"Compositor" node in Shader Editor (Design Idea)
I recently had a design idea to be able to bring the power of the compositing tools in Blender to the Shader Editor.
This idea is far different from the almost impossible ideas to bring compositors nodes directly into the Shader Editor. I truly believe it is a clever way of combining both worlds in a way that could potentially work in Blender, and keep the software consistent. It probably still have some flaws and I'b be happy to discuss it.
My idea : Add a single new node for the Shader Editor -- the "Compositor" node.
This node would act as some sort of Bake node, allowing dynamic inputs for Color and Float data type. There is a UVMap selection and a bake option. Plugging in some inputs would require a new bake.
After hitting bake, the inputs are baked as image data type internally in Blender, and they are baked onto the selected UVMap. These images are then available in the selected "Compositor" layer, similar to how the compositor have been ported to the VSE.
Here's a design idea for the "Compositor" node.
Then, moving into the Compositor workspace, to the selected Compositor node-tree, you have access to the input and outputs of the node, and you can do any compositing modifications you want, those will then be processed once, or everytime you do some modifications, and the result can be read as the output of the Compositor node in the Shader Editor.
All of this is technically already possible via manual process -- Manually baking every images, processing them in the compositor, exported as images in the pc, and reimported back into the shader editor. Such a node could bond compositor and materials in a conceivable way, essentially allowing for far more complex texturing workflow without breaking the whole Blender consistency or the user's creative flow.
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