CONVERT SHADERS – OVERVIEW

Zoo Tools Convert Shaders tool converts between many shader types for Maya’s default shader types, Arnold, VRay, Redshift and Renderman.

Convert assets to new renderer types and geometry assignments.

We have limited texture support. Bump/normal/displacement is coming soon, most other textured attributes are supported if using default Maya nodes (see below).

Supported Shaders:
Maya – lambert
Maya – blinn
Maya – phong
Maya – phongE
Maya – standardSurface (2020 +)
Arnold – aiStandardSurface
VRay – VRayMtl
Redshift – redshiftMaterial
Renderman – pxrSurface

Supported attributes (and similar):
– diffuse
– diffuse weight
– metalness
– specular
– specular weight
– specular roughness/glossiness
– specular IOR
– clear coat color
– clear cloat weight
– clear coat roughness/glossiness
– clear coat IOR
– emission (self illumination)
– emission weight

Support for refraction, sub-surface, bump, normal, and displacementattribute types will be coming soon.

TEXTURE LIMITATIONS

Maya native textures are fully supported for all of our supported attributes (above). But this script will not convert specific renderer texture nodes at this time.

For example file textures should be maya native File nodes or other supported nodes such as ramps and Maya native procedurals.

Bump, normal and displacement maps are not yet supported and we are looking to support them soon.

THE PROBLEM

Maya has limited support for converting shaders on imported assets . Models downloaded from asset stores usually come with FBX generic shader types such as blinns or phongs which are outdated in modern renderers.

It’s time consuming to manually convert the shaders to your preferred shader type.

It’s also difficult to build and manage viewport-shaders and their rendered counterparts. (Also see Shader Swap )

THE SOLUTION

Zoo’s Convert Shaders allows the user to easily convert shaders between the default Maya types and the major renderers Arnold, VRay, Redshift and Renderman.

Simply select the geometry or shader nodes and run. Shaders will be converted and automatically re-assigned.

COMPACT SETTINGS

This tool is found under:
ZooToolsPro (Shelf) > Shader Ball Icon (left-click) > Convert Shaders

Remove Existing Shaders (Checkbox)
Checking this option will delete the existing shaders from the scene after the conversion.

Convert To (Combo Dropdown Menu)
Select the shader type to convert to. Selected shaders are automatically detected.

Convert Selected To Shader Type (Button)
Select geometry or shader nodes and run to convert the shaders to the given shader type.