Material Templates


Where to find it:


Shelf Palette / Extension Pack  / Material Templates


Layers Palette / Add Multi-Channel Layer / Materials



On this page


Extension Pack installs several Material Presets both to the MEP_MaterialPresets of the Shelf Palette as well as to the

list of Material Templates of the Material Ingest Tool.


Material Presets are fully authored Material Templates with a set of exposed parameters, that you can start using directly in your workflows.



The Material Presets available in the Material Presets Shelf Tab



Tutorials

General Material Template Tutorial:


Decal Material Templates:


Scattered Materials:



Presets

Since Mari Materials are bound to a specific Shader Type (e.g Vray, Arnold etc.), different presets for different Shader Types

are available:


3Delight Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the 3Delight Shader as it is used in Katana.


Arnold Complex Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the Arnold Standard Surface Shader as it is used for example inside of Maya.

The Complex Variants of these Material Presets include a large number of controls on the Material.


Arnold Reduced Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the Arnold Standard Surface Shader as it is used for example inside of Maya.

The Reduced Variants of these Material Presets only include a small number of frequently used exposed parameters.


BRDF Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the standard Mari BRDF Shader


Principled Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the standard Mari Disney Principled BRDF Shader


Unreal Advanced Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the Unreal Advanced Shader shipping with Extension Pack 


Vray Complex Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the Vray Shader.

The Complex Variants of these Material Presets include a large number of controls on the Material.


Vray Reduced Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the Vray Shader.

The Reduced Variants of these Material Presets only include a small number of frequently used exposed parameters.


pxrSurface Artistic Complex Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the pxrSurface Renderman Shader.

The Complex Variants of these Material Presets include a large number of controls on the Material.

The Material is configured to work best with the Artistic Mode of the Shader.

pxrSurface Presets are only visible if you have Renderman for Mari installed


pxrSurface Artistic Reduced Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the pxrSurface Renderman Shader.

The Reduced Variants of these Material Presets only include a small number of frequently used exposed parameters.

The Material is configured to work best with the Artistic Mode of the Shader.

pxrSurface Presets are only visible if you have Renderman for Mari installed


pxrSurface Physical Complex Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the pxrSurface Renderman Shader.

The Complex Variants of these Material Presets include a large number of controls on the Material.

The Material is configured to work best with the Physical Mode of the Shader.

pxrSurface Presets are only visible if you have Renderman for Mari installed


pxrSurface Physical Reduced Triplanar | Decal | Scatter | UV


Material Presets for the pxrSurface Renderman Shader.

The Reduced Variants of these Material Presets only include a small number of frequently used exposed parameters.

The Material is configured to work best with the Physical Mode of the Shader.

pxrSurface Presets are only visible if you have Renderman for Mari installed


Presets can be loaded and used in multiple ways:


oIn the Layer Palette drag and drop a preset from the Shelf into the Layerstack



oIn the Layer Palette load a preset from the 'Add Multi-Channel Layer' Submenu



oIn the Nodegraph drag and drop a preset from the Shelf into the Graph




oIn the Mari Material Ingest Tool found in the Tools Menu, select a preset from the Material Template dropdown



Material Templates are configured by default to only render the absolute necessary outputs - like Base Color/Diffuse, Specular, Bump and Normal.
The other outputs are disabled by default. For example for a typical Arnold Material only 6 Outputs Channels render by default  out of the total of 37 available ones.
This improves performance of these nodes significantly, especially when they first compiled (Mari's "Spinning Wheel").

To turn outputs back on, navigate to the "Channels" Tab of Material Presets and enable the outputs you need.
Your settings are remembered. For example if you enable the Occlusion Output, the next Material Template you import will also have its Occlusion on by default.



It is possible to swap between Material Presets using 


oSwap Layer Type

oSwap Node Type


It is possible to hide or show Material Templates both in the Shelf and the Material Ingest Tool to reduce clutter and complexity

Hiding of Material Templates can be achieved


By setting preferences in the Mari Preferences

By setting environment Variables



•Setting visibility of Templates via preferences

You can control the visibility of preferences via the Material Templates Tab in the Mari Preferences (Edit Menu)



•Setting visibility of Templates via Environment Variables

If you are working within a pipeline it might be beneficial to set visibility of templates globally for your whole team.


The following Environment Variables can be used to control the visibility of Templates


MARI_EP_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_3DELIGHT

MARI_EP_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_BRDF

MARI_EP_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_PRINCIPLED

MARI_EP_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_VRAY

MARI_EP_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_ARNOLD

MARI_EP_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_PIXARSURFACE

MARI_EP_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE_UNREALADVANCED


To hide or show a Template set the Environment Variable to TRUE or FALSE


 




As soon as one Environment Variable is defined, any non-defined ones will default to FALSE.


For example if you just want to see the Arnold Presets you just need to define the relevant Arnold

Environment Variable