking how the fractal looks. There is a place2dtexture node connected to the fractal node that controls the size and application of the fractal to the blinn material. If I wanted to use the fractal node for something like Transparency instead of Color, I would simply remove the connection from the fractal node to Color and draw a new connection from the fractal node to the Transparency dot. It is that simple. ## a few notes To add a new node box, you can use the Create menu on the left side of the interface or simple press the Tab Key to type what you are looking for. A drop-down menu appears as you type. ![[Pasted image 20221024103659.png]] Notice that some circle dots are red and some are green. This is because some inputs are grayscale images and so you can’t connect a full RGB output. Instead, hit the little plus button on the output to open up dots for RGB. Connect only the R channel to the input and it should work. ![[Pasted image 20221024103855.png]] Finally, play with those sliders in the Property Editor. Slide things around to see what happens in the Material View preview. Connect nodes in different places to see what happens. Have fun! --- Learn more… - [hypershade basics youtube video from academic phoenix plus](https://youtu.be/YqFgbeUhf2Y) - [hypershade basics with arnold nodes youtube video from academic phoenix plus](https://youtu.be/bx0PVWThTYY) - [the power of utility nodes youtube video from Arvid Schneider](https://youtu.be/YMFSRHaL0fA) - <https://irendering.net/look-development-using-the-hypershade-in-maya/> - <https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/Maya-LightingShading/files/GUID-225AB3A8-9013-49EB-93FE-F5A287159FF4-htm.html> --- tags: #3d #maya #resources home: [[! 3d modeling- maya]]