[Bf-funboard] Templates - auto naming tags for output nodes

[Gatis Kurzemnieks]

Hi.
I was wondering if there are any plans for implementing some sort of
automatic naming tags in Blender for file paths, pass names, compositor
nodes etc.
What I mean is - some sort of special templating codes in naming (like ####
for frame number, \\ for project root) but for other things, that get
replaced when rendering:
- current scene name
- current renderlayer name (although I guess this would not work in
compositor as many renderlayers can be used at the same time)
- current camera name
- resolution
- rendering range
- scene frame rate
- project (blend) file name
- maybe something more that would be useful?

This would be super useful for creating templatized scenes and compositor
setups, that can be easily reused in different cases.
For example - I could write "\\..\Render\color_[scene]\" in my Output nodes
path and [scene] would be replaced by current scene name during render.
Then I could also use this to name Output node inputs etc.

This could also be very useful when loading textures for materials - we
could set up material that loads texture according to scene name where it
is used etc. Same for external caches.
This would allow creating basic pipelines with blender in center.

Another idea is to add "string" input and output ports to compositor nodes .
String output to Render Layer node that can be passed into File output node
so it can use render layers name automatically..

Of course this would need to be thought out very thoroughly, but I just
wanted to say that Blender would benefit greatly even from simple
"templatization" tools.

There is a similar system called Tokens in Cinema 4D and it is super
useful.

Thanks.

Gatis
-- 
Gatis Kurzemnieks
3d generalist, developer, artist
www.kurzemnieks.com