Grouping Nodes In Slate Material Editor

[soulburn]

We need the ability to take a set of nodes in the Slate Material Editor and group them. Grouping would mean creating a custom colored box that you could drop nodes in and out of, and then collapse these groups so you can de-clutter your material graph. This allows you to make a very complex graph very simple looking, and allows you to share groups with other projects. It needs the following features:

• Ability to collapse and uncollapse the group
• Color the box and the same color would be applied to your collapsed node
• Ability to easily drag and drop items out of and into the group
• The group can have multiple inputs and outputs
• You can take any control that exists in a node and propagate it to the group node. So lets say you have a noise node in the group, you could take the size of the noise and propagate it to your group. That way, when you click on the collapsed group node, you have access to the size directly without the need to go hunting in the group. This would allow you to create little groups that have only the controls you need, hiding the rest of the complexity, and share them between multiple networks and files.
• Take grouped nodes from SME and turn them into presets in a material library that you can share between different material graphs and max files
• Take grouped nodes from SME and turn them into presets available in the Material/Map browser
• Groups should be nestable
• Add notes to your group like a mini help file that lets other people know a little about what the group is useful for

This sort of workflow is common in programs like Shake, Nuke, Katana, Substance Designer, etc, but we really need it as part of the base SME.

Here's an example of one of my common materials...



With grouping, this could be reduced to a readable graph that people could easily edit 🙂

[RGhost77]

For now node contains all parameters that the material has. But it's nightmare if material has 50+ parameters it's makes very hard to use such nodes.
Please add into nodes collapsible/expandable groups of parameters (see screenshot) like Maya has.

[lightcube]

+100.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

we are in 2020 what other future do you need ?

[alex.motion]

today i was working on interior scene , materials are mess ..

so simple and must have function , years passed  after request , 106 upvotes ))

ahh... keep up a good work ✌️

[Kranos_Orphydian]

awesome, pls, don's phase out Compact Material editor. With a minimal improvement it has so much potential as well

[chroma123]

Hi. When would we see this feature added to max?

[shawnolson]

Compound nodes now available: https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2024/ENU/?guid=GUID-D7D1CA71-B668-4E20-8C61-1AB43173A8F2