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  • Published 1 May 2025

Control/Overwrite float curve/color ramp from outside of node groups

We need the ability to control the shape or points of internal Float Curve, Vector Curve, or Color Ramp nodes directly from outside their node group.

Currently in Blender, if these nodes are placed inside a node group, editing their shape by going inside the group affects all instances that use that linked node group data. This is because changes are made to the shared internal data block.

This external control capability for the curve/ramp shape is needed for various purposes, allowing flexibility beyond what's possible with linked data. My suggestion for implementing this feature is:

  1. A dedicated button on the node group node itself (in the relevant editor like Shader Editor, Geometry Nodes, etc.).
  2. Clicking this button would immediately open a pop-up window.
  3. This pop-up window would contain the standard editor interface for the specific curve or ramp node (like the Float Curve editor or Color Ramp editor).
  4. Inside this pop-up window, the user can directly control and edit the curve or ramp's shape and points.
  5. The 'input value' of the curve/ramp node functions , using whatever value is provided internally, but the external control via this pop-up is specifically for editing the definition/shape of the curve or ramp itself for that specific usage.
  6. 'Cancel' and 'Apply' button within the pop-up would confirm and save the changes made to the curve or ramp's shape data."
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Development Status: Open

Upvote 6 Downvote 0
al6
1 May 2025

2 Comments

pablovazquez

Thanks for the proposal. I have edited the post to remove screencaptures of commercial software that could lead to copyright infringement. Open source software is fine though so if you find a similar open source solution it can be mentioned.

1
cmbasnett

I agree with the need for a way to treat the "curve profiles" as a data type and have them able to be used as sockets. I've run into this in my travels where I wanted to expose a curve profile to the user, but the current setup makes this impossible.