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Shader Toolkit v1.2#

What does it do#

The Shader Toolkit is a compact management replacement for the 'Hypershade' interface and offers useful shortcuts and utilities to fix common shading issues.

Interface#

Screenshot

Compatibility#

Maya 2017 2018 2019 2020
✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Installation#

  1. Copy ShaderToolkit.py to :

    \Users\USERNAME\Documents\maya\MAYAVERSION\prefs\scripts

    $HOME/maya/MAYAVERSION/prefs/scripts

    $HOME/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/MAYAVERSION/prefs/scripts

  2. Launch / Restart Maya

  3. In Maya, open a Python Tab in the Script Editor and execute :

    1
2
    import ShaderToolkit as SHAKI
SHAKI.MainClassShaKit()

    Warning

    Please make sure that there are no Space characters in front of the code lines.

Video Overview#

Tool Menu#

Info

The Tool menu is located in the top right corner of the toolkit.

  • Up arrow closes all tabs

  • Down arrow opens all tabs

  • Hypershade icon opens the Hypershade editor

  • Gear icon, opens the Create Menu Options

  • Stack icon opens a new window with information about the tool

Material Manager#

Info

Compact Shader management replacement for the Hypershade editor.

  1. List will list all shaders that are currently in the scene and sorts them alphabetically.

    Buttons:

    • Select: Selects all geometry objects, that have the selected list item assigned.

    • Assign: Assigns the selected list item to the selected object(s).

    • Attributes: Choose a list item and click the button to open the shader attributes.

    • Duplicate: Duplicates the selected list item(s).

    Keyboard key strokes:

    • Remove: Use the Delete button on your keyboard to remove the selected list item(s). It automatically assigns the default shader to the affected objects.

      Note

      You can't delete the lambert1 shader.

    • Rename: Double click a list item to rename a shader.

  2. Create Materials lets you create new shaders from a drop-down menu.

    • Available shaders depend on the installed render engines.

Supported Render Engines#

  • Maya (Default)

  • Arnold

  • Redshift

Note

The tool automatically detects the available render engines.

Create Menu#

Open the Create Materials settings from the Tool Menu by clicking on the Gear icon.

  • Clear unselects all available shader options.

  • Reset reselects all available shader options.

  • Set confirms your selection and updates the Create Materials drop-down menu.

    Note

    At least one shader needs to be checked.

  • Now the Create Materials menu will only include the choosen shader.

Fix Prefixes / Shading Groups#

First choose the Scope of the operation:

  • Selection (Only affects the current material selection)

  • Scene (Affects all materials within the scene)

Prefixes#

Automatically removes pasted__ or exported__ material name prefixes.

Shading Groups#

Automatically corrects Shading Group names.

Utilities#

Select Objects With Same Material#

  • Select one object and execute the function

  • It selects all objects, that have the same material assigned

Reassign Shaders#

Automatically reassigns all shaders to fix accidental assignments to polygon faces.

Create Material IDs#

Creates 9 surface shader, each with a unique color.

Info

The colors are: Blue, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Red, Turquoise, Yellow

Great to create mask IDs.

  • Use the D button to delete all Material IDs at once.

Random Shader Assign#

Assigns the selected list materials randomly to the current object selection.

Screenshot

Delete Unused Nodes#

Deletes all shading nodes that are not assigned to surfaces.

Information Tab#

Provides extra information for each function about how many objects or shaders have been affected.

  1. LMB - Left Mouse Button ↩