Hi RV:

I'm sorry I didn't answer your recent questions. Some of the questions are big, like how to automatically lay out nodes in a way that will facilitate parameter jiggling in the material room. I've been thinking about how to add that to matmatic in a standard way that is both convenient and flexible. I don't have a solution yet, and don't have a lot of time. I'm about to go on vacation for a week (leaving Saturday) and I have a lot of paid work to do first.

Regarding math node generation, it's pretty simple. Using any of the math operators, if both operands are known constants at compile time, the math is done at compile time.

For example, suppose a = RED and b = GREEN, then a + b is YELLOW, not a Color_Add(RED, GREEN).

However, when you wrap constants in a Node, such as a = SimpleColor(RED), then a + b is not YELLOW. The assumption here is you wrapped RED in a node because you want that node in the shader so people can change it. Which means we can't conclude the answer is YELLOW - the addition of the two colors must be deferred until render time.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)