Whats New - Version 4.3.3


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Auto-Generation of Slim Appearance files
Previous versions have automatically generated a Pixar style .sli file for each shader compiled using Cutter. However, the SLI file format was deprecated some time ago. Such files continue to work with Maya and RAT but will probably not do so for much longer.

Version 4.3.0 incorporated a major overhaul to the way that Cutter can automatically convert the source code for a surface shader into a SLIM template. Currently, this can only be done for surface shaders. In this new version of Cutter, a similiar upgrade has occured for SLI files.

When compiling any type of RSL shader - not just surface shaders - Cutter will automatically generate, not a SLI file but a type of SLIM file known as an appearance. Such SLIM files will have the same name as their SLO counterparts and will only be generated when Cutter is using Pixar's "shader" compiler. All the rules that govern the way that Cutter uses uihint's embedded within the comments that accompany the declaration of a shaders parameters ie. its instance variables (refer to version 4.3.0), are applied by Cutter to both SLIM templates and SLIM appearances.


Houdini IFD Template
When programming a vex shader (.vfl) a IFD file can be produced for the purpose of testing the shader without the need to open Houdini.


vfl_ifd
figure 1





© 2002- Malcolm Kesson. All rights reserved.