What are the files that make up a Mental Ray shader?
When you download a Mental Ray shader for Maya, there are typically 4 or 5 types of files included: *.dll – The dll files are the actual shader code. They are what give all the instructions on what the shader is supposed to do when it’s rendered. These files go in your: “C:\Program Files\Alias\Maya6.5\mentalray\lib” folder. *.mi – The files that end in .mi are written in the Mental Images MI format. They are just text files. They give Mental Ray some general information about the shader, and tell Maya what attributes you would like to have present inside Maya for tuning the shader. They also tell Maya what section of the Hypershade the shader should be found in (ie Textures or Materials etc). These files go in your: “C:\Program Files\Alias\Maya6.5\mentalray\include” folder. *.mel – The .mel files are usually named something like AEshadernameTemplate.mel. AE stands for Attribute Editor. What these MEL files do is create the interface for the shader inside Maya’s Attribute Editor. Withou
