MaterialX

<Open Chess Set Image>

The Open Chess Set (authored by Moeen and Mujtaba Sayed, contributed to MaterialX by SideFX, rendered in Arnold for Maya)

MaterialX Overview

MaterialX is an open standard for representing rich material and look-development content in computer graphics, enabling its platform-independent description and exchange across applications and renderers. Launched at Industrial Light & Magic in 2012, MaterialX has been a key technology in their feature films and real-time experiences since Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. The project was released as open source in 2017, with companies including Sony Pictures Imageworks, Pixar, Autodesk, Adobe, and SideFX contributing to its ongoing development. In 2021, MaterialX became the seventh hosted project of the Academy Software Foundation.

MaterialX addresses the need for a common, open standard to represent the data values and relationships required to describe the look of a computer graphics model, including shading networks, patterns and texturing, complex nested materials and geometric assignments. To further encourage interchangeable CG look setups, MaterialX also defines a large set of standard shading and processing nodes with a precise mechanism for functional extensibility.

The MaterialX library, now at release v1.38.9, is an Open Source project released under an Apache License Version 2.0.


Announcements

Update February 26th, 2024:
MaterialX Library v1.38.9 has been released. This version adds support for environment prefiltering on the GPU, integrates improvements to the MaterialX Graph Editor and MaterialX Web Viewer from the ASWF Dev Days community, and introduces the first non-photorealistic rendering node library to MaterialX. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.9 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details, and visit the MaterialX GitHub repository to download the latest library source code, documentation and examples.

Update September 8, 2023: MaterialX Library v1.38.8 has been released. This release adds a rich set of new pattern nodes to the standard, and is the first MaterialX release with support for iOS builds, drag-and-drop loading in the Web Viewer, and MaterialX Python distribution through PyPI. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.8 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Update April 21, 2023: MaterialX Library v1.38.7 has been released. This release adds the MaterialX Graph Editor, an example application for visualizing, creating, and editing MaterialX graphs, and support for the Metal Shading Language in shader generation and rendering. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.7 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Update November 4, 2022: MaterialX Library v1.38.6 has been released. This release adds Unified Noise and Color Correct nodes, improved iridescence rendering in GLSL, and support for the MaterialX closures in OSL. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.6 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Update July 9, 2022: MaterialX Library v1.38.5 has been released. This release adds support for Vulkan GLSL generation, improved real-time refraction, the new Open Chess Set example from SideFX. and more. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.5 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Update Apr 6, 2022: MaterialX Library v1.38.4 has been released. This release adds a Web Viewer example based on MaterialX JavaScript, a graph for the glTF PBR shading model, new Worley noise nodes, and more. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.4 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Update Dec 14, 2021: MaterialX Library v1.38.3 has been released. This release adds refactored BSDF handling in shader generation enabling more flexible and efficient vertical layering, optimized GLSL implementations for GGX specular, a refactoring of the TextureBaker API, versioning and customization support to MaterialX namespaces, an inheritance structure for versions of Autodesk Standard Surface, color transform methods to the Image class, and initial support for FreeBSD and Xcode 13 as well as other updates and fixes. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.3 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Update Oct 7, 2021: MaterialX Library v1.38.2 has been released. This release adds improved accuracy of directional albedo computations for GGX specular and Imageworks sheen, an initial shader translation graph from Autodesk Standard Surface to UsdPreviewSurface, graph definitions for the MaterialX Lama node set, an initial ESSL shader generator, support for filename templates in texture baking, initial support for GCC 11, and other fixes. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.2 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Aug 10, 2021: The Slide Deck PDF from the Academy Software Foundation's Open Source Days session "MaterialX New Developments" held on Thursday August 5, 2021 is now available. The video of the session will be posted as soon as it is available.

Jul 14, 2021: We are thrilled to announce that MaterialX has been accepted into the Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) as a Foundation-hosted project! Integration into the ASWF is an important step forward for the project, which will lead to broader communication and alignment with other closely-related standards such as OCIO and OSL, and will provide a strong platform for studios, companies and teams to contribute to MaterialX in the future.

Jun 21, 2021: MaterialX Library v1.38.1 has been released. This release adds support for shared library builds on Windows, 16-bit unsigned integer images in MaterialXRender, and compound nodegraphs with user interfaces is shader and UI generation. It also includes headers for the newly proposed MaterialX closures in OSL, improved memory efficiency for texture baking, improved compatibility of generated MDL code with Omniverse, and other improvements. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.38.1 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details, and visit the MaterialX GitHub repository to download the latest library source code, documentation and examples.

Mar 2, 2021: MaterialX Library v1.38.0 has been released. This release features support for a generalized "layer" node in Physically Based Shading, user controls for texture baking and wedge rendering in the MaterialX Viewer, and adds support for Material Nodes, unified Input and Parameter classes, MaterialX code generation for Nvidia's MDL language, inline source code in Implementation elements, TargetDef elements, and many other improvements and fixes.

Mar 1, 2021: The final draft of MaterialX Specification version 1.38 has been released. MaterialX 1.38 includes support for Material Nodes, formal "target" definition with inheritance, enhancements to vertical PBR node layering, the merging of hemispherical BRDF and BTDF nodes into spherical BSDFs, additional pattern nodes, new methodologies for node organization, grouping and documentation, and other cleanup and streamlining. Please see the Specification page for PDFs of the Specification documents, Supplemental Notes and a list of changes since the previous version of the Specification.

Dec 18, 2020: MaterialX Library v1.37.4 has been released. This release features additional robustness and testing for MaterialXRenderGlsl in GitHub Actions, and other updates. This builds upon updates in v1.37.3, which featured additional render options in the viewer, viewer support for partially-transparent mesh partitions, a subsurface scattering approximation in MaterialX GLSL, and other improvements and fixes. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.37.4 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Aug 30, 2020: The Slide Deck PDF from the Siggraph 2020 MaterialX Birds-of-a-Feather session held on August 25, 2020 is now available. The Slide Deck and Presentation Video for the "MaterialX Physically Based Shading Nodes" presentation at the Siggraph 2020 Course "Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice" held on August 26, 2020 is also available.

Aug 22, 2020: The Presentation Video for the session "New Developments in MaterialX" presented at the Academy Software Foundation's Open Source Days 2020 on August 19, 2020 is available.

Jun 9, 2020: MaterialX Library version 1.37.1 has been released. This release features significant improvements to generated GLSL shading including better energy conservation, improved shadowing, more robust tangent frame computation and fixed Burley diffuse, as well as improvements to the MaterialXView viewer and other updates. Please see the MaterialX Version 1.37.1 release page on the MaterialX Github for further details.

Apr 25, 2020: Substance Designer MaterialX Plugin Released. The Substance team at Adobe has released a MaterialX plugin for Substance Designer 2020.1 to build procedural texture shaders and StandardSurface-based surface shaders in Substance Designer and export as MaterialX files. Please see the Third-Party MaterialX Support page for details.

Jan 19, 2020: An updated MaterialX Specification version 1.37REV2 has been released. MaterialX 1.37 supports a new set of PBR Shading nodes, new operator nodes, USD-compatible geometric properties, look groups and much more. With REV2, support for units on specified parameter values was added, as well as additional cleanup and clarifications.

Aug 29, 2019: The Slide Deck PDF and Session Video from the Siggraph 2019 MaterialX Birds-of-a-Feather session held on July 30, 2019 is now available. The Slide Deck and Session Video for the Siggraph 2019 Autodesk Exhibitor Session "Open Source Support at Autodesk – MaterialX", at which additional MaterialX-related demos were presented on July 31, 2019, is also available.

July 17, 2019: MaterialX Specification version 1.37 has been released, supporting a new set of PBR Shading nodes, new operator nodes, USD-compatible geometric properties, look groups and much more.

May 3, 2019: A first version of the MaterialXRender and MaterialXView libraries, ShaderGen GLSL/OSL shader generation, and the cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) standalone MaterialX Viewer have been released as part of the MaterialX distribution.

July 23, 2018: MaterialX v1.36 specification and codebase have been released, supporting an extended set of math operators, node versioning, node definition inheritance, USD-compatible collections, and much more. See the Specification page for PDFs of the Specification, Supplemental Notes and changelist, and our GitHub repository to download the MaterialX 1.36 Library source code, documentation and examples.

Dec 20, 2017 - MaterialX library release v1.35.4 is now out, with a new high-level Material API, support for multi-output nodes, and example interfaces for the Disney BRDF, Disney BSDF and alSurface shaders. Full details available on the MaterialX Releases page.

July 11, 2017 - MaterialX is now Open Source!   (Announcement PDF)
See our GitHub repository and Developer Guide for more details.

July 22, 2016 - The MaterialX specification was publicly released on materialx.org.


Events

August 8, 2022 - Academy Software Foundation Open Source Days 2022 Session
New Developments in MaterialX and OSL
(Slide Deck PDF)   (Presentation Video will be posted when available)

August 5, 2021 - Academy Software Foundation Open Source Days 2021 Session
MaterialX New Developments
(Slide Deck PDF)   (Presentation Video)

August 26, 2020 - Siggraph 2020 Course
Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice, "MaterialX Physically Based Shading Nodes"
(Slide Deck PDF)   (Presentation Video)

August 25, 2020 - Siggraph 2020 Birds-of-a-Feather Session
MaterialX: An Open Standard for Network-Based CG Object Looks
"Discussion of MaterialX, an open standard for the transfer of rich material and lookdev content between different DCC tools and renderers."
(Slide Deck PDF)

August 19, 2020 - Academy Software Foundation Open Source Days 2020 Session
"New Developments in MaterialX"
(Presentation Video)

July 30, 2019 - Siggraph 2019 Birds-of-a-Feather Session
MaterialX: An Open Standard for Network-Based CG Object Looks
"Discussion of MaterialX, an open standard for the transfer of rich material and lookdev content between different DCC tools and renderers."
(Slide Deck PDF)   (Session Video)

July 31, 2019 - Siggraph 2019 Exhibitor Session
Autodesk Exhibitor Session: Open Source Support at Autodesk – MaterialX (2 of 2)
"Open source projects play an increasingly critical role in the creation of Film and TV content. We’ll start with an update on open source support at Autodesk, then deep-dive into our work on USD, including collaboration with tech partners and creative studios."
(Slide Deck PDF)   (Session Video)

August 13, 2018 - Siggraph 2018 Birds-of-a-Feather Meeting
MaterialX: An Open Standard for Network-Based CG Object Looks
"Discussion of MaterialX, an open standard for the transfer of rich material and lookdev content between different DCC tools and renderers."
(Slide Deck PDF)

July 31, 2017 - Siggraph 2017 Birds-of-a-Feather Meeting
MaterialX: An Open Standard for Network-Based CG Object Looks
"A discussion of MaterialX, an open standard for the transfer of rich material and lookdev content between different DCC tools and renderers."
(Slide Deck PDF)

July 27, 2016 - Siggraph 2016 Birds-of-a-Feather Meeting
MaterialX: An Open Standard for Network-Based CG Object Looks
"Presentation and discussion of MaterialX, an open standard for transfer of rich material and look-development content between different DCC tools and renderers, with recent feature-film production examples."