I'm needing to learn a shading language at work and I was wondering what the Arnold Shader API would offer that OSL wouldn't, aside from performance.
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Solved by Mike_Farnsworth. Go to Solution.
There are definitely differences between the C++ shader API and OSL, although they are closer together than they have been in the past.
OSL pros over C++ shaders:
C++ pros over OSL shaders:
I would say that it's best to learn OSL. We suspect the C++ shader API will be available for quite some time, but it doesn't make sense to use it unless you need it for a particular feature that isn't available in OSL. In many cases, sending us an note when you find there's something you'd like to do in OSL that would force you to use C++ instead will result in us just adding that functionality to OSL for you.