Advantages of mia_material over mia_material_x and _passes

Question

Mental ray's mia_material is useful, but in order to use bump mapping you need to upgrade it to a mia_material_x, and in order to have it work with render passes you need to upgrade it to a mia_material_x_passes.

But why not remove mia_material and _x altogether and simply use the _passes one, since it can do everything the other two can as well? Are there some advantages to the other two? Is it simply for backward compatibility?

Answer 1

Primarily, it seems to be backward compatibility. Users don't want nodes created and saved from an older version of Maya or 3dsmax to complain of Unknown node when opened in a newer version because the developer of Mental ray decided to drop it which would in turn create annoyed users.

Secondly, it provides user's with a variety of choices (technically a software with more features) to choose from. Why use a butcher's knife when a kitchen knife would do? The mia_material_x_passes node would definitely have an extra cost (computing resources) given it's extra features.