[Bf-compositor] [enh] labels and reorder inputs to help link nodes

Fri Feb 7 20:22:10 CET 2014

Hey,

About swapping sources (Node Wrangler aka Nodes Efficiency Tools):
Theoretically it's easy, but only when you have just two outputs that are connected to something. I don't have any idea though how to solve it when we for example deal with Multi Layer EXR with 10 outputs and all of them are linked to something.
I hope you are using the version of Add-On from latest builds?
There are big differences between this one and the one from official 2.69. Especially after merging "Nodes Efficiency Tools" with Greg Zaal's "Node Wrangler".

Cheers

Bartek Skorupa

www.bartekskorupa.com

On 7 lut 2014, at 18:57, Francesco Paglia <f.paglia.80 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Just a quick follow up about the node efficiency tool that are very useful!
> How did I miss this add-on...!!
> In fact there is just an extra thing that would be perfect to add in the script:  swap source...
> given A and B input swap B with A .
> 
> 
> 2014-02-07 15:31 GMT+01:00 Francesco Paglia <f.paglia.80 at gmail.com>:
> Hi everyone,
> thanks for your consideration and sorry for coming back so late! :)
> 
> @Sean thanks for your appreciation and your suggestion that made me think further.
> 
> @Greg, thanks for the suggestion, I must admit I've never used the add on I'll give it a try as soon as I finish to write this e-mail!... however I don't like in general to have something guess the socket for me since as an example an Render layer or a group can have multiple output socket and most of them are of the same type.. so "the guess solution" require lot of time to modify the noodle manually... 
> The panel solution let everything go straight to the required result without the need to check what someone else is doing for me.
> 
> @Lukas, a greater area for plugging noodles would be a great addition, so we don't have to zoom in and out every time we need to connect two nodes.
> In my workflow I always try to maintain the nodes collapsed because I find myself all the time too zoomed (to read or edit the values of a node)  that the node easily become too big to be quickly connected... or I have too many noodles around that the autoconnect feature requires me to:
> 
> 1. add the node trying to avoid any involuntary connection, 
> 2. collapse it, 
> 3. move it around to autolink the right noodle
> 
> That's not a very efficient workflow.. or at least a friendly one! :)
> About the side panel
> The general idea is to have a quick way to easily recognize what is linked to what since when a node is collapsed nothing is readable.
> We should try to figure out which is the best way to let us quickly recognize the socket name and, in case of need, an easy way to reorganize the noodles.
> Sean introduced an interesting idea and a way to magnify a node to edit connection could be an interesting solution as well  
> 
> In my humble opinion nodes actually suffer of their  "all the parameter have to be shown in the node" design that enables nodes of any height that are difficult to manage, fill up the screen in a matter of second.. add 3/4  colour correction or colour balance and suddenly there's no room left for other nodes! :)
> 
> Maybe we can reduce all our needs to having the nodes that show only the inputs (and outputs) and a magnify glass that shows the required node to a readable dimension, In a matter of seconds we have nodes of a reasonable size, all the parameter put in the side panel (that needs a reorder of the tabs... grease pencil cannot be the first of the list but it should be the properties panel... )
> 
> In case we'd like to save more space collapsing the nodes to their minimum size we could easily follow the previous idea of the labels and to read nodes inputs we can still maintain the non collapsed version while magnifying the node... Hope This makes sense...
> Let me show a quick mockup:
> 
> https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-sFO375sUry8/UvTp5RP2-dI/AAAAAAAAIBY/NgFy05-gGdM/w1228-h874-no/nodes_base.png
> 
> Imagine this behavior:
> 1. select and drag from the output socket of a node to create a noodle
> 2. move the mouse over the node we need as input
> 3. press "z" (I used this key just because represent zoom but we can choose whichever we like) to magnify the node
> 4. release the noodle in the correct socket
> 
> 
>    
> 
> 
> 2014-02-06 19:31 GMT+01:00 Sean Kennedy <mack_dadd2 at hotmail.com>:
> 
> I love Francesco's ideas! They would certainly make me more apt to leave nodes collapsed, resulting in a cleaner node view.
> 
> At Rhythm & Hues, our in-house software (which you can see here: http://jennepstein.com/beatthisaruna.jpg ) had a great feature that when you were about to connect a noodle to a node, the node would zoom in - or rather, it would scale up while you hovered over it, making it much easier to select an input if you were zoomed out pretty far from the entire node tree. As soon as you connected the node, the little scale up node preview would vanish.
> 
> Francesco's mock-up is just as useful, and I would use it every time I was in the compositor.
> 
> sean
> 
> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2014 13:52:18 +0100
> From: lukas.toenne at gmail.com
> To: bf-compositor at blender.org
> Subject: Re: [Bf-compositor] [enh] labels and reorder inputs to help link	nodes
> 
> 
> I quite like the general idea. Working with collapsed nodes is really limiting atm. Have to think about how such popups can be implemented without too much complexity and chaos on the lower ui code level.
> 
> Another idea to make linking easier on expanded (not collapsed) nodes could be to allow more leeway for selecting sockets: Instead of requiring accurate placement on the socket circle we could just detect "user points at node X" and then choose the *closest* socket for connecting (even use the whole height range of the node). This should be fairly easy to implement and not require a whole lot of ui design changes.
> 
> I'm not so sure about dragging in the sidebar buttons. Not every socket type has values and it's a bit tricky to associate a generic button with a node socket cleanly. To make this work nicely there should at least be a symbolic representation for every socket (input value button or no), which can be the hook for reconnecting. Even so it could still have corner cases and needs careful consideration. With the features for the main editor mentioned above it may not be necessary to go this far anyway.
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Francesco Paglia <f.paglia.80 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> link nodes is quite an hard task now, especially if we have too many nodes that requires to zoom out a bit and if we decide to use collapsed node to maintain the tree more clean.
> 
> I'd like to propose to add a sort of labeling solution so once we have to plug in a noddle we just drag it on the node (without caring on the right position)  and an easy to read panel can appear with the list of all the available input so we can choose which one we need.
> 
> I made just a quick mockup to shot my idea, hope you will find it interesting to discuss since in my opinion this solution can incredibly speed up the workflow without having to zoom in and out every few seconds.
> 
> Here the sample:
> 
> https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-maT-WogxB40/UvN0LVE5eRI/AAAAAAAAIAA/z3E51gAxRFc/w1150-h874-no/LABELING.png
> 
> always going on the same path would be very efficient to have in the side panel the complete list of the inputs that can be resorted easily... Imagine this:
> 
> I drag a node in an input of a   "RGB curves" node,
> I make an error and instead of plugging the noddle to the "image" input I put it in the "black level"
> it would be a very great addition the ability to simply drag in the "inputs panel" the linked value to the desired input... 
> 
> Here a quick visual mockup
> 
> https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0uWo0AFcuag/UvN7ri2wb3I/AAAAAAAAIA4/SPlyYSkeuFA/w1292-h594-no/resort_inputs.png
> 
> Thanks 
> Francesco 
>  
> 
> -- 
> Francesco Paglia
> Vfx and Production Supervisor
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-compositor mailing list
> Bf-compositor at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-compositor
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________ Bf-compositor mailing list Bf-compositor at blender.org http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-compositor
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-compositor mailing list
> Bf-compositor at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-compositor
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Francesco Paglia
> Vfx and Production Supervisor
> 
> mobile  +39 347.82.12.473
> e-mail   f.paglia.80 at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Francesco Paglia
> Vfx and Production Supervisor
> 
> mobile  +39 347.82.12.473
> e-mail   f.paglia.80 at gmail.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-compositor mailing list
> Bf-compositor at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-compositor

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-compositor/attachments/20140207/a98fd771/attachment.htm 