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  • Published 28 Aug 2023

Drop-Down Menu for Geo-Nodes Node Groups

There has been multiple times now I really wanted to put a drop-down menu in my node groups, in which you could rename the choices in it, and each choice just changes what's inside your nodes and for example hides/unhides inputs/outputs from the node group, or simply just gives a different output (most basic example : Having an asset and selecting in the dropdown menu Low Poly/Mid Poly/High poly)

There are multiple ways of approaching this idea so I mocked up some really bad images of how I think it could look

First and main idea (img 1, 2 and 3) would be to just be able to create a drop down menu directly in the group input node, and when creating inputs or inputs, you can choose to assign it a specific pick and it will hide or not depending on the choice. This is my main idea, hidden inputs may drive a completely different part of the node tree and go into a hidden output that will just show up if another choice is selected. Hidden inputs going into existing and visible math operations or similar, it will just read as the original value of the original node (example : Math add operation have a visible value adding a hidden value, the hidden value will read as 0 since 0 is the original value for math node)

Second idea, (img 4 and 5) this one is more experimental and might not be great at all but some sort of Multiple Choice Switch, instead of just checking a box, 0 or 1, you could actually plug any amount of inputs, and the output can be driven by an integer from 1 to "any amount of inputs" and instead of looking like an integer, it could eventually just be a dropdown menu so you can rename the inputs and the choices would read the name of the inputs.

You could have for example the MC Switch it's own menu on the right side, and similarly to the group you can add inputs etc..

Here's a great use case scenario for a personal project : I'm creating a tree making tool inside of Geometry nodes, and the user could change the distribution type of the branches like Phyllotaxy or Random or Aleternating etc... And by a simple click, all these choices would just changed the ouput coming from these MC Switches, delivering a different but wanted result every time

Hope this make sense and that I'm not the only one wanting that! Have a great day

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This idea was marked as a duplicate of OPTION Node.
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Development Status: Done

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maxime1
28 Aug 2023

1 Comment

maxime1 Author

An Index Switch has been added in the Alpha version of Blender 4.1 today! This is closest to my second idea "MC Switch", almost the exact same, apparently a lot of people have been asking for the same node as this one.

It's not really close to drop-down menus in Node Groups, but it's one step closer and I believe Index Switch will be a game changer for a lot of people! Thank you Blender team

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