SLA Trouble

[bcbarnes]

I've noticed that the documentation on SLA is MUCH improved in the R8 manuals - perhaps you can download them (if they are still on the maxon website) and use them, as most of it will apply to R7 as well.

[AdamT]

Hi SnowMan,

SLA is short for Smells Like Almonds and it's the procedural shader system that comes with Cinema v.7.x. It didn't ship with the original v.7, so you'll need to install the free upgrade to v.7.3 if you haven't done so already. Then there's also and update to SLA 2.5.

One could literally write a book on the use of these shaders, so it's just not possible to explain their use in a brief post. They can be used in individual material channels and there are also 3D shaders that have their own dialogues. Most-if-not-all of the 3D shaders can be replicated using channel shaders. One thing I'll tell you is that the Fusion component (channel shader) is the key to getting good results with SLA. It allows you to combine several shaders in a single channel, and Fusions can be nested for near-infinite complexity.

Unfortunately the SLA manual is severely lacking. You might want to download the R8 tutorial manual which includes a few tuts on SLA that apply equally to v7.

[TheSnowMan]

Ok thanks everyone. I will check out the manuels and find the updates. Thanks for the help

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