Autodesk 12812-051462-9011 User Guide 3 - Page 1111

For example, you could use the mr Shader element to render a few different ambient occlusion passes (see mental images Shader Libraries on page 5977). NOTE The mr Shader element is intended primarily for rendering shaders, not full materials. While you can, in most cases, most "material-style" shaders might contain their own code to write to render elements, and in some circumstances this can cause odd conflicts. For example, piping a Standard material through a Material To Shader shader on page 6001 into the mr Shader element is not recommended because it could cause the Standard material's render element to collide with the original render elements from the main render. Procedure To use the mr Shader element: 1 In the Material Editor, determine which shader to output as a separate element. For example, an Arch & Design material might contain a Gradient map assigned as a Diffuse > Color shader, and one of the Gradient maps could be assigned a Checker map, and one of the Checker maps could be assigned a Noise map. This procedure will assume you want to render the Checker map and its constituent Noise map to an element. So the material structure would be like this: A&D material > Gradient (Diffuse Color) > Checker (Gradient Color #1) > Noise (Checker Color #1) 2 On the Render Setup dialog > Render Elements panel > Render Elements rollout, click Add. Choose the mr Shader Element item from the list. 3 On the Parameters rollout for the element, click the Shader button; this opens the Material/Map Browser dialog. 4 Make sure Browse From on the dialog is set to Scene. If the object to which the shader is applied is selected, you could also choose Selected. In the material tree, highlight the shader to output as an element. NOTE Any subordinate shaders are also included in the element output. 5 Set up the other Render Element parameters as necessary and then render the scene. Your Shader element is rendered to an image file. The following illustration shows the example described in the preceding procedure. The left-hand image shows the full material, with the Noise 6366 | Chapter 20 Rendering