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Hypershade: display file NODE NAME, like in the olden days

Hypershade: display file NODE NAME, like in the olden days

Hello,

 

In the Node Editor and Hypershade, there is no way to display the name of a file node. I.e. I want the node label to display the name of the node, as it is shown in the Attribute Editor, Outliner, and elsewhere. This is an inconsistency in the UI where the same node is always displayed with two different labels.

 

And it's a workflow problem for users. If I want to label my file node "base color" or "roughness" or anything else, I'm not allowed to see that label in the graph. This is a UI fail and a regression from basic functionality that we used to have in Maya.

 

Currently our node label options, accessed ONLY through the super-secret hotkey, <5>, are:

 

* node type

* node name

* no label

 

However, when displaying node names, file nodes always automatically display the name of the referenced file.

 

I request two things:

 

1. Add an option to display the name of the file node rather than the name of the referenced file. E.g. display "file1" instead of "mybitmap.exr". This could be a menu item such as "Hypershade > Graph > Show File Node Names" or "Node Editor > Display >  Show File Node Names". But the Node Editor connection modes (Simple / Connected / Full / Custom) are in the Edit menu, which is bizarre anyway. Ideally, node display options should be in the same menu as connection modes.

 

2. Provide some other way to switch node label display other than that super-secret hotkey. Users cannot discover this functionality without poring over the docs. We need an icon on the Hypershade/Node Editor toolbar, a menu item, SOMETHING. E.g. "Node Editor > Edit > Show Node Type", "Node Editor > Edit > Show Node Name", "Node Editor > Edit > Hide Node Labels".

 

Hypershade has no menu items for connection mode , Hypershade only has icons. For consistency, options to change node label display could be icons only. But I would prefer if all commands were available from the menus, making icons optional rather than compulsory. Therefore the node label AND connection mode commands would need to be added to the Hypershade menu. I don't know where that would go, because that menu is kind of a mess. The View menu only applies to the Browser window. Again, node label and connection mode should really be in the same place. I guess it would all need to go in the Graph menu.

As I dig deeper into this, I see more inconsistencies and ambiguities in the menus and toolbars of both the Hypergraph and Node Editor. Maybe they are both due for a menu reorganization. But at the very least, I want to display the names of file nodes instead of the filenames of referenced source images.

3 Comments
johnnyboycage
Explorer

Yes please!

rogerwellard
Observer

Please!

Especially annoying on file nodes, where the file name could be obscure and not describing the attribute it is connecting to.

 

stevedavy
Participant

Another idiotic decision by Maya product managers. Do you go out of your way to deliberately break well established Maya paradigms and workflows (e.g. breaking the scene Save As function so your scene goes "wherever"), as part of some long-term strategy to make the program so unpleasant to use that we'll all have to switch to something else you have planned? Why WOULDN'T users want Hypershade nodes to have the ability to display custom names, like EVERY OTHER NODE IN MAYA. This is particularly aggravating as the Hypershape in general is garbage, little in the way of node organizational tools beyond the unusable "Bins", and with a layout that freaks out and shuffles your node layout with just about any action, making complex shading network wiring about 1,000 times more difficult than it should be. It's been this way for YEARS as well. And now you remove one of the few organizational capabilities -- BASIC NAMING -- still left to users.

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