Would it be a good idea to have an option for network boxes that meant rather than having to have them minimise they simply blank out their contents.
This would reduce the visual clutter in the network editor but the nodes would still take up the same space when you unblank them again.

I keep finding with the minimise thing that I want to then re-arrange them closer together which is great until you maximise them and the nodes are all on top of each other. Aaaargh

Interesting idea. So your network could look like a kind of block diagram of what's really going on, assuming you labeled it properly. I like it.

Could you select the nodes inside your netbox and hit Shift-D?

George.

Smarty pants.

But that leads me to a question I've always had - say you do hide them. How do you see the hidden nodes? As in, how do you know that you have nodes that are hidden? Even in list view, they ain't there to know that you should / could expose them again.

Hey Craig,

The link to hidden nodes are dotted so you know there is something connected. Also, in list mode, you can type “e” to expose the hidden nodes with bright red Expose flag.

Cheers!
steven

I thought it was in list mode, but I didn't see the column. Totally spaced on the magic ‘e’ key. Hmmm, I wonder if there is a place for this kind of information? Maybe a book of some sort…

The dotted line is what you get for a partially hidden network with connections. If there aren't any connections you have to go and use another viewer.–> under Tools–> operator Browser (Alt+B). I didn't know you could do the ‘e’ trick in list mode. The other nodes will never show up and you would have no idea they were there. It is IMHO a real pain in the arse when you get ex-Maya people who are used to hiding and unhiding things all the time and they start to use this workflow to take care of clutter. Kills me. After a while bug hunting and fixing things in OTLs and hip files the first thing I would do would be to “expose all” to find the missing nodes. I know some people like to do this in OTLs in an effort to keep things clean and safe. Personally I like it all open and exposed. It makes fixing things easier and the other users learn faster.
(I'm not looking for a flame war after the maya comment, it is a generalization, but I feel better thinking that way )

here's a good tip for the book.
In the SOP level for a heavy network, go into list mode and select all and toggle off all the yellow flags for Highlight. It may seem small but it will spead things up, a bit. When you get into 1500+ Nodes for a rig inside a character OTL every bit of information you can let go helps when it comes to memory.

-k

For what it's worth, the magic ‘e’ key functionality can also be accessed by first hitting the magic ‘d’ key and then going to the List Mode tab and selecting ‘Edit Expose Flag’ (if memory serves).

George.

Now this would be great if there was a quick way to select all the nodes inside the network box….. :roll: Once the nodes are hidden how do you know which ones were in which network box so you can bring them back, huh.

I suppose for now we have to make do with making a group for each network box - what fun.
:wink:

Hi all,

The magical “e” key works only if there are hidden nodes. I forgot to mention that bit.

It's “Shift+d” to hide selected nodes.

Cheers!
steven

Simon
I suppose for now we have to make do with making a group for each network box - what fun.
:wink:

Good point Simon… Now I can swear there was an RFE somewhere to automatically link a bundle to a network box… hmm…

George.