Green lines in Substunce Designer really work for someone?

gnoop

I am trying to use this "compact material"  approach for years and it always turns into non-stop puzzle solving.    Isn't it supposed to be a great time saver?

  Guess the custom made  input /output names should be matching perfectly to standard naming system .    Nevertheless nodes are misses connection in half cases or do weird stuff. 

Why  metallic  workflow  shows both diffuse and base colors in "material" nodes ?  Should I keep them   both connected since the diffuse one is where scale goes from node to node usually?     But some have normal input as main one?    How it's supposed to work ?

Any special rules to follow ?   

poopipe

I'm struggling to understand what you're saying tbh.. 

But

If you mean things don't always connect up right then it'll be naming that causes it. 
You need to match usage, identifier and name up on input and output sides.
It will also split the connections up by group name

The extra channels are available so the nodes can support alternative workflows. If you're not using a channel in your workflows you can usually ignore it

Fwiw I very rarely use the compact material mode in practice - usually just use the multi channel one (2) 

gnoop

 It seems the main problem is inconsistent  "Primary" input  .    Many material nodes have diffuse as primary and since you don't use it  usually in metallic  workflow the nodes totally stop to transfer scale factor  properly  .       Still  nodes like "base material"  that I use a lot actually   don't let you use diffuse color input at all in metallic workflow  and  have normal as primary .    I bet it's where all the mess come from.

I also have to use multichannel because of this ,  fix manually all those inconsistencies  and keep them in mind.  Still  sometimes it  sleeps away nevertheless and I am stuck in puzzle solving.

I tried to make that automatic metallic/specular switch from  "base material" working in every "material" node  with height as primary  .But had not enough patience to make it all really working.    

    I bet it's still possible but I am amazed how   so basic thing could be still missed.    Such things should be  beyond consciousness  . just working in context properly .       Should be in program preferences at least .   

  It amazes me how after all those years  SD is still so much artist unfriendly. Half of a time you spent is a classical debug process artists don't have time for usually .    It somehow reflects programmers or technical "artists" way of thinking .    Not ones who study for art degrees . 

poopipe

I'm still confused.  Are you trying to plug materials with different channels together and expecting it to guess?

The connections are done based on the criteria I mentioned above, if those aren't fulfilled it isn't going to work properly 

Please give a concrete example of it failing, I'll double check it and can probably explain what the issue is

gnoop

Yes, I expect them to guess , It's not an AI they have to do for that. Just simple  if >> then kind of code .   It's not an unsolvable issue, it's just a bad system making user prone to mistakes  and having zero indication of that.      With all that graph inside of a graph  it turns into an utter mess you spent hours to debug.

All it have to do is  "guessing"  primary inputs or just use maybe the height one or anything set ones and for all  in software preferences   +  deleting the redundant channels where they not applicable.

And as of  naming and groups itself it would be not a rocket science I guess to make a kind of patternt  based  auto naming, spell checking , misnaming highlighting.     Even input bitmaps renaming dialog .      Anything helping  ever hurrying artists to do it right  at once.   

poopipe

I'll grant it's not obvious which is the primary input if you're in compact material mode and it's a pain in the arse that on occasion the primary node is hidden by the UI in non-compact mode. 
but...
The primary input is defined by the subgraph you're connecting to - If when you made your own graph the application overrode the defined primary input you'd be quite cross and also unable to fix the problem. 

if you find that you consistently want a different primary input or set of inputs on a node, simply wrap that node up in a new graph, set your inputs and outputs up the way you like, save it into your library and use that instead. 


You have to remember that Designer is not primarily an artist's tool - it's in large part a technical art tool and with those come configuration and customisation.

gnoop

In fact I have already remade once all default nodes into my own,  removed all non-metallic kind of channels,  set height primary everywhere.  Did  wrap ,slope blur,  bevel etc  adding another pair of input /output  without damn "exposure", just with a slider.

Took me years to weed out all the naming  and other small errors  to have it all working more or less smoothly finally .

Then I had a SSD bricked suddenly and after restoring data from backup, new system drive and then  one of SD  update  it's all turned into   half working mess again .     Thus my frustration .

I just amazed how damn inconvenient everything in SD is by default . You have to re-do evry basic thing and care about every damn hidden check box .     

     

And instead of making SD more or less artist friendly  that's imo totally possible    they did Alchemist .

ps.   Thanks you  for the advise  poopipe      You are right , wrapping like you described is probably less prone to mistakes then re-doing it from scratch I did before.