K-3D Forums

Seven Degrees of Freedom

1. 

   kursad
   Member

   Hi
   I am little convoluted about the node list window. Lets say I have created 2 objects and a light(1 sphere, 1 light, 1 plane). But my node list is showing me massive amounts of node.

   To me it feels like this naming is totally reversed, or they are kind of out of context. In my view the Node history should be named as Node list, Node list should be Node history. Because when I look at my node history on selected items I see context related nodes, but Node list panel is rather confusing. I assume Node list is more like "global" node history.

   Can someone shed some light on these naming conventions please? For example what would be the best way to use "node list window"?

   Posted 1 year ago #
2. 

   Timothy Shead
   

   The Node List Panel is a flat listing of every node in the document. It's full of stuff because we automatically populate a newly-created document with a bunch of nodes for ease-of-use: a default material, camera, light, render-engine, painters, etc.

   Nodes in K-3D are connected to form pipelines, see http://www.k-3d.org/wiki/Visualization_Pipeline

   The Node History Panel displays pipelines as a tree beginning with the currently-selected node, followed by all of its inputs which are followed by their inputs, and-so-on until the end of the pipeline. You might try comparing it to the Pipeline Panel, which displays the same information in a different way.

   Cheers,
   Tim

   Posted 1 year ago #
3. 

   kursad
   Member

   Timothy, thanks for the heads up. I guess I was trying to point out a user centric experience issue. At the moment the interface feels little bit convoluted and personally I would like to see mainly the information that can benefit the user directly at first. Maybe those panels should not be the default panels to improve first user impressions (at least the Node List one). Or they should have user controllable strong filters at first.

   I have actually read some of the documents including the Pipeline one. I am aware of design considerations and princibles of K-3d and I appreciate them, especially considering that I am a Houdini user as well.

   Maybe we can work on reorganizing the interface if you guys are open to it. I know and use a lot of applications like Modo, Blender, Maya, Lightwave, Messiah, Houdini, Wings3d, ZBrush etc. I am also experienced in creating 3d content. I have Python and some what basic Gtk(through Glade and PyGtk) experience but I am not a programmer. I would prefer to work on proposals and discussions first rather than delving into checking the code.

   Posted 1 year ago #
4. 

   Timothy Shead
   

   Fantastic, you're a step ahead of me! I definitely want to add filtering to the Node List Panel for the October release, you will see that it's at the top of the list in the tracker:

   http://developer.k-3d.org/tracker/release-0.8.1.0.html

   as far as Node History goes, it was always intended to be an expedient way to display part of the total document graph. I'd definitely like to replace it with something better. The Pipeline Panel was a step in the right direction, but lacks some basic functionality. More to the point, I've pretty-much given-up on the utility of trying to render the entire document graph - I don't think it would be very useful. One new idea is that we might try to develop something similar to the way DVCS systems render graphs - they do a good job of capturing DAGs.

   As a general observation, K-3D 0.8 really took care of a lot of internals; from this point forward, most of our work should be "user interface, user interface, user interface". So ideas are welcome, I encourage to use / link with the wiki if you want to jot-down any thoughts.

   Cheers,
   Tim

   Posted 1 year ago #
5. 

   kursad
   Member

   I am glad to hear that you are open to new ideas. As someone who worked in this field for a long time, I have developed some ideas about 3d app interfaces and work flows based on my past experiences and struggles that I tend to think that would benefit users. I will dig in the Wiki and see where and how I can add some of my thoughts.

   I have seen the Pipeline panel, I see where you guys are trying to go with it. As you have mentioned it is rerendering a pipeline that is in place already. I think that for viewing purposes it might give user some perspective on the state of the document, but would there be any direct help, I am not sure about it. When it comes to node based approach there are 2 examples, one is Maya and the other is Houdini. I definitely go with Houdini because it is designed that way from ground up and it does not feel flakey at all, it is also very functional. I can see that K3D achieves some of the Houdini flow without needing the visual graphs, so that is really positive to me as a user. In the end K3d might not need graphs if we can find a different approach. I would personally like to see a node based system, but a node based system is only one of the approaches really.

   Couple years ago I created a personal proposal about shortcuts in general for Blender(prior to 2.5), but they have taken a direction at the moment. So I am thinking to resurrect and revive that one for K3d. I will bring it into conversation over the weekend.

   Posted 1 year ago #
6. 

   kursad
   Member

   Hi

   I have just started adding some basic issues to the wiki.

   http://www.k-3d.org/wiki/UI_Enhancements_Ideas

   Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.