Actual Reroute Nodes for the Node Graph

Feedback Ideas
1

In case it hasn’t already been suggested elsewhere, I’d like to strongly suggest actual dedicated reroute nodes be implemented in the node graph. They should be small and lightweight, just like blender’s reroute nodes.

Using an adjust / FX node as a workaround is a bit silly for a few reasons. This only marginally helps the node spaghetti, and now you have adjust node boxes piled everywhere. What’s worse is now you can’t tell if an adjust node is actually a functional part of your terrain or if it was just put there as a reroute workaround. Imagine if you had to add a bunch of inert Hue/Saturation/Lightness nodes in blender’s material editor, just to wrangle your node spaghetti. Now you have no idea which HSL nodes are actually doing something or not.

Yes, I am aware of portals and also make frequent use of them. In my opinion having both the options of a portal and a true reroute node is the way to go. Following organized node trees is intuitive to follow, seeing inputs/outputs get teleported through the ether is not.

I’m no software developer, but surely this has to be the easiest node to program, right? In any case, hopefully we can see reroute nodes be implemented in a future version of Gaea 2 or 3.

2

Have you tried “Chokepoint” node?

It has zero processing, and holds no data, so basically cannot be directly exported (that’s why people rarely use it, fx has very little resource cost, and can be directly exported). You can use Chokepoint to reroute, and fx can be used as endpoints.

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3

Using chokepoints as a workaround ultimately solves nothing. You now no longer know what is a meaningful chokepoint versus a “reroute” choke point. And it’s still a very cluttered node tree as opposed to if there was a true reroute node.

4

Thanks for the visual feedback. I’m not sure on our UI capability and limits, but perhaps it’s something @parvez is able to chime in on

[!question]
whether the /Chokepoint node can be collapsed further into a dot-style visually?

Chokepoint is Reroute

Chokepoint is Gaea’s core reroute/pass-through node. Functionally, it does the same job as Blender’s Reroute node or the various “dot” nodes found in Unity, Unreal, Substance, etc.: data passes through unchanged and the node can be used to reorganise or branch connections.

The main difference is presentation. In Gaea, a Chokepoint can only be collapsed down to a small square; it doesn’t have the tiny dot-style display that Blender, Unity, Unreal, and Substance offer.

Strategies I Often Use

One method I often use is to keep hub of Chokepoints on a separate graph tab, then use Portals on the visual/main graph.

This gives you full control while keeping a simple, separate “hub” for your Chokepoints to live.

You can use the context/navigation tools for further control

  • P - for opening portal menu for connecting and disconnecting, re wiring,
  • bookmarks - for key Points of your graph you want to warp to.
  • ,- will open the navigate to an from context menus making it really easy to navigate where portals are involved.

Visually there are no long wires to manage, but you still have immediate contextual access to the Chokepoints and can jump directly to them. Visually, it stays very tidy, which seems to be the main concern here.

Endpoints - Options Available

As for the endpoints, you’re using the /adjust node. I’m assuming that’s mainly for visual uniformity.
If so, great, but it isn’t necessarily required. ( It can organise data a little different for builds and has the last point of reference if you need to apply things like normalisation).

Gaea already has dedicated export paths through Output nodes and Mark for Export, and you can still rename, organise, group, portal, collapse, etc. as needed. In some cases you wouldn’t be able to use an FX node, for example a mesh or unreal workflow.

Hope that helps and gives you further ideas to try out.

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