With large node trees it is quite easy to lose track of all the nodes - some, perhaps many, may not be visible in the editor. You can still see where other nodes are though, with the mini-map display. This is found in the bottom-left corner of the node editor window you can change its position in the preferences :. The blue line shows the section of the editor currently displayed in the editor window.
As you zoom in the proportion of the editor area which is visible will decrease, so the box will shrink; as you zoom out the box will increase in size until it shows all the nodes in the editor. The nodes are drawn in the colour of their node type. In the image shown, you can see that three nodes are present in the visible area of the editor.
The mini-map is interactive, so you can drag the blue box with the mouse to show those nodes not seen in the window. If you don't like the mini-map display, you can turn it off and on by clicking this icon in the node editor's icon bar:. Scroll To Top. Advanced Search. It will contain a default node tree for the material that was created, so for an Object Material it would look like this: As you can see, it is a blank window with two nodes in it, but you can change that from the Options menu.
Note also the mini-map in the bottom-left corner and the row of buttons along the top. Icons The icon strip at the top of the window contains the following icons: The first three icons allow you to switch between angled wires when connecting nodes this is the first icon, with the tooltip 'Small Tangents' , curved lines as in Cinema 4D's Xpresso editor the second icon, tooltip 'Large Tangent' and straight lines third icon, tooltip 'Linear'.
The other icons are as follows: Angled wires between nodes Curved wires between nodes Straight wires between nodes Turn the minimap on or off Turn the node editor background grid on or off Turn snapping to the grid on or off Refresh the node tree inside a group Delete all unconnected nodes Sort all nodes Sort selected nodes horizontally Sort selected nodes vertically Align selected nodes horizontally Align selected nodes vertically Note that all these commmands are available in the 'Nodes' menu of the node editor: See the 'Aligning nodes' section below for details of node sorting and aligning.
Keyboard shortcuts 1Some additional shortcuts have been added in this release of Cycles 4D. This will display the settings for the selected node: You can remove this to free up space in the editor by clicking 'Show Attributes' again. Show Node List If you click this option, a list of all available nodes for this type of material opens in the node editor in a new pane on the left-hand side: The colour swatches against each node type are the same as are used in the title bar of a node belonging to this type.
For example, if you type 'map' you see this: Node Commander If you prefer to keep the node list in the sidebar closed to maximise editor space, you can still bring up the list temporarily by pressing the Tab key.
If you do that, this small window appears: You can use this in exactly the same way as the main node list. Show Icon Bar Unchecking this option will hide the icon bar in the node editor. Show Breadcrumb Bar What is the breadcrumb bar? Suppose you have an apparently simple node tree like this: You can see that there is a node group labelled 'Shader Group' in the tree.
If you open the group, it looks like this: Note that the breadcrumb bar now shows that you are in the group 'Shader Group'. Open that and you see this: Now the breadcrumb bar tells you that you are in the 'Texture Group' inside the 'Shader Group' inside the main node tree. If you don't want to see the bar, uncheck this option in the menu. Finding a node in the list If you want to find a particular type of node you can type its name or part of it in the edit field at the top of the node list.
So for example, typing 'map' into the field will result in the list showing only those nodes which contain those letters: Now only the nodes with 'map' somewhere in their name are seen. Editing the material and nodes Material settings Changing the overall settings of the material is described on the Cycles 4D Materials page. Node settings You can edit the node settings in three places: the node itself, the node editor, or Cinema 4D's attribute manager.
As an alternative, you can click a Cycles 4D material to select it in Cinema 4D's material manager, and it will appear in the Attributes Manager as with any Cinema 4D material: You can then select the Node Settings tab to show the node settings for the node selected in the node editor: Full details of editing the nodes are given in the 'Editing Node Settings' page.
Aligning nodes There are two ways to align nodes automatically in the node editor: the context menu and the align icons at the top of the node editor window. If you select two more nodes in the editor, the menu looks like this: Note that if no nodes are selected, the only option is 'Sort All'.
The equivalent icons are: From left to right, these are: Sort All Sort Horizontally Sort Vertically Align Horizontally Align Vertically You can hover over any icon with the mouse to show a tooltip indicating which button does what. Sort All This option will try to move the nodes to align them vertically and horizontally. So a node tree that looks like this: After 'Sort All' becomes this: Very importantly, note that this only works on nodes connected to one another. Sort Vertically, Sort Horizontally These options distribute nodes evenly over space in the editor window.
Align Vertically, Align Horizontally These options align the nodes by the tops of the nodes vertical or the side edges horizontal. Moving around in the editor You can select nodes in the editor and move them around by dragging with the mouse.
To move around in the editor you can: hold the '1' key and hold the left mouse button then drag the mouse to pan around the editor or left-click and drag over the minimap to move the area shown in the editor zoom in or out with the mouse wheel or hold the '2' key and hold the left mouse button then drag the mouse to zoom Material settings These are settings for the material as a whole, not for individual nodes.
See the Cycles 4D Materials page for details. Adding nodes You can add a node using the node list pane see above but you can also use the context menu in the node editor.
To add a node, right-click anywhere in the nodes window the black area and the context menu appears: Select the required node from this menu. The 'Add' submenu is a special case. From this you can add a new frame, group or pivot: Adding and automatically connecting nodes If you right-click on an output port of an existing node, a context menu appears with the list of nodes you can add.
Creating nodes from scene objects You can drag some scene objects into the node editor from the object manager and an appropriate node will be created. Note that the Backspace key can also be used to delete nodes. Muting nodes If you select a node and right-click its title bar, a context menu appears.
Repeat the above operation to un-mute the node. You can do the same thing by toggling the mute button at the top-right of any node: In this image the unmuted active node is on the left and the muted equivalent on the right.
Node name and colour You cannot alter the colour of the node title bar but note that different categories of nodes Color, Input, etc.
Here are the colours for the various node types: Node groups also have colours and you can change those if desires. Resizing nodes You can stretch a node horizontally by dragging on the right-hand edge of the node. All other ports are not shown: Node ports or sockets Cycles 4D nodes can have only input ports, only output ports, or both. Different types of ports have different colours to help you identify them more readily:: Port Type Colour Shader includes ports such as Surface, Volume, etc.
Green Color Yellow Vector Purple Numeric value Grey String Blue You can hide any ports which are not being used by selecting the node then right-clicking the title bar and from the context menu choose 'Hide Unused Sockets'. Making more space Some of the nodes are quite large and occupy a lot of space in the node editor. These methods can be very useful to save space in the editor. Linking nodes This is done in the same way as Cinema's Xpresso editor. Automatic node linking If you have two nodes linked together, you can drag and drop another node onto the link between the two.
Disconnecting ports To disconnect two ports, either: click and hold the input port then drag away from the port and the connecting line will disappear; or hold the Alt key and click and drag across the connection; a red line will appear, and when you release the mouse button the connection will be broken: or click and hold on one of the nodes and 'shake' it a few times waggle the mouse left to right to disconnect the nodes Cycles 4D also has a feature whereby nodes can be connected automatically.
Shortcuts to link nodes There are other ways to link nodes that may be more convenient in some cases. These include: Hotkey Select two nodes and hit the 'C' key. Context menu Suppose you have a node with an output Color port and you'd like to connect it to the input Color ports of two more more other nodes.
Rather than make each connection individually, you can do this: select the nodes you want to connect to NOT the one you want to connect from on the node you want to connect from, right-click on the output port to be connected choose 'Connect Selected' from the menu: The single output port will then be simultaneously connected to the equivalent input ports of the other nodes. Note that only identical ports will be connected - Color to Color, Vector to Vector, etc.
Editing node settings This topic requires detailed explanation so has a separate page dedicated to it. Node groups As with editing the node settings, node groups also have their own page. Frames If you have a complex node tree it can occupy a lot of screen space. For example, suppose you have nodes arranged like this: But you don't need to see all these nodes and you could use the space they occupy.
If you choose 'Frame Selected' the three nodes you selected will all be added to a frame, like this: This doesn't seem to have done very much but you can double-click the frame title bar to give this: Which now takes up much less screen space note that the frame title bar is reduced in width to avoid a long title bar occupying excessive space.
Other frame options You can do more with frames than this. Right-click on the title bar of a frame, and this context menu appears: Most of these commands are described elsewhere, but note the following ones: Toggle Mute Selected If the frame is selected , choosing this option will mute all the nodes contained in it.
Add Selected Nodes to Frame Click this option to add any selected nodes to the frame the frame itself must not be selected when you do this, as the frame cannot add itself to itself! Disband Frame Removes the frame from the node editor and shows the nodes that were contained in it again. Pivots A pivot is a special node which allows you to connect two ports with a 'joint' - the pivot - in the middle. Here is a typical example: The pivot is the 'doughnut' shape between the two nodes.
To connect, either: drag the pivot over an existing connection, which will automatically remake the connection to include the pivot; or drag from each port to the pivot to connect it to the pivot note: the connection area of the pivot is on the left-hand edge for incoming connections and on the right-hand edge for outgoing connections You can also add a new pivot to an existing connection by holding the Ctrl and Alt keys, then holding down the let mouse button and dragging the mouse over the link.
Deleting a pivot If you select the pivot and hit Delete, the pivot is deleted and the connections will be made directly between the ports. Editor mini-map or global view With large node trees it is quite easy to lose track of all the nodes - some, perhaps many, may not be visible in the editor.
This is found in the bottom-left corner of the node editor window you can change its position in the preferences : The blue line shows the section of the editor currently displayed in the editor window. Contents Open All Close All.
What is Cycles 4D? All Rights Reserved. If two Shader nodes e. For the current, connected input port, the "feeding" Node will be replaced by one from the list. Note that the complete Node chain will be deleted at the Node to be deleted. This only applies to the Nodes being fed: Nodes that are connected to other output ports remain unaffected. All loaded textures are listed here. Select a texture from the list to feed it into the input port.
Selecting this option will open a context window from which you can select a bitmap or video, which will then be fed to the input port using an Image Node. Several Nodes such as the Layer Node or the Gradient make this command available. With it you can delete elements such as Layers or Knots. Selecting this command will hide the selected ports. This only works with ports that are not connected. The hidden port will then appear in the previously described list under Add Input and can be made visible there.
Note also the Show All Ports command and the next two commands described there. This is a different functionality from the hiding or displaying of ports. Here, you can call up a Port Inspector for each port it can be closed by clicking on the small x on the left. These small Port Inspector values will move accordingly when the Node is moved. The Port Inspector can display static values for each port.
It works best when the respective port is connected to other Nodes it can then, for example, also display animated colors. The Port Inspector cannot handle complex data streams see Geometry port at top right of image: it displays nulldata.
The Data Inspector is better suited for more complex data. Most settings have a default value, which is defined when the Node is created. Using this command, modified values will be reset to their default values. This only affects Nodes that are not connected. See also Input and Output Group Areas. The data types will be converted, if possible.
A data type can be copied using this command fora port with an inter value of 4 it would, for example, look like this: int For example, for a Compose Container Node, for which you can also define data types, click on the button at the far right of Data Type and select Edit Data Type and paste the data type there. A Solo functionality can be enabled for Nodes.
If this Node has multiple outputs, one of them must be defined as a Solo Port , which is what this option does. If a Node has multiple outputs, this option can be used to define which output should be displayed in the preview. Proceed as follows to connect a Node port with another port:. So what can be done with selected connections? They can, for example, be deleted or modified per context menu commands described below only those commands not described elsewhere are described below.
If ports are already connected, this command can be called up. It places a Converter Node in the connection, i. Muted connections will be displayed with a dashed line.
Values will not be accepted from the previously connected Node but from the Attribute Manager instead. This lets you temporarily disable connections for test purposes, for example. At the top right of the Node Editor you will find the following 5 icons, from left to right:. The most major change compared to the previous Attribute Manager are the linked fields that have been replaced by Connectors.
Node inputs can either be fed with values by simply entering values for given settings or - and this is new - by connecting Node inputs with node outputs of other Nodes, i.
Click on the icon at the right of the setting name the "connector" and select a Node from the Connect Node list to connect with the input that you select you can, of course, simply connect ports in the Node Editor view. The selected Node will be created and linked:. Clicking on a connector icon will make the following commands available, from which most should already be familiar from the port context menu.
The connector icon makes a similar functionality available, which makes it possible to access a port in the Node Editor per right-click. This command can, for example, be found in the Layer Node.
The selected Node will be linked with a new layer. The cached output port can then be linked with a different input port. This way, multiple inputs can be connected with the same output port. This command connects the output port in the cache with the input on which you click. Contrary to the previously described command, a duplicate of the entire feeding Node is created.
The connection is maintained but no data will be passed. Instead, the value defined in the Attribute Manager will be used for the input. Now let's look at these:. The first method is to use the Live Viewer window.
From this window you can go to the Materials section and choose any of the materials in the menu. Once you've made your choice, you can see the material preview in the Cinema 4D's editor window. If you double click on it, you will get a material creation window.
We will explain all the options here in the next chapter. The second method is to use the Cinema 4D material window.
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