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

Fri Feb 7 20:43:00 CET 2014

Hi,
I have another idea, that's more consistent with the existing UI of blender.
A similar problem, when one is trying to select a specific object in Object Mode, is cleverly solved by the Alt-Select function (Alt-Rightclick brings up an popup where you can select one of all overlapping objects by name).
For the node popup, the names of the Sockets (e.g. "Z-Scale") and the type (as icon in front of the name, like in other popups; maybe simply filled circles in the corresponding color) should be displayed. 

But having any of the previous ideas in blender would also be great!

On 7. Februar 2014 15:31:39 MEZ, Francesco Paglia <f.paglia.80 at gmail.com> wrote:
>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
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>-- 
>Francesco Paglia
>Vfx and Production Supervisor
>
>mobile  +39 347.82.12.473
>e-mail   f.paglia.80 at gmail.com
>
>
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