Shader Tree Item Layers

Every new scene in Modo, by default, provides a few basic Shader Tree layers to get you started. The Material item material icon, created when you assign a material tag, is sufficient for many surfacing tasks. However, for reproducing more-complex surfaces, additional shader items eventually need to be added, for example when applying a bitmap image to produce the label on a can of soda.

The following items may be added to any scene from within the Shader Tree viewport, by clicking the Add Layer option of the full viewport window, and selecting an item from the pop-up context menu. For information regarding adding and working with Shader Tree item layers, please refer to the Shader Tree topic.

Shader Tree Items

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Folder

A Folder item acts solely as an organizational device for the Shader Tree.

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Material Group

A Material Group item can be thought of as a container that holds any of the various Shader Tree items, such as Shaders, Materials, Textures, and even Render Outputs.

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Material

A Material item is the default, general purpose Shader Tree layer that controls all the various standard shading attributes for a surface, determining its final rendered look.

 

Custom Materials

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Cel Edges

The Cel Edges material attempts to mimic the hand-drawn look of the outlines of Cel cartoons, creating colored strokes that follow surface contours and edges.

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Cel Material

The Cel Material attempts to mimic the flat, posterized shading of Cel cartoons, creating flat, colored bands that follow surface contours and edges.

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Hair Material

The Hair Material is designed to replace the default BRDF shading calculations of the standard material item, when applied to fur or hair, to simulate the anisotropic quality of hair.

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Halftone Material

The Halftone Material stylizes the target surface, replacing the smooth shading with a black user-defined pattern overlaid on the diffuse color, simulating the look of a low-fidelity image printed in a newspaper or magazine.

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Iridescence Material

The Iridescent Material is a general term for colors which change, based on the viewing angle, and this effect simulates that seen in nature, such as in pearls, butterfly wings, and peacock feathers.

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Skin Material

The Skin Material is designed to completely replace the default BRDF shading calculations of the standard material item, when applied to a surface, to simulate skin (made up of multiple layers and materials, each absorbing, scattering, and reflecting light differently), creating a very subtle but distinct look.

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Thin Film Material

The Thin Film Material works by simulating interference effects on the wavelengths of incoming light, refracting them between two virtual thin layers of film, like one would see with thin layers of oil over a puddle of water.

 

Enhance: Modo Textures

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Enhance:modo Textures

Enhance:Modo textures are a collection of 147 advanced procedural layers, many with additional parameters, that further extend the collection.

 

Image Map Textures

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Image Map

The Image Map item could be considered the most important texture layer, as it allows bitmap images to be applied to surfaces in Modo.

 

Projection Shader

The Projection Shader simplifies the workflow of using projected bitmap images. When applied, it replaces all surface shading with a photographic image.

 

Processing Textures

Layer Properties

The Constant texture simply generates a constant value or color layer.

Gradient

The Gradient texture layer provides a method for creating parametric materials. Put simply, gradients remap colors or value-based input parameters to produce an output based on the values in the gradient itself.

Gradient Fill Image

The Gradient Fill Image layer is a hybrid texture, as it is procedurally-generated gradient but it is based on a dynamically created bitmap image.

Occlusion

The Occlusion texture calculates the shading of surfaces, based on how occluded it is, and any receding or recessed areas are shaded darker (or lighter).

Process

The Process layer offer some basic image adjustment options that affect any texture layer directly below it in the Shader Tree, including image map, procedural and gradient texture layers.

Variation Texture

The Variations Texture layer is a means to apply color or value variations to multiple particle objects, surfaces, or items.

Vertex Map Texture

The Vertex Map Texture allows the assignment of certain Vertex Maps for use in the Shader Tree, specifically vertex RGBA color maps and vertex Weight Maps.

 

Special Textures

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Fur Material

The Fur Material texture layer covers surfaces with a range of fur-related textures (fuzzy, frazzled, fluffy, fibrous - all manner of fur options).

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MatCap Shader

The MatCap Shader texture creates a surface material and lighting environment simply by painting an object, so that it looks like how you want the surface to appear.

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Shader

The Shader texture is a "base shader" item that reads the information from the entire Shader Tree and computes the effects of the illumination on all the surfaces in the scene, making the Shader the most important layer in the tree.

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Surface Generator

The Surface Generator texture works in tandem with a Replicator Item to offer a greater degree of control over the random placement and density of replicated objects.

 

Textures

Layer Properties

The Cellular texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to create a cellular pattern.

Layer Properties

The Checker texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to create a checkerboard pattern with two colors or values.

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The Dots texture creates a grid-like pattern of dots across the surface of the mesh.

Layer Properties

The Gabor Noise texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to generate patterns that can easily be stretched and rotated, like brush strokes.

Layer Properties

The Grid texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to create a grid pattern between two value or color settings: the Line Value/Color and the Filler Value/Color.

Layer Properties

The Noise texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to modulate between the two colors/values, based on the particular algorithm and user settings.

Layer Properties

The Poisson Cellular texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to modulate between the Cell and Filler colors/values, based on the type and user settings.

Layer Properties

The Ripple texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to simulate raindrops on a puddle, creating a series of concentric circles that originate within a given area, and continue outward toward infinity.

Layer Properties

The RPC Texture is a texture where RPC stands for "Rich Photoreal Content" and is useful in realistically adding photographic elements to a scene.

Layer Properties

The RT Curvature shader is a method of shading surface discontinuity. This type of shading is most useful in enhancing surfacing details, both modeled and that which is added by displacement. The shading can be enhanced further when used to modulate other types of shading effects.

Layer Properties

The Weave texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to simulate woven yarn in a basic basket-weave pattern. (A series of parallel rows, combined with columns that thread over-and-under in alternating rows to form the basic pattern.)

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The Wood texture is a procedural texture that is mathematically created at render-time to simulate wood grain.

 

Texture Locators

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Texture Locator

The Texture Locator shader is automatically generated and added to the items list and linked by the texture layers Locator property whenever a texture layer is created.