Adding AFX-style expression slider controls for animating gradients in shaders

[Matthew Ingram]

ok figured this out:

– add a null
– put an expresso tag on it
– add 4x user data entries to the null (0-100)
– drop the null into the expresso tag and turn on the user data at the bottom
– drag the icon of the transparency gradient of a standard shader into the xpresso window (couldnt get this to work with arnold)
– connect the four user data entries to the material tag in expresso (shader properties>gradient>know position)

[Brian Jones]

you can directly use a gradient in User Data (it’s one of the Data Types) and that can be plugged directly into a gradient in a material