+4
Completed

Make Shader Forge work from Left to Right

Andrei Nadin 10 years ago updated by Freya Holmér (Developer) 9 years ago 14
I know this is hard and later etc. but would love to have it on the list. Unreal4 now goes left to right, seems silly but it would be awesome to have the nodes flow from left to right with the shader block inputs on the left.

Answer

Answer
Completed
SF is now left to right as of 0.37
I always wondered why they (Epic) were doing it the way they did in UE3. Asian customers?
There are quite a few applications out there that have node editors that go right to left as UDK does.
But there are a few things to consider when switching the flow direction as stated by Joachim in this post:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/191595-Shader-Forge-A-visual-node-based-shader-editor?p=1327853&viewfull=1#post1327853
Yup, at least he says it's trivial to implement - a toggle in the UI would be great :)
The primary reason I kept it right to left was to make it immediately recognizable for Unreal 3 users. Ironically, Epic themselves reversed it only in the last month or so.

But yeah, as I outlined in the post - another advantage is that the preview is on the left side, which makes sense hierarchally.

Shader preview <- Main node <- Your node tree <- Node browser

Reversing it would make it look like this:

Node browser -> Your node tree -> Main node -> Shader preview

I would be uncomfortable with the 3D preview on the right, and if only the nodes themselves are reversed, it's no longer in a neat order. What do you think?
A toggle in the UI is a tricky thing, because it will fragment the userbase when people take screenshots of trees in the wrong order
Um I don't mind the preview on the right either, its how I use Unity, the default layouts tend to have the preview bottom right and I am used to that. I am actually happy to keep that either way that suits you. My main desire is the nodes themselves.

I assume you meant

Node Browser -> Your Node Tree -> Main Node -> Shader Preview?
I did, sorry, fixed now :)
Ah yeah thats true about screenshots.. I suppose Unreal users are going through that now with so many v3 screenshots right to left and now having a left to right editor - I am MUCH preferring Unreal4's editor :) - not over Shader Forge of course - over Unreal3's one ;)
Just being a pain here but as of now..

Maya ShaderFX = Left to Right
Cinema4D CmNodes = Left to Right
3DSMax Slate material editor = Left to Right

Source Engine shader editor = Left to Right
Unreal4 shader editor = Left to Right

;)

Houdini, Left to Right
Softimage (XSI), Left to Right, Worldmachine aswell... but to be honest i dont mind the direction. 
I think the preview and node browser should stay where they are, node tree itself could be flipped. For me its a minimum priority thing though
Answer
Completed
SF is now left to right as of 0.37
Would be possible to keep both options? I have worked years and years with the old UDK, so... :) I feel more comfortable with the right 2 left style
As do I, but I got comfortable with it after about 5 minutes; I think you will as well :)
I'll probably force it to only be in one direction for consistency among users, especially those making tutorials/screenshots.