File Output Node support in material/texture nodes
it look like following image
other
- api
- it can suporrt material/texture nodes
it's useful for image edit.
- paint on multi mix textures, then can bake to one texure
- texture adjust before link to shader, it can use bake. it save render cost and useful for export to unity3d/unreal
15 Comments
I have made a addon for that, but I still hope there is a buildin function. github.com/ywaby/bl_pbs_helper
I thought about it today and decided to make a new suggestion but found you already posted it here, so +1 from me.
Hi had the same Idea some time ago, I totally agree that having something like this would be a really handy.
Also I was thinking about a system to batch bake all the bake nodes in a material, or even in an entire scene.
Perhaps having a group/tag/label/layer system for bake nodes?
For example, Imagine a character composed of multiple objects with multiple materials with several textures you wish to bake. It would be convenient to have a mechanism to group all the bake nodes related to that character , say: "charcater A bake group". Then start the baking process for all the bake nodes belonging to that "group" with one click. I Imagined the bake button under the render tab, with the option to bake a single "bake group" or all the "bake groups" or all the bake groups tagged as "batch bake", something similar to render layers, but for baking.
@ric.bancone: I think it better to keep blender simple, and group idea can be done with a addon.
@ywaby: Yeah, you are probably right. I saw that you changed the mockup as suggestad. I like the solution with one node, base path, and the possibility to add inputs, and it actually looks like an elegant solution to create "groups" at least within the single material, though I can't think of a practical use of multiple nodes like that, but I'm sure that's a good thing.
Just a design suggestion, what about adding the render button (or similar) directly on the node, like the render layer node in the compositor, to start the baking process, instead of having it in the tools?
@ric.bancone: According to my understanding,node is a data, need cycles to parse it. it can't put a button on a node.
it's same with "File Output" ; my advice can be understood as Enhance "File Output". File Output node only work on compositing mode
@ywaby: OK. So this proposal needs to be re-categorized. It was originally tagged as Compositing, but this is a feature for Materials and Textures. I've re-tagged your proposal for you. That should help a bit. However, this could really use a mock-up to show how you might expect this node to work in Blender in an example material node network.
I assume that you mean this to be for Cycles materials. Is that correct?
@Jason van Gumster: did you mean this? by the way, is it possible to make a new node type with python? how to do it?
@ywaby: The mock-up certainly does help. Might be worthwhile to include what's seen in the N region of the Node Editor when the node is selected (for instance, the File Output node gives the ability to customize names and paths and even allow for adding more output files.
The Python API does support adding new nodes, but there's a caveat. No actually processing or behavior actually happens in nodes. They just define behavior... kind of like instructions. The actual processing is only done by whatever reads in the node network (e.g. the compositing engine or cycles or some 3rd party renderer). So you could add your node in Python pretty easily, but it wouldn't actually do anything until that node is supported by Cycles (to use your example).
@Jason van Gumster: thank your advices.I have modify my post. It look more simple as use composition "File Output" , and I think that will make code more easy.
not texture baking on meshes, it just output color data it can be used
@ywaby: How does this differ from the File Output node?
@Jason van Gumster: File Output is present in Compositing, this is for Material Editing, so you can save a texture modified in the material editor as a different texture for example.
Just to be clear, since you tagged this in compositing, am I correct in thinking that this is not related to texture baking on meshes?
If that's the case, what exactly are we baking? How would an artist use this?