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<p class="MsoNormal">All,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I went off on a tangent today after attending the AOUSD web working group, when I realized that it’s probably possible for RawKee to fully support MaterialX shading/material export to X3D.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maya 2026 has something called the LookdevX Graph Editor (I think it’s actually been in Maya since Maya 2024).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is essentially a new shading network editor designed by Autodesk to eventually replace the Hypershade editor, and their new preferred method setting up high quality shading networks for meshes/models in Maya so that it can fully support
OpenUSD and Material X in the future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Based on what I’ve been reviewing today, I fully expect Maya artists to migrate away from the old way of setting up Materials, and move fully toward LookdevX/MaterialX methods of shading their models in the future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Material X is primarily a portable XML schema for defining the inputs to shading languages. There are converters/loaders (whatever you want to call them) for every shading language.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The intent is that you write out your shader using Material X, and whatever shader language and renderer that you are using, your shading network should render the same.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, Material X is not just an XML schema, it’s an ecosystem that includes a bunch of python libraries, and those libraries are now packaged with Maya 2026.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A Maya content developer can create complex shading networks using the LookdevX Graph Editor, and then export them as GLSL (or any of your other favorite shading languages) using these MaterialX python libraries.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The process is actually quite simple.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As such, in addition to the robust PhysicalMaterial support that I’ve been working on lately, it appears that it really should be no problem to export complex shading networks from Maya as X3D ComposedShader nodes using the MaterialX methodology.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This will take some additional work to implement, but I think it’ll definitely be worth it, and something to show off at Siggraph this year.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron<o:p></o:p></p>
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