ADDENDUM: I no longer require an answer to this question. I don’t know how to delete threads, but if a moderator sees this thread, please delete it! I’ve decided that even if what I’m asking is possible, it wouldn’t actually be very helpful for what I’m trying to do.
Disclaimer: I know very, very little about anything related to rendering.
There’s something specific I want to accomplish with materials if possible, and I think some images would be the best way to explain what I’m thinking:
Say I’ve got 3 objects, each assigned a different material. I’ve got a cylinder with a green material, and inside it is a smaller cylinder with a red material. I want to know if there’s a way to set things up in Hypergraph or ShaderFX or whatever (it would be preferable if it’ll work with Maya Hardware but I’m open to stuff that would only work in Maya Software too) so that the material on the sphere culls any geometry behind it in camera view that has the green material applied to it (and only the green material, as opposed to culling everything like holdout or Use Background would).
So in this case, the cylinder with the green material would be culled from render view anywhere where the sphere is overlapping it, revealing the smaller cylinder inside, like in this mockup I’ve created using image editing software.
Is this possible?