Hasta La Motion!

Got a question since I want to get rid of some shaders that I guess have now been implemented in maya (correctly I think). I’ve been using ctrl buffers for quite some time and I have gotten used to them and they work really really well with miaX passes material (shader I use the most that comes standard with maya). I even still use ctrl buffers with maya 2009+ even though creating customUserBuffer and miDefault are now hidden.

I have also used mayas writeTo buffers together with custom color in the pass system in order to get stuff out of Mia X Passes. So what I am saying is that I am comfortable using either mayas built in buffer system or ctrl buffers, however the question lies with performance.

I’ve read tons of opinions on both using old school buffer systems and mayas newer buffer nodes. I’ve heard about maya getting really slow after using a certain amount of buffers (never reached that threshold) or how the passes system with buffers is broken for mental ray. Like I said..I’ve worked before, but have not made any performance tests as from what Ive seen both are pretty much the same deal. So I’m asking you guys, what is more efficient, less broken, better performance at rendertime? Or should I stick with both..mayas pass/buffer system for maya materials..and ctrl buffers for MR?

Same deal goes with la Maisons motion vector shader…

Any thoughts would be appreciated since I’ve got a collection of shaders which might be getting a little obsolete and want to make the list a little shorter.