Performance has been increased a lot in last years with improvements in shader compilers, so a well designed uber shader performs quite well compared with a specialed one. Well it is mostly a trade off between performance and usability. Let's never forget VHS won against BETACAM please jb If SideFX does not, a lot of people will take the “foolish” decision that makes economic and practical sense at the expense of everything else and you know what? it won't be the end of the world as for the last 20 years has been constantly proved. We have a great tool, great render engine, sub-standard material/shader set, not much to ask I think to improve that by providing, like Arnold, a solid standard shader and utility shader that get us to produce much faster and better, something that I am sure the community will appreciate as suddenly the user base will grow and flourish. It is not I want anyone to remove the possibility of getting your hands dirty, is that I really feel I should not battle away little tiny things any simple 3rd rate 3D package does out of the box and Houdini does not. But the important argument and the reason I am putting a bit of time writing this is because I should be able to, I should not be forced to which is the kind of thing I feel Sidefx are embracing (thanks) and the kind of thing all the new users come to expect and demand. jordibares From the point of view of FX I understand your point, you need the flexibility to bend it backwards. The times for specialized shaders has passed, it is time for powerful uber shaders. How something like this could be integrated in Houdini is a different history, but it is definitely something SESI needs to look at, if they want Mantra to be more widely adopted. And the layering of materials similar to photoshop layers is also good. I love Lightwave approach, the concept of surfaces as uber shaders assigned to your objects, how ramps, textures and procedurals are integreated are great for artist. But well, for look development you need something different. VEX is a beatiful solution, one language and context to modify them all. Many improvement are coming in this area with H13 but we got the point where the VEX architecture has it limitations. Not lighting for FX but for the whole lighting department which is a different thing. Thanks to the improvements and maturity of Mantra it is becoming a more accepted solution in many studios, more and more lighters are beggining to use it and this arise the problem of usability and solutions tailored for this part of the production. I have the same convesation with the guys from SESI a couple of weeks ago, I am sure you too jordi, and I think is an area where customers and users needs to ask to Side FX for solutions/improvements.

Uber shader vray blender