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SoMaterial Class Reference

The SoMaterial class is a node type for setting up material values for scene geometry. More...

#include <Inventor/nodes/SoMaterial.h>

Inheritance diagram for SoMaterial::

SoNode SoFieldContainer SoBase List of all members.

Public Methods

 SoMaterial (void)
virtual void doAction (SoAction *action)
virtual void GLRender (SoGLRenderAction *action)
virtual void callback (SoCallbackAction *action)

Static Public Methods

void initClass (void)

Public Attributes

SoMFColor ambientColor
SoMFColor diffuseColor
SoMFColor specularColor
SoMFColor emissiveColor
SoMFFloat shininess
SoMFFloat transparency

Protected Methods

virtual ~SoMaterial ()
virtual void notify (SoNotList *list)

Detailed Description

The SoMaterial class is a node type for setting up material values for scene geometry.

Subsequent geometry-type nodes in the scene graph will use values from the material "pool" of the traversal state.

Note that values from a material node will replace the previous values from in the traversal state.

VRML V1.0 has a special case, where the fields ambientColor, diffuseColor and specularColor contains zero values, and emissiveColor contains one or more values. The values in emissiveColor should then be treated as precalculated lighting, and the other fields should be ignored.

You can detect this case by checking the values of the material elements when the scene graph is traversed using an SoCallbackAction. SoDiffuseColorElement, SoAmbientColorElement, and SoSpecularColorElement will contain one value with a completely black color (0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f), SoShininessElement will contains one value with the value 0.0f, and SoEmissiveColorElement will contain one or more values. It is done like this to make rendering work correctly on systems that do not test for this specific case.

You should only check for this case when you're traversing a VRML V1.0 file scene graph, of course. See SoNode::getNodeType() for information about VRML V1.0 versus Inventor.

When the scene graph is rendered using an SoGLRenderAction, the elements will be set differently to optimize rendering. The SoDiffuseColorElement will be set to the values in emissiveColor, and the light model will be set to BASE_COLOR.

The transparency values will always be treated normally.

See also:
SoMaterialBinding, SoPackedColor


Constructor & Destructor Documentation

SoMaterial::SoMaterial void   
 

Constructor.

SoMaterial::~SoMaterial   [protected, virtual]
 

Destructor.


Member Function Documentation

void SoMaterial::initClass void    [static]
 

Sets up initialization for data common to all instances of this class, like submitting necessary information to the Coin type system.

Reimplemented from SoNode.

void SoMaterial::doAction SoAction   action [virtual]
 

This function performs the typical operation of a node for any action.

Reimplemented from SoNode.

void SoMaterial::GLRender SoGLRenderAction   action [virtual]
 

Action method for the SoGLRenderAction.

This is called during rendering traversals. Nodes influencing the rendering state in any way or who wants to throw geometry primitives at OpenGL overrides this method.

Reimplemented from SoNode.

void SoMaterial::callback SoCallbackAction   action [virtual]
 

Action method for SoCallbackAction.

Simply updates the state according to how the node behaves for the render action, so the application programmer can use the SoCallbackAction for extracting information about the scene graph.

Reimplemented from SoNode.

void SoMaterial::notify SoNotList   list [protected, virtual]
 

Notifies all auditors for this instance when changes are made.

Reimplemented from SoNode.


Member Data Documentation

SoMFColor SoMaterial::ambientColor
 

Ambient material part color values.

The ambient part of the material is not influenced by the lights in the scene, but which is always added to the geometry surfaces.

SoMFColor SoMaterial::diffuseColor
 

Diffuse material part color values.

The diffuse part is combined with the light emitted from the scene's light sources.

SoMFColor SoMaterial::specularColor
 

Specular material part color values.

SoMFColor SoMaterial::emissiveColor
 

The color of the light "emitted" by the geometry surfaces.

SoMFFloat SoMaterial::shininess
 

Shininess values. Decides how the light from light sources are distributed across the geometry surfaces. Valid range is from 0.0 (which gives a dim appearance), to 1.0 (glossy-looking surfaces).

SoMFFloat SoMaterial::transparency
 

Transparency values. Valid range is from 0.0 (completely opaque, which is the default) to 1.0 (completely transparent, i.e. invisible).


The documentation for this class was generated from the following files:
Generated on Sat Jan 12 11:41:08 2002 for Coin by doxygen1.2.12 written by Dimitri van Heesch, © 1997-2001