Is it possible to reorganise VrayBlend material node

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Hello ,
just a cosmetic but useful idea i think
attached is a quick sketch showing optional display of vray blend material node where each blend number would follow coat number in order to better organise the nodal structure when working on complicated material.
Thanks for consideration
M

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Thanks for the feedback Martin,

FYI this is how the Blend Material works in all other V-Ray plugins, similar to what you suggested

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Yes thats exactly it, Muhammed Thanks

[^Lele^]

Slate in max is markedly not the shader node editor of any of the above applications.
In maxscript it's a closed system with exceptionally questionable, hard-coded, behaviours, and i'd expect it to be the same for the CPP part. (it was never an Autodesk development, it was a black box bought from a third party.)
Meaning there is a strong chance there is no way to sort inputs authoritatively, other than entirely reworking the core code to have them show in that order, which may have well other ramifications (f.e. scripting access to be reworked).
If this was the case, i'd rather the devs spent time on more important stuff rather than be saddled with walls of text to reorder, as the UI is perfectly fine with the compact editor, and the difference in layout is minor also in slate (besides it being very much a matter of preference: as it is it allows for a nice grouping of materials at the top and maps at the bottom, without any crisscrossing of arrows and lines).
Last but not least, the blend material is progressively becoming less universally useful, by virtue of the enhancements in the vrayMtl (multi-layer addittive mode) and the Decal system (blend mode).

edit: i attached a screenshot of the vrayMtl UI: by checking slate out, you can actually work the code history of the vraymtl backwards: what appears for last is what has been coded last. Notice f.e. the diffuse, and diffuse roughness.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

thats interesting, thanks, Lele

[^Lele^]

thats interesting, thanks, Lele

You're welcome.
It *is* frustrating to have to deal with Slate, instead of a modern node-based shader editor.
It's never been truly updated (besides the reworking of the editor UI to make it quicker) since it was acquired.
By far, it's much easier to work with the compact material editor, limited as it may be, in scripting (and i assume in cpp).