hi,
When RMB on vopmaterial there are two option to create new type.
What different about Digital Asset and Compile vex to Shop type?
Why Compiled Shop has output port and Digital Asset not?
Any backgournd knowlege about Compiled Shop type?
thanks!

Compile VEX to Shop Type takes the shop, uses its VOP children to generates shader code for a given shading context and saves it to section of a digital asset. The asset does not store the VOP network.

Create Digital Asset saves the VOP netwok rather than generated code, and generates the code from the instantiated VOPs. So it behaves virtually as the original vopmaterial SHOP.

Compiling to Shop Type was the original way of creating HDAs, back when SHOPs represented only a specific shader type (surface, displacement). In the past they would store compiled VEX code, but with recent vcc changes it's more flexible to store the source code and to just-in-time compilation. These old-style HDAs have output connector to use them in Switches, etc. So the material SHOP compiled that way also gets a connector, although it's not very useful.

Create Digital Asset is newer and since the original material SHOP node does not have connectors, the HDA does not either. Although there is no real reason why it should not have. In fact there is an RFE to add such connector.
Also, this new way of creating HDAs has an option to “Cache Compiled Code” in Basic tab, which caches the shader source code in HDA section, much like old-style compiling does.

The advantage of the Create Digital Asset with cached code turned on is that it keeps both the network and the code in one place. If you compiled to shop type, you need to remember where the original network is, if you want to improve it and recompile in the future.