I’m posting this here first in the likely case that this is already possible and I just can’t find it…
In the Softimage ICE editor, you can visually organize your nodes with comment boxes like this:
This would be an extremely helpful feature in TouchDesigner. The ability to superficially markup and color-code the network would make it much quicker and easier to navigate a complex structure-- and I think better, in some cases, than organizing into a hierarchy of containers.
You can’t group them yet, but you can set the color of any node by bringing up the color palette in the lower left corner of the network editor, by pressing the ‘c’ key.
Clicking on any color will change the color of the selected nodes.
Cheers.
I find too that grouping operators into comment boxes like this would be quite interesting.
The ability to colorize operators is fine but i think there is a design issue into it: the main color of the family operators make it a bit unsatisfactory.
Perhaps if the new colors were extended to the toolbar, it could be more visual into the network like this:
Agreed, it would be hugely helpful for organization and sharing projects with others if I were able to create comment boxes and group nodes similar to the way I do in Houdini.
I’ve been using text dats to do all of my commenting. Works fine but it would be great if there were a comment node.
An alternative to comment boxes would be a ‘Network Editor’ viewer TOP.
Like the actual OP viewer which can display as a TOP the viewer of any OP, a Network Editor viewer would display as a TOP any network editor, for example any content of a container COMP.
So different network editors would be visible in a same network editor through this kind of TOP… :mrgreen:
Yep, the text DAT works ok, but something that is distinguished from the look of OPs would be ideal-- as if you are taking a pen and marking up the space around your network of OPs. Also, something that didn’t change text size as you zoom in and out.
I agree about the custom OP colors. What I think would be useful is a way to make something like a constant TOP always appear in the background, so you could use it as a visual grouping tool.
Not sure I follow the Network Editor viewer idea
I meaned something like this:
Perhaps as an option of container COMP (with possible interaction in viewer mode), or as a new TOP, I don’t know.
To have a network editor COMP, a Textport COMP, etc, would be very modular…