Forums Solaris and Karma How to preview a materialx node?

How to preview a materialx node?

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jerry7
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Hi,
When authoring mtlx material, how to preview a intermediate node's result without creating a new surface shader and connecting to it?
Thanks.
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protozoan
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Select the node, press "X", and it will create a visualizer that overrides surface.
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jerry7
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Thanks!
It seemed there is a bug that the visualizer does not work if a pattern node has only one connection to displacement.
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GustavBP
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In Karma, the visualize node only seems to work if the node you're previewing is connected to the output down stream.
Is there any way around this, other than going through the hassle of creating an unlit surface and connecting to the surface output to preview WIP areas of the shading network?
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jsmack
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GustavBP
Is there any way around this, other than going through the hassle of creating an unlit surface and connecting to the surface output to preview WIP areas of the shading network?

make sure the network is not isolated from the material. I can be connected to anything, it doesn't have to be contributing meaningfully.
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inversionstudio
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I'm having the same issue, the visualzier only seems to preview certain nodes and not others.
So does this mean you have to have the node you're trying to preview connected to the main MaterialX Shader output in order to preview it?

mtlximage1 - can be previwed fine:


mtlximage8 & 9 - doesnt show anything:



But the normal map seems to preview ok too:



Thanks
Edited by inversionstudio - April 16, 2026 08:18:57

Attachments:
viz_ok.png (1.2 MB)
viz2.png (1.2 MB)
viz3.png (1.2 MB)
viz_normal.png (1.7 MB)

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edlgm
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It has to be connected to something for it to work. This node is also extremely finnicky and causes a lot of crashes for us so beware. You can always drop a surface unlit shader and connect that to the output, very annoying and slow to work with but at least it doesn't crash 50% of the time.
Edited by edlgm - April 16, 2026 16:55:44
Enrique De la Garza
CG Supervisor @Frame48
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inversionstudio
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Many thanks for the reply edlgm - ill stick to COPs then
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psychoboy852
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It's very annoying thing when doing look-dev. I found it to be very broken and buggy as well. Also it doesn't make any sense that you need to have the node connected to shader. I suppose it's something to do with USD under the hood but it would've been amazing if this was implemented in a similar way as its done in Blender - preview any material node without hassle. Hopefully SideFX can fix it in the future. Please SideFX!
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