Possibility to hide cables of relay nodes

More thoughts on this: For the relay nodes, it would be awesome if we could frame on the connected nodes by click of a button on the node. It could have a left and a right arrow button on it and clicking on it will center the view on the next/previeous node. this would especially helpfull with the possibility to hide relay node cables. Also for more convenience a hidden cable could become visible and highlighted if we hover over the node.

Probably you might ask which cable should be hidden the left or the right one... I'd say it should only hide a cable if it is connecting 2 relay nodes and not if a relay node is connected to any other type of node.

Ok, i think i have reached a point where it becomes next to impossible to work with shader forge:

It is an entangled mess, even if i would introduce more relay nodes it would not become any better and the code already is flooded with sections like this:

float2 node_2394 = node_2081;

float3 node_9115 = node_5402;

float3 node_9691 = node_9115;

float3 node_3985 = node_9691;

float3 node_1294 = node_3985.rgb;

Without some improvements on the organizing side of things i guess i have no choice but to translate it into code.

Do you have any plans to improve the wireflow and/or some cable free way of referencing in the future? I'd like to know before i start translating this and some other shaders.

I dont want to appear pushy and i really love shaderforge(made hundreds of shaders with it so far), just would like to know what's on the roadmap regarding wireflow/organizing features.

Thx

There are a few bugs I've prioritized, but feature-wise this is the next thing I'll look at. It will, however, likely not be until after the 18:th of November due to another deadline. I can see if I can find time to do it before that, but I wouldn't rely on it!

Thanks a lot, guess that is enough reason for me to bear the mess for a little longer. You really do a fantastic job keeping shaderforge up to date!

Thanks :)

Sorry for the delays! SF isn't the only project I'm working on at the moment, and this coming week happens to be nearing a semi-announcement / milestone / deadline of the other project here at Neat Corp.

Great, i am very curious!
Does it by accident have to do with decals? I'd understand if you dont want to reveal anything yet... just too curious to hold back the question :D

In that case I'll likely disappoint!

Unity already has decals on their roadmap, which is why I've chosen not to continue that research.

It's a VR game for the HTC Vive :)

You might consider wire highlighting like Unreal Blueprints have. Hovering over a node for a couple seconds turns the connected wires into a highlight color. :P

You can somewhat do that already by selecting the node :)

Oh my..! It's very subtle though haha.

As an aside - I'll likely rename them to something more intuitive, just a heads-up :)

They're now called simply Get and Set

you are awesome :)

Amazing! :D

Fun fact: They work the same way as all other nodes, but their links are simply hidden and connected by the setting instead of linked by the user :)

This is really cool! We'll spend less time OCD-ing and uncrossing wires!

Will you have the possibility to view the actually "hidden" wires? Like a bool in the Settings or something, in case you have a lot of RelayIn/RelayOut and need to find connected nodes?

Also, did you remove the simple Relay nodes completely?

I don't think I'll have a checkbox for that, but I could make it auto-highlight all the outputs when selecting an input, and vice versa.

And no, the old relay node is still there, in addition to the new Set/Get nodes :)

This has now been released with 1.25!