GeoNode Math Output Value To Shader Nodes
I was doing node math and was finding it annyoing that I couldn't visualize the output values in realtime so I had to go back and forth between the geo node and shader tab.
Seeing how this is a feature already in Geometry nodes I don't see why shader nodes doesn't have this feature.
Possible UI implementation idea I have:
Or just add a viewer node like geo nodes has which displays the value.
Other people asking for the same thing: blender.stackexchange.com/questions/268089/how-can-i-see-the-numeric-values-being-sent-between-material-nodes
blenderartists.org/t/value-reading-node/665890
devtalk.blender.org/t/is-it-possible-to-read-the-output-values-of-nodes-from-a-material/7899
blender.stackexchange.com/questions/10673/debugging-material-math-nodes-in-cycles/10675
reddit.com/r/blenderhelp/comments/1b2463g/no_output_value_for_nodes/
2 Comments
I always wondered if something similar was possible in the shader node... that would help because by visualizing this as a rendered color, its hard to differentiate between 1 (white), 5 (super white) and 1500 (super duper white) xD What I do sometimes : I use the compositor in the viewport with a glare node set to the wanted threshold, and if the glare is triggered, it means that I passed the value.... That's primitive I know, but it works. That wont help with negative values though...
The issue right now is Shaders do not explicitly support single values, meaning when you do simple math operations like that, it samples every pixel of the calculated frame and considers each pixel is a different result to the operation, even tho the operation is using only single values.
The same goes for geonodes, right now you can see the result in the viewer node because geonodes supports single values and recognize it's only using single values. But as soon as you introduce a field, the viewer node won't show you anything unless you go in the spreadsheet.
I suppose some sort of single value implementation in Shaders could allow for a clearer visualisation of the result of some maths operations