OpenPBRSurface implementation in Maya 2026 is confusing
I'm curious if I'm missing something here if anyone has experience with this. I've recently moved to Maya 2026 and am finding 3 different version of the exactly same named 'OpenPBRSurface' material, which seems like the new standard material to use.
2 of them for the MaterialX workflow, and 1 for the general native maya support. You right click on an object to assign a material and you now see categories for Maya/Arnold/BXDF/etc and within those a set of shaders belonging to each category. Arnold has an OpenPBRSurface, BXDF has an OpenPBRSurface, and as far as I can tell the only difference between those is that the Arnold one isn't supported in viewport 2.0, despite having the same attributes as far as I can tell.
I was initially wondering if OpenPBRSurface is seriously only manageable in the new LookdevX editor, and finally discovered the third 'OpenPBRSurface' that is seemingly only created in Hypershade or 'New Material' and finding it under the Maya shaders.
So I guess I'm just wondering, before I say "Which asshole designed this?", is openPBRSurface basically the new standard surface? If so is there a reason the Maya category upon creating a new shader doesn't include the native OpenPBRSurface? And is there a reason these 3 distinct nodes/shaders are named identically?