Renderers is a Structure of systemGlobals. It lets the user assign renderer class instances to the current, production, Material Editor and activeShade renderer:
renderers.current
Get/Set the current renderer.
renderers.production
Get/Set the production renderer.
renderers.activeShade
Get/Set the activeShade renderer. Only renderers whose property supportsActiveShade is true can be set as the activeShade renderer!
Note:
ActiveShade renderer is not avaliable in Autodesk VIZ.
renderers.medit_locked
Controls the state of the "Lock To Current Renderer" checkbutton next to the Material Editor slot in the Common tab > Assign Renderer rollout in the Render Scene dialog. When set to True, the Production Renderer will be used automatically by the Material Editor. When set to False, the Material Editor renderer can be set independently from the Production Renderer.
renderers.medit
Get/set the Material Editor renderer.
Renderer class instances are creatable by MAXScript. They have a couple of common read-only properties which can be used to determine if the renderer can be used to perform certain special tasks as ActiveShade rendering and TextureBaking.
<RendererClassInstance>.supportsActiveShade
Returns true if renderer can be used as ActiveShade renderer, false otherwise. Read-only.
<RendererClassInstance>.supportsTexureBaking
Returns true if renderer supports Texture Baking, false otherwise. Read-only.
To acquire a list of all installed renderers on a specific system, you can access the .classes property of the RendererClass MAXSuperClass.
Example:
RendererClass.classes
#(Default_Scanline_Renderer, VUE_File_Renderer, mental_ray_Renderer, Missing_Renderer)
--You can assign a new renderer class to the current renderer
renderers.current = RendererClass.classes[2]()
VUE_File_Renderer:VUE_File_Renderer
areMtlAndRendererCompatible {<mtlbase> | <maxclass>} [ renderer:{<renderer> | <maxclass>} ]
Returns true if the material/texturemap and renderer are compatible. Material/texturemap and renderer can be specified as instances or MAXClasses. If the renderer is not specified, the current renderer is tested against.
Example:
--Check Mental_Ray material against Scanline Renderer
--They are not compatible!
areMtlAndRendererCompatible (Mental_Ray()) renderer:(Default_Scanline_Renderer())
false
--Check a Standard material against Scanline Renderer
--They are compatible!
theMat = Standard()
Standardmaterial:Standard
areMtlAndRendererCompatible theMat renderer:( Default_Scanline_Renderer())
true
See also