Autodesk 663B1-05A111-1001 User Guide - Page 93

5 | Nodes and attributes About > Node types • assemble multiple nodes together for a special purpose. Container nodes do not change the hierarchical relationships between nodes. Container nodes can be created, and modified using the Hypergraph's Edit menu or by using the icons on the Hypergraph Toolbar. You add and modify attributes and make attribute connections to container nodes (and the nodes placed within them) just like you would other nodes in Maya. For more information see "Connect input and output attributes" on page 112. Utility nodes Maya has a few utility nodes that provide extra functions you can use in a shader network. For example, multiply/divide nodes let you alter inputs and outputs between other nodes. Script nodes Script nodes are a way of storing a MEL script in a Maya scene file: You can set a script node to execute its "payload" in response to various events: • When the node is read from a file. • Before or after rendering a frame. • Before or after rendering an animation. • When a file is closed or de-referenced. Examples Example 1 If you select Create > NURBS Primitives > Sphere to create a sphere, Maya creates a transform node and a shape node. The sphere's shape node holds the mathematical description of the sphere's shape. The sphere's transform node holds the sphere's position, scaling, rotation, and so on. The shape node is the child of the transform node. If you select Options > Display > Shape Nodes in the Hypergraph, the scene hierarchy shows these nodes for the sphere: Maya gives the nodes the default names shown in the preceding figure. The transform node is nurbsSphere1, the shape node is nurbsSphereShape1. If you rename the transform node, for example, to Bubble, Maya renames the shape node to BubbleShape. Basics 93