Share Nodes As Code
I like sharing nodes, but it is annoying to upload a .blend file every time I want to share a texture, and if I just share a screenshot and it's more complex, likely no-one will use it.
What if you could select a group of nodes, right click: "Copy Code".
Then you can paste those nodes anywhere you want as a line of code. maybe you just want to save them for yourself, maybe you want to share them online.
Then when someone finds your code, they copy it, go to Blender and right click: "Paste Code" in the node window.
I do understand that if people are just copy and pasting code, then they are not really learning in the same way, so maybe this is not a great Idea, I'm just putting it out there in case. I personally would definitely use it to share textures
Example (but it would be nice if there wasn't as big a code):
16 Comments
I think it would be preferable to export your node graph in a .blend file format that you can share or append/link in any other scene. Obviously, the .blend generated would contain only the material in this case, not the entire scene.
There is similar concept in Maya which is quite nice!
It work this way in UE... very handy. +1
related : blender.community/c/rightclickselect/gQfbbc/
This is a great idea. Every Blender YouTube tutorial I see always has a step where the instructor says "now pause the video and copy the values you see on my screen". If they could just paste the graph to a pastebin that we could import, that would make life better.
One of my favourite things about UE node system
I agree. Everywhere on forums, there are image captures of nodes setups. You have to rebuild the whole stuff if you want to test them. Being able to copy/paste node setups as text would be a nice and easy way to share stuff online.
Import and export of NodeGroups?
With the new titel my question is out
No... groups of nodes as code. Here UE example. I pressed
Ctrl+C>Ctrl+Vin text editor pasted code instructions > this code being pasted back to UE recreate same nodes.For topic author, if u read this - would be better to change suggestion title to "Share Nodes As Code" something and add some GIF example like this.
Thanks for the suggestion, changed the title, Also borrowed your gif, but it doesn't seem to be loading.
Even the main node based compositing softwares use this approach, it seems like a "standard" way of sharing nodes. I've been thinking about doing this as an addon, but that would take me some time.
I don't know where you get this concept of copying nodes as code. Maybe better to show as example your (different than my from UE) example. UE example is not the best optimized one (as you see only 5 nodes take up so much text... ).
Blender may use some more optimized code instructions in such case I think. Shimoon mentioned that Maya work in similar way (my Maya experience = "0"), maybe some GIF from Maya will work better.
I wasn't sure if it's OK to show specific SW examples, but anyway, here's how it works in Fusion. And the whole
.compfile is basically like this, with structured information about everything. I think it's similar in Nuke.i.imgur.com/6Kh7ktD.mp4
In case it doesn't show up as gif, IIIFGIII how are you uploading them in comments, please? Whenever I tried to include images, I can't...
Also, this addon could be relevant - github.com/wildiness/NodeSharer , it tries to do something similar.
check Markdown CheatsheetThanks, that worked better!
I don't know python, but I would like to learn it so I can work on stuff like this.
"Also, this addon could be relevant - github.com/wildiness/NodeSharer , it tries to do something similar."
Yes, That addon is the same principle, the problem is if you share a texture, you have to tell everybody to go download and install that addon, which takes longer than just copying all the nodes.