ice-boy opened this issue on Apr 25, 2011 · 111 posts
bagginsbill posted Sun, 01 May 2011 at 9:49 AM
The other problem with nodes is familiar to everybody.
Spaghetti
No composites
In my previous job, I built a "node" based system for doing complex analytics against disparate data sources. It was very powerful but complexity overwhelmed people quickly. More than 50 nodes, and nobody understood how the analysis worked. And any common themes had to be built over again by hand in each solution.
In version 2, I introduced composite nodes. These were like integrated circuits. Users saw and used one node. Inside, there could be hundreds. They didn't need to see those. They just saw a few plugs on the outside. With this refinement, the node system took off. Today, there are hundreds of people using that system, and many of them are business people with no understanding of software development. Yet they "write" programs comprising 5000 or more steps in them in minutes.
Poser needs the same - libraries of composite nodes. Users who want glass would load the glass node - which is built from Shlick's approximation for Fresnel, and a handful of other nodes to mix and blend the reflections and refractions. All of this stuff inside, and you don't have to think about it or even look at it.
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)