Maya Shader Library¶
A shading library tool to store and organize shaders in Autodesk Maya. Create and Manage Categories to organize, save and load maya shaders.
Documentation¶
Installation¶
MayaShaderLibrary tested on Maya 2017, 2018, and 2019
Download¶
- Download/clone MayaShaderLibrary repository from gitHub.
- If you are not familiar with gitHub, download this zip file
- Copy/Paste or Unzip the contents into your preferred scripts location, or your maya scripts folder.
Maya Install¶
- Add the following environment variable to your Maya.env (this folder is where your shaders and preview files are stored).
- ::
- MAYA_SHADER_LIBRARY = your_install_directorylibrary
Note
Maya.env is usually located under User/My Documents/Maya/2018)
Running the script¶
Create a shelf button with the following python code:
import msl.shader_library as maya_shader_library
maya_shader_library.load()
Guides¶
Getting Started¶
Once the maya plugin is loaded, you should see a new menu called ‘Arcane Tools’ on the maya menu bar Under menus ‘Arcane Tools’ > ‘Lighting & Shading’ > ‘Arcane Shader Library’ you can start the script.
Once you load the tool you should see the interface.
How to use¶
The MayaShaderLibrary works by creating Categories, inside each category you will save/load your shaders. Categorys will be created and listed, but not displayed until you ‘pin’ them to the interface, so you can have lots of categories but only the the ones your are currently in use.
Save shaders to disk by selecting a geometry in your scene and press the ‘add shader’ button, once saved the shader appear in the category. To load a shader, right click mouse on the shader icon and select load shader o or load and assing, the shader will be added to the hypershade, if you choose load and assing, the shader will be assigned to your current selected object.
Other Features¶
You can generate a thumbnail image base on a specific maya file. To edit this file, go to the top menu a select ‘Options’ > ‘Open Thumbnail Lightrig File’
Add comments to the shader, by editing the text box on the lower left area, and press ‘save’ button.
User Interface¶
On this section you will find a detailed explanation of each action on the user interface.
Note
Hover over any button to see what it does on the bottom status bar
User Interface Description¶
- Shader Info Area
Here is displayed the name of the shader, the maya node type, and user, pc name of who generate this shader. This is useful when you have MayaShaderLibrary installed over a network with a single shader repository.
- Notes Areas
You can add/edit comments here, remember to press the save button to save (3) the changes on the comments.
Shader Category’s¶
- Create a category
Go to menu Categorgy > Add New Category or use the ui button to create a new category.
- Pin a category
Use the pin button to pin the category to the tabs.
- Unpin category
Use the unpin button to remove a category from the tabs, this button dont delete the category from disk, just removes it from the tabs panel.
- Browse category folder
Opens an explorer to the actual folder of the category
- Refresh
Refresh the interface, this is usefull when the MayaShaderLibrary is used over a network with multiple users and you need to check for changes made by another user.
Shaders¶
Shaders are represented as thumbnail icons on the selected category, to add a shaders, simply select any maya geometry with a shader on it, and press the green plus button. The shader will appear on the category tab.
- Add Shader
Select a geometry to save his shader into current category selected.
Misc¶
The maya file used for render the thumnail image is located on this location:
installDirectory\MayaShaderLibrary\library\scene\thumbnail_scene.ma
The shaders are stored on this location:
installDirectory\MayaShaderLibrary\library\shaders