NVIDIA Material Definition Language, in short MDL, is an NVIDIA initiative to standardize physically based material designs in a common format, see www.nvidia.com/MDL. MDL materials can be shared across renderers which are able to handle physical material properties like BSDFs in their core. mental ray 3.13 offers support for rendering pre-packaged MDL materials. In this post, we provide links to resources for MDL and give some background. In the following posts, we give instructions on how to use the materials in 3ds Max and Maya and provide example MDL materials.

The Material Definition Language Handbook gives an in-depth introduction to MDL and is aimed at the technically interested reader to learn more about the concepts of MDL and the ideas behind it. It’s work in progress and you will see it evolving over time. In the MDL developer section, you will find the MDL Technical Introduction and the MDL 1.1 Specification among other information.

In this first version of MDL in mental ray, the user should expect some restrictions that we will remove going forward. Editing MDL materials is currently only possible on a parameter level after loading external MDL code through the mechanism that we describe below. Both MDL materials and traditional shaders can be utilized side by side within the same scene and will render smoothly. However, MDL materials are closed entities for mental ray upon loading. Parameter connections to other shaders or other MDL materials are currently not supported. Measured materials and the emissive properties of MDL are not yet handled by mental ray 3.13.

We are providing some MDL material examples in the subsequent posts that showcase the power of MDL for rendering complex shading and lighting effects. Please follow closely the instructions on how to install the examples for rendering within your application.