getting at "vm_surface" details in H9 vs. H8

[brokenpixel]

hello all

i am working on the cmivfx procedural cities tutorial in H9 and have run into a snag. the issue is in regards to assigning shaders randomly by modifying the "vm_surface" parameter in the geometry spreadsheet. in H8 there was a "vm_surface" parameter that listed out all the details of the shader. in H9 this field is called "shop_vm_surface" and only lists the path to the assigned shader. i am assuming that i need to do something different to see the shader definition string so i can modify it via an attribute string edit SOP. any assistance would be greatly appreciated !

++ scott

[old school]

Look at the Material SOP. It adds the two appropriate attributes which indeed has changed from H8.

The first is string "shop_materialpath" and you point this at either a SHOP subnet "Material" or at any SHOP Displacement or Surface shader. Best to point it at a Material SHOP subnet containing your Surface, Displacement, Property and any Procedural SHOPs. It is just a path to your Material.

The second attribute string "material_override" is for overriding the specific material parameters. Turning on the option "Overrides use local variables" toggle in the Material SOP adds this attribute.

This second attribute is very different from H8. "material_override" is formatted as a Python dictionary:

{token1:'string1', token2:'string2'}

where token is the name of the parameter and string is the parameter value.

Actual example:

{'Kd':1,'groutcolorb':0.54,'groutcolorg':0.59,'groutcolorr':0.6,'opacityb':1,'opacityg':1,'opacityr':1,}

[brokenpixel]

excellent. thank you old school !