VARIABLES



DIR

Click box to see full description


This is the direction of the ray from the camera to
the current intersection point on the surface,
the normalized difference between point and org.

NORMAL

Click box to see full description


This is the interpolated normal of the point of intersection.

NORMALGEOM

Click box to see full description


This is the geometric normal of the hit primitive.

ORG

Click box to see full description


This is the origin of the ray. 
In material shaders this is the camera postion.
In light shaders this is the light postion.

POINT

Click box to see full description


This is the point of intersection with the surface.

REFLECTIONDIR

Click box to see full description


This function returns the reflection direction based on the
dir, normal and normal_geom state variables.

REFRACTIONDIR

Click box to see full description


This function returns the refraction direction based on the
interior and exterior indices of refraction and on the dir,
normal and normal_geom state variables.

TYPE

Click box to see full description


The state->type value will be the type of ray cast.
This function return miTRUE if TYPE matches the current state->type.
miRAY_EYE rays are primary rays. 
miRAY_TRANSPARENT rays are cast to determine transparency.
miRAY_REFLECT rays are cast to determine reflections. 
miRAY_REFRACT rays are cast to determine refractions.
miRAY_SHADOW rays are cast by lights to determine shadows. 
miRAY_LIGHT rays are cast when lights are evaluated. 
miRAY_ENVIRNOMENT rays are cast to sample an environment map. 
miRAY_NONE is none of the above or all other rays.

ACCEL

Click box to see full description


This is the acceleration data, used for motion blur.

BARY

Click box to see full description


This is the three barycentric coordinates of the intersection
in the hit primitive.  The fourth value will be for patches.
Barycentric coordinates are the weight of each vectex.
The sum of all barycentric coordinates is one.

DIST

Click box to see full description


This is the length of the ray from its origin, state->org,
to the current intersection point on the surface, state->point.  
If there is no intersection, the length is infinite, 
a zero or a negative is returned.

DOT_ND

Click box to see full description


This is the dotproduct of the geometric normal and the ray.

IOR

Click box to see full description


This is the index of refraction for the medium, the ray is traveling though.

PRI

Click box to see full description


This integer indentifies the hit primitive. 

TIME

Click box to see full description


This is the time of the ray in the shutter interval,
sampled in the range from 0 to the shutter time.
If motion blurring is off, time returns a zero.

REFLECTLEVEL

Click box to see full description


This is the current level in the refraction tree.  Primary rays 
are at level 0.  The last level is the refraction_depth minus one.  
A shader may increment, decrement or reset this level to circumvent 
the restrictions imposed by the trace depth state variable.

REFRACTLEVEL

Click box to see full description


This is the current level in the refraction tree.  Primary rays 
are at level 0.  The last level is the refraction_depth minus one.  
A shader may increment, decrement or reset this level to circumvent 
the restrictions imposed by the trace depth state variable.

SHADOWTOLERENCE

Click box to see full description


This is the tolerance at which the intersection of the shadow
ray with the primitive is ignored.  This prevents self-shadowing errors.

CONTOUR

Click box to see full description


Is contour rendering on?
miTRUE  = yes, use simplified calucalations.
miFALSE = no,  render images.

SCANLINE

Click box to see full description


Was this hit made using the scanline rendering algorithm?
miTRUE  = yes, but motion blur cannot be used.
miFALSE = no,  pure ray tracing is being used.  

APERTURE

Click box to see full description


This is the aperture of the camera,
the width of the viewing plane in camera space.

ASPECT

Click box to see full description


This is the aspect ratio of the camera,
the y_resolution divided by the x_resolution.

CLIP

Click box to see full description


These are the hither and yon clipping planes in camera space.

FOCAL

Click box to see full description


This is the focal length of the camera,
the distance from the camera origin to the viewing plane.

ORTHO

Click box to see full description


Is the render orthographic or in perspective?
TRUE = orthographic.  
FALSE = perspective; this is the default.

RASTERXY

Click box to see full description


This are the X and Y raster values.

RESOLUTION

Click box to see full description


These are the x and y resolutions of the image in pixels.

WINDOW

Click box to see full description


These are the corners of the window into the image to be rendered.
If they equal or exceed the resolution, the window is set to the 
resolution.

FRAME

Click box to see full description


This is the current frame number.

FRAMERANGE

Click box to see full description


This box makes it possible to generate start/end/current frame values.
0 is returned if current frame = start frame
1 is returned if current frame = end frame.

FRAMETIME

Click box to see full description


This is the frame time in seconds.

DISPLACETEX

Click box to see full description


This does a 2D texture lookup for displacement.
TAG  is the tag for the Texture Shader.
MODE is the texture mapping method.
COMP controls which component of the map to use, alpha or intensity.
MAG  is the magnitude of the displacement.

ENVIRONTEX

Click box to see full description


This shader assumes the entire scene is enclosed in a mapped sphere.
TAG   is the tag for the Texture Shader.
ROT   is the rotation about the world Y axis.
MASK  controls the blending method.
BLEND controls the amount of blending.

MATERIALTEX

Click box to see full description


This implements the Softimage material shader.
TAG   is the tag for the texture shader.
SPACE selects the mapping space.
MASK  selects the type of masking for color maps.
COMP  selects whether scalar maps come from alpha or intensity.
METH  selects the type of mapping projection.
BLEND is the amount of blending globally.
AMB   is the amount of blending with the ambient surface color.
DIFF  is the amount of blending with the diffuse surface color.
SPEC  is the amount of blending with the specular highlight color.
TRNSP is the amount of blending with the transmitted color.
RFL   is the amount of blending with the reflection color.
BUMP  is the magnitude of normal perturbation.
UUNIT is the amount of detail in the U direction.
VUNIT is the amount of detail in the V direction.
BW    is boolean: miFALSE = use color; miTRUE = use B&W. 

TEXXY

Click box to see full description


This is the array of texture coordinates mapped to the surface.

UUVV

Click box to see full description


These are the parametric values of the surface at P;
which have been scaled and/or offset.

BUMPXY

Click box to see full description


This is the list of bump map basis X and Y perturbation vectors.

OBJXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the object transformation.

INVOBJXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the inverse object transformation.

WORLDXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the world transformation.

INVWORLDXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the inverse world transformation.

RASTERXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the raster space transformation.

INVRASTERXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the inverse raster space transformation.

SCREENXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the screen transformation.

INVSCREENXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the inverse screen transformation.

XYRES

Click box to see full description


This is the X and Y resolution of the frame.

FBLABEL

Click box to see full description


This returns the state->frame_label pointer to the labels frame buffer.
This is a frame buffer containing all the object labels for the image.

FBN

Click box to see full description


This returns the state->frame_n pointer to the normals frame buffer.
This is a frame buffer containing all the surface normals for the image.

FBRGBA

Click box to see full description


This returns the state->frame_rgba pointer to the rgba frame buffer.

FBZ

Click box to see full description


This returns the state->frame_z pointer to the z depth frame buffer.

CAMERAXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the camera to world transformation.

INVCAMERAXFORM

Click box to see full description


This is the matrix which represents the world to camera transformation.

MOTION

Click box to see full description


Motion blur turned on? miTRUE = yes.  miFALSE = no.

SCANLINEOPTION

Click box to see full description


Use the scanline rendering algorithm?
miTRUE  = yes, but motion blur will not be enabled,
and lens shaders cannot change the ray origin and direction.
miFALSE = no,  pure ray tracing will be used.  
This may (WILL) slow down the rendering process.

SHADOW

Click box to see full description


Is shadow casting on?
miTRUE = yes, shadows are cast.  
miFALSE = no, shadows are not rendered.

SHADOWSORT

Click box to see full description


Call the shadow shader in order, closest first?
miTRUE  = yes, shadows closest to the light source
will be rendered first.
miFALSE = no,  shadows will be rendered in random order.  

TRACE

Click box to see full description


Do secondary ray tracing?
miTRUE  = yes, reflection and refraction are evaluated.  
miFALSE = no,  only eye and transparency rays are evaluated,
and no shadow will be computed regardless of the shadow flag.

ACCELERATION

Click box to see full description


This specifies the ray tracing alogrithm.
There are two types: Ray Classification, better.
Space Subdivision, sometimes faster.
The default is scanline if ray tracing is not requested.

FACE

Click box to see full description


This specifies which face of the triangle is used in 
rendering calculations.  Single faces can speed up the render.
There are three choices: just the front face,
only the back face,
or both faces.

FIELD

Click box to see full description


This turns field rendering on. This is only available
when the scanline rendering alogrithm is used.
There are three choices: Off, the default,
Even fields only,
Odd fields only.

FILTER

Click box to see full description


This specifies the type of filter for sampling.
There are three types:  Box, the default.
Triangle, the cheapest.
Gauss, the most exspensive.

SAMPLING

Click box to see full description


This specifies the supersampling algorithm.
There are three modes:  Recursive, the default.
Constant, same number of samples per pixels.
Adaptive, the cheapest.

REFLECTIONDEPTH

Click box to see full description


This specifies the maximun number of recursive reflections.
A reflection ray will only be cast if this limit is not exceeded.
If zero no secondary reflection ray will be cast, this is the default.

REFRACTIONDEPTH

Click box to see full description


This specifies the maximun number of recursive refractions.
A refraction ray will only be cast if this limit is not exceeded.
If zero no secondary refraction or transparency rays will be cast.

TRACEDEPTH

Click box to see full description


This specifies the maximun number of segments allowed 
in the ray tree when it is followed through the scene.
Any combination of reflection and refraction rays may
be used until this limit is reached.

SHUTTER

Click box to see full description


This specifies the shutter speed for motion blur.

USERDEFINED

Click box to see full description


This is a user defined constant of any data type.
The output and input should be of the same data type.

RESULT

Click box to see full description


This is the color or value returned to the Renderer.

© Copyright 1996,1998 Cinema Graphics Inc. All Rights reserved.