Not able to drag materials into NGE Tweet

[larsmidnatt]

I want to be able to drag materials from the live db(or potentially any material in the list really) into an open NGE tab. Right now I have to:

click on the live DB material
create a new copy
open the copy in the NGE (and hope the material is only one node)
copy that material
open the material that I wanted to work
paste node into tab (rinse wash repeat for each node).

I don't necessarily always want to override my materials with materials in in the live DB, Sometimes I want to mix them or just check how they are set up. So while draggin materials over another to replace them is great, it's not always what you want.

[t_3]

I want to be able to drag materials from the live db(or potentially any material in the list really) into an open NGE tab. Right now I have to:

click on the live DB material
create a new copy
open the copy in the NGE (and hope the material is only one node)
copy that material
open the material that I wanted to work
paste node into tab (rinse wash repeat for each node).

I don't necessarily always want to override my materials with materials in in the live DB, Sometimes I want to mix them or just check how they are set up. So while draggin materials over another to replace them is great, it's not always what you want.

i will think about that. btw, live db mats (in any of the plugins) are always one node...

[larsmidnatt]

i will think about that. btw, live db mats (in any of the plugins) are always one node...

Yeah but my materials aren't LOL. It's tedius to copy nodes, change panes, over and over. In the standalone you could see all of your materials on one screen if you wanted, in the plugin you can only see one at a time.

Speaking of the NGE, would be nice for some status indication so you know which pin you are hovering over as you are trying to connect nodes, just a little popup that says "bump" or what not could help. A minor thing.

Also not related to the NGE, but materials in general. it would be nice when you apply a new material preset to a single surface (say the cornea of a figure) to not have all the other unrelated materials for the figure get unlinked and replaced by defaults. I have to go back and repin all the surfaces I didn't change. I only changed the cornea, so I would expect only the cornea to get updated in the plugin. At least they go to the unlinked section so all work isn't lost.

edited a few times for clarity

[t_3]

Yeah but my materials aren't LOL. It's tedius to copy nodes, change panes, over and over. In the standalone you could see all of your materials on one screen if you wanted, in the plugin you can only see one at a time.

it's a different concept. in the standalone you would need to drag 50++ pin connections just to get anywhere also "all materials at one time" would mean you don't use macro nodes, and for a scene with complex mats and 100 pins this would look pretty funny imo. using macro nodes in the standalone on the other hand is very close to what the plugin does.

Speaking of the NGE, would be nice for some status indication so you know which pin you are hovering over as you are trying to connect nodes, just a little popup that says "bump" or what not could help. A minor thing.

maybe not enough clarification here... the pin name written in the node is not already telling enough

Also not related to the NGE, but materials in general. it would be nice when you apply a new material preset to a single surface (say the cornea of a figure) to not have all the other unrelated materials for the figure get unlinked and replaced by defaults. I have to go back and repin all the surfaces I didn't change. I only changed the cornea, so I would expect only the cornea to get updated in the plugin. At least they go to the unlinked section so all work isn't lost.

sad but true: the plugin already needs to read from the undo caption(!) that a material set was loaded (ds is telling nothing about loads that are no complete scene) and there is no sign about what this was probably meant for; so the only way to overcome this is to turn auto mat creation off, and create converted mats as needed from the single daz surface(s) in question...

[larsmidnatt]

Thanks for the response, here goes the wall of text you asked for.

it's a different concept. in the standalone you would need to drag 50++ pin connections just to get anywhere also "all materials at one time" would mean you don't use macro nodes, and for a scene with complex mats and 100 pins this would look pretty funny imo. using macro nodes in the standalone on the other hand is very close to what the plugin does.

No I did use macros, but the idea is that I could certainly see more than one material at a time and borrow nodes if I wanted to. If I want to copy a SSS material in the plugin the workflow is far from ideal. Perhaps when I can copy more than one node at a time my problem will be minimized. For now it's a time sink and you have to do a lot of tab jumping. It's actually faster NOT to copy and paste, just write down all the settings for the 2 materials, go to the material you want to update and input the settings from your notes while staying on a single tab. (otherwise you tab hop a dozen or so times)

maybe not enough clarification here... the pin name written in the node is not already telling enough

tooltip feedback is never a bad thing. The pin name in the plugin is superior to how it was in the standalone, as the standalone only had the tooltip. The tooltip is missed when the UI is a tad slow, you think you are hovering over a diffuse pin and when you release it turned out you were on the transmission node instead. Having the tooltip would save me from unpinning and repining in those situations. If that transmission node happened to not be a node and just contained settings inside the material you may lose your settings and have to figure out what you had done. Would be a trivial issue with an undo function. I am sure this is not an issue at all with a dedicated display card, but I don't have one. With the standalone I didn't mind waiting a split second for the name to show up to confirm which pin I was on.

Also sometimes I think I'm on a pin and release the mouse and it apparently wasn't close enough, so nothing happens.

But I can see why the name shown twice would be redundant, how about you highlight the pin once you are within range to successfully connect. The highlight color probably should be different then the connected color. For example you mouse over the diffuse pin, it turns white, you release, it turns green like it does now. So you don't need to add additional text, but if you added visual feedback it would be useful.

sad but true: the plugin already needs to read from the undo caption(!) that a material set was loaded (ds is telling nothing about loads that are no complete scene) and there is no sign about what this was probably meant for; so the only way to overcome this is to turn auto mat creation off, and create converted mats as needed from the single daz surface(s) in question...

I haven't really had any success with converting single mats yet, I'll look into it when I have more time.

And how does one refresh textures in the plugin? In DS you press CTRL-I. In the standalone there was a little refresh button near each texture. I don't necessarily need a new button for every image, but a method to force update the texture would be nice.

[larsmidnatt]

deleted duplicate post

[t_3]

No I did use macros, but the idea is that I could certainly see more than one material at a time and borrow nodes if I wanted to.

i remember me double clicking macro nodes and closing and opening tabs in the standalone quite often also anyway: if you look at one of the very early preview videos for the nge, you will notice a tree root entry called "used nodes" - the idea is already in place: it should serve as a hook to not only grab default nodes from the left hand pane in the nge, but also any other node actually in the scene. and in addition it should allow to place global nodes there... let's say a value node which controls specific parameters not only for one but multiple mats. as plugins can not use macro nodes and the macro input/output system, i was always in search for something to compensate that. but since there might be an awful lot of nodes, and controlling multiple mats through global parameters needs some pretty clever feedback to avoid headache, it just needs some more conceptual thinking in order to provide a smooth working solution - which i never had the time for until now.

word about copy and paste: if you copy any node, it will always copy all child nodes, only collapsed into the base node. since you can easily alt-drag them out again, this might save you from a few additional copy&paste sessions until this is in place.

[edit]: in other words copy the whole mat over by it's base node and drag out what is of use and delete the rest in the target might should be a lot faster. the last copied node btw can be pasted as often as needed and is only changed if a new node gets copied (or cropped).

tooltip feedback is never a bad thing. The pin name in the plugin is superior to how it was in the standalone, as the standalone only had the tooltip. The tooltip is missed when the UI is a tad slow, you think you are hovering over a diffuse pin and when you release it turned out you were on the transmission node instead.

Also sometimes I think I'm on a node and release and it apparently wasn't close enough.

i generally avoided tooltips for anything else but help, because there is only one tooltip-switch for the whole stuff. if you turn tooltips off (in DS settings) you won't have any, otherwise you will have them all.

But I can see why the name shown twice would be redundant, how about you highlight the pin to suggest where it will connect. The highlight color probably should be different then the connected color. For example you mouse over the diffuse pin, it turns white, you release, it turns green like it does now. No additional text, but feedback that is useful.

that was my thought already when starting to read in here. highlighting the pin in question should be a good way to give the needed additional feedback, and is not overly complicated to implement.

I haven't really had any success with converting single mats yet, I'll look into it when I have more time.

imo it is pretty straight forward: select 1-n daz surface entries from 1-n objects/figures, right click and select "create as new" - will create new auto mats only for those, will group them if possible, current linked mats will be unlinked.

And how does one refresh textures in the plugin? In DS you press CTRL-I. In the standalone there was a little refresh button near each texture. I don't necessarily need a new button for every image, but a method to force update the texture would be nice.

if you mean refresh from disk, this is indeed missing. must admit i haven't thought of it until now. but this again is a no-brainer, so it will be no problem to get it. in addition it would be imo nice to have this also as context menu option in the octane tree, to reload not only single textures, but all there are (or as much as mats are selected). to avoid reloading unchanged textures, it should be save to record and check the change date of a file (as a feature for later)...

[larsmidnatt]

word about copy and paste: if you copy any node, it will always copy all child nodes, only collapsed into the base node. since you can easily alt-drag them out again, this might save you from a few additional copy&paste sessions until this is in place.

[edit]: in other words copy the whole mat over by it's base node and drag out what is of use and delete the rest in the target might should be a lot faster. the last copied node btw can be pasted as often as needed and is only changed if a new node gets copied (or cropped).

this is good to know, This will save me a lot of time.

that was my thought already when starting to read in here. highlighting the pin in question should be a good way to give the needed additional feedback, and is not overly complicated to implement.

Good to hear.

imo it is pretty straight forward: select 1-n daz surface entries from 1-n objects/figures, right click and select "create as new" - will create new auto mats only for those, will group them if possible, current linked mats will be unlinked.

Ok for some reason I thought create as new would use the current Octane settings, not auto settings, got it now. (yeah I know there is a copy option that does what I describe, but i didn't know the difference between create and copy haha)

if you mean refresh from disk, this is indeed missing. must admit i haven't thought of it until now. but this again is a no-brainer, so it will be no problem to get it. in addition it would be imo nice to have this also as context menu option in the octane tree, to reload not only single textures, but all there are (or as much as mats are selected). to avoid reloading unchanged textures, it should be save to record and check the change date of a file (as a feature for later)...

yep from disk, thanks!

[t_3]

that was my thought already when starting to read in here. highlighting the pin in question should be a good way to give the needed additional feedback, and is not overly complicated to implement.

Good to hear.

had some nice sunday morning coding: the pins will be highlighted, from the next update on. nifty and not to oversee in addition the highlighting will show where a connection is possible at all; not between different types, input->input or ouput->output, not within the same node, not, if the connection already exists.

note: if you say the ui is laggy under some conditions, the highlighting (be it tooltips or the current way) may be laggy too - nothing much to help here but more gpu power*; i did choose a method which needs minimal repaint, so it might be more responsive even under such conditions - don't know. the difference is that you will now know, that there is some feedback, so if you were used to wait a bit until releasing the connection, the same thing should help here, to see the last highlighted state...

*) and some other thing; the next octane sdk update should allow to reserve some gpu power for host operations - this should help to get better ui responsiveness of course...

[larsmidnatt]

that was my thought already when starting to read in here. highlighting the pin in question should be a good way to give the needed additional feedback, and is not overly complicated to implement.

Good to hear.

had some nice sunday morning coding: the pins will be highlighted, from the next update on. nifty and not to oversee in addition the highlighting will show where a connection is possible at all; not between different types, input->input or ouput->output, not within the same node, not, if the connection already exists.

note: if you say the ui is laggy under some conditions, the highlighting (be it tooltips or the current way) may be laggy too - nothing much to help here but more gpu power*; i did choose a method which needs minimal repaint, so it might be more responsive even under such conditions - don't know. the difference is that you will now know, that there is some feedback, so if you were used to wait a bit until releasing the connection, the same thing should help here, to see the last highlighted state...

*) and some other thing; the next octane sdk update should allow to reserve some gpu power for host operations - this should help to get better ui responsiveness of course...

Thats all good news. I don't mind waiting a second to get feedback, I had to do that in the standalone. And I've been quiet about the the recent octane update that let you reserve gpu, patiently waiting for it in the plugin. Hopefully it will help some, I've tried getting secondary gpu just to run display, but I've had so much bad luck with the cards I've been hoping a software solution would help a bit. Thanks for all the hard work.

BTW I have noticed all your improvements/fixes up to this point while working this weekend. Haven't had problems merging, etc etc. Great work!