Max/msp style sharing of nodes
In the node based programming world of Max/Msp the node setups can be shared by a simple copy/paste to text. This is very helpful in communities instead of looking at screenshots and deciphering the setup. I don’t know if this would demand too much to be set in stone, but the idea could maybe inspire a different approach to how the community knowledge shares 😊
5 Comments
There isn't much need for this in Blender, you can append/link any data block from a blend file, that includes materials with their nodes, and nodegroups.
My suggestion is more for knowledge-sharing online (not having to download a whole blender scene, where you link just the nodes) or not having to write off the "recipe" from a screenshot. I don't see this suggestion conflicting with linking asset.
I don't say your proposal conflicts with linking assets, only that it effectively fulfills the same end result: sharing assets.
And this ; can be an important dealbreaker for " a small team of developers who already have enough work to keep them busy for the next decade " ( source ).
You don't have to send a whole scene just to share a single data block. It's somewhat simple to do manually, and addons such as CGCookie/io_export_blend make it really easy. A function which could be integrated in Blender out of the box and would profit everyone for many things other than sharing nodes: making asset libraries, replacing a local asset by a link, sharing any sort of data, ...
There are plugins like this on Github.
if there could be a standardized way that comes with Blender, that would be awesome!