jerry7
2024年11月6日 00:18:11
Hi,
When authoring mtlx material, how to preview a intermediate node's result without creating a new surface shader and connecting to it?
Thanks.
protozoan
2024年11月6日 07:35:14
Select the node, press "X", and it will create a visualizer that overrides surface.
jerry7
2024年11月6日 18:49:27
Thanks!
It seemed there is a bug that the visualizer does not work if a pattern node has only one connection to displacement.
GustavBP
2024年11月8日 05:38:23
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?
jsmack
2024年11月8日 14:19:48
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.
inversionstudio
2026年4月16日 06:00:21
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
edlgm
2026年4月16日 13:54:52
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.
inversionstudio
2026年4月16日 16:44:21
Many thanks for the reply edlgm - ill stick to COPs then
psychoboy852
2026年5月14日 11:54:33
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!