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

Aditia A. Pratama aditia.ap at gmail.com
Fri Feb 14 05:14:30 CET 2014 

woaah, Greg that was awesome. So far I want to test it out and will let you
know if I have any suggestions. Cheers !


On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 7:28 AM, Greg Zaal <gregzzmail at gmail.com> wrote:

> I've attempted to implement a menu popup into Node Wrangler's lazy connect
> function to address this issue of inaccurate/impossible linking when zoomed
> out or with collapsed nodes:
>
> http://gregzaal.com/ss/LazyConnect.gif
>
> The original laziness is still in tact, hold Ctrl and RMB drag to make a
> link based on best guess. But now, hold Ctrl+Shift+RMB drag and when you
> let go, a menu pops up and you choose which input from the first node to
> connect to which output of the second node. It still works off the nodes
> nearest to the beginning and end of the drawn line, so you can be zoomed
> out far as you like and still make connections accurately.
>
> The code is on our own little github:
> https://github.com/gregzaal/node_wrangler/blob/master/node_wrangler_wip.py
> I'll commit it to trunk after some cleaning.
>
>
> Hope this helps, and let me know if you have any suggestions :)
>
> Cheers,
> Greg
>
>
> On 8 February 2014 13:40, Bartek Skorupa (priv) <
> bartekskorupa at bartekskorupa.com> wrote:
>
>> Hey,
>>
>> I will talk with Greg about this. I'm not sure if this is even possible
>> to do in the add-on, but we'll do our best.
>>
>>  Bartek Skorupa
>>
>> www.bartekskorupa.com
>>
>> On 8 lut 2014, at 11:26, Francesco Paglia <f.paglia.80 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think the Blenderleo idea fits perfectly my first proposal adding a way
>> to select the correct layer when there are many output sockets.
>> When dragging in a noodle to a node the panel just open automatically to
>> select the right output
>> In the other way around pressing Alt + rightclick on a node shows a pop
>> up with all the output node, the selected one will be directly linked to
>> the noodle that have to be put to the input socket.
>>
>> @Bartek
>> I'm still using 2.69 while in production with an online team I can't
>> switch to daily build... I can't track who's using what.
>> And Greg wasn't clear enough because he did't mention  his other great
>> addition!
>> I must test a build now! :)
>> Just how does it works the view image feature that is mentioned but not
>> explained in the official documentation?
>>
>> About the swap you can imagine this:  it should be possible to make a
>> list of socket of the same type and the general idea is to move the first
>> element of the list to the next position so other does.. in fact this can
>> be useful to quickly swap noodle on a "2socket condition" or to move a
>> single (as well as few) noodle through all the available socket...
>> In fact if I have 10 socket to manage probably I will modify them
>> manually instead of using a shortcut.
>>
>> Ciao
>> Francesco
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-02-07 20:43 GMT+01:00 Blenderleo <blenderleo at gmx.de>:
>>
>>> 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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>>>>>
>>>>>
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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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>>>>
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