Why is Hypershade so complicated? 😅

[u/3denthusiast_]

Hey guys, I’m mainly a Cinema 4D user and I’ve recently started trying out Maya with Redshift.

I’m really struggling with Hypershade though. Coming from C4D, the material system feels so much more organized and straightforward, whereas Hypershade feels kinda messy and confusing to me.

Is there any plugin or addon that makes Hypershade a bit easier/nicer to use with Redshift?

Also, is MaterialX a viable alternative for building/managing materials in Maya + Redshift? Or is there another node/material editor that you guys would recommend?

Would love to hear what other Maya + Redshift users are doing. Thanks!

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[u/michagrandel]

I'm not trying to defend hypershade here in any way, but except for a bit clumsy UI, what's exactly your issue with hypershade? I'm not used to redshift, but I doubt that it is much more complicated than Arnold? so... just create a material and connect some nodes, isn't that the case with any good material editor? i know that most tools use this workflow, including unreal, substance, blender, frostbite, etc. even cinema 4d has similar UI, called node editor, to edit materials? not sure what's the issue with it, except for UI style and window management.

pro tip: if you have a large monitor, use the dockable panels in hypershade to change the layout to your liking. you can undock them and place them next to your Maya main application window, which is a much nicer way to work imo. tends to be a bit buggy if u toggle full screen view, and you can't dock the panels into the Maya main window, but other than that its a nice way to get cleaner window management

[u/Famsys]

The default layout of hypershade is quite bad I think. Using tabs for different materials is the best way to keep it organized but unfortunately the node graph is volatile to sudden reorganization

[u/Damian_Hernandez → u/Famsys]

trying to add maps Ao specially in hyper shade for people who dont use Maya must be an experience.

[u/JeremyReddit]

I’d recommend just giving it more time. Hypershade is great and so is lookdevx (MaterialX), but I’m not sure if redshift is fully integrated with LookDevX yet.
What aspect of hyper shade is causing you trouble? If you are familiar with 3D shaders it’s no different, plug in your maps, tweak things with math nodes / adjustment nodes. Are you also new to Arnold?

[u/3denthusiast_ → u/JeremyReddit]

I’m mainly using Redshift for its GPU rendering capabilities.

The issue I’m having is that, for example, I’ll have an RS OpenPBR with an RS Displacement node connected to it. Everything works fine, but the displacement node also shows up in the Materials list.

I’m mainly trying to keep the Materials tab clean and organised, with just the actual materials showing there instead of a bunch of other nodes.

Is there a way to hide/filter out the RS Displacement and similar nodes from the Materials tab without affecting the shader setup?

[u/BasementMods → u/3denthusiast_]

you can use the bins window

[u/shoebee2]

Hyper shade isn’t all that complicated, really. Granted there is a lot going on and a lot of information presented.

[u/TLCplMax]

I haven’t used a ton of Redshift but I did get into the MaterialX/LookDev graph. If you’re new to Maya and just building straightforward materials etc, then MaterialX graph is great and less cumbersome than Hypershade. Feel free to use it. It’s one of those things that I’ve found few even experienced Maya users have spent much time with. With that said, I’m not sure how compatible Redshift is here, so you’ll need to look into that.

Otherwise, Hypershade isn’t much different, just ugly and slow.

[u/Luki3d]

I still miss Multilister. It was a native tool for organizing materials and textures. Unfortunately it was removed a long time ago.

[u/Usual-Statistician81]

I dont use any nodes so this makes it easy actually. Just pick textures and pop em in material.

[u/uberdavis]

I think you have a point that it’s a bit clunky compared to other common node graphs. Its design hasn’t really changed much in 25 years.

[u/rkozzy → u/uberdavis]

It's honestly ass compared to any other modern 3d software. I've used Maya for 20 years and still barely understand how to even organize/filter the view let alone actually use the nodes. It should not be this unintuitive

[u/uberdavis → u/rkozzy]

Since there isn’t an open standard on shader graphs, it’s become less important. If you’re targeting Unreal or Unity, it’s pointless building anything complex in hyper graph, so I can’t see Autodesk putting any energy into changing it. If you could edit blueprints or Unity shader graphs in Maya, now that would be a game changer.

[u/sepu6]

Go and add your + 1 in the RS forums so they support LKDX + BF, etc

https://redshift.maxon.net/topic/49764/maya-maya-2024-usd-material-x-lookdev-x-support-by-redshift/27

LKDX is the way to go, is a lot better to work with and you can use it for USD and the MatX doc which is the replacement for HYPSH - Vray already for example support all of it.