Quote - > Quote - > Quote - however I would not want a system to try and second guess what I want it to do.  Having a system that prevents you from making dumb mistakes is also a system that will not let you be creative.  for instance if the shader is going to be applied to the skin a smart shader would say skin can be Tanish/Blackish/Yellowish but not Blueish/Greenish.  Which would be great if you were doing a human but not so great if you were doing the Wicked Witch of the West (who is green).

That's actually not even close to what I was suggesting.  

Laurie

From your first post

Quote -   Also, the ability NOT to accidentally create garbage - smart nodes and materials.

and a quote for Vilters

Quote - - Materail room. => Make it impossible to connect anything into anything.
Only allow connections that make sense. => Some sort of expandable Flow-Chart with controllable options. But only with the nodes that continue to make sense.

between these two requests you and Vilters are asking for a system to lock you down and not "create garbage".  A computer is great at many things, however knowing what is right and wrong is not one of them.  A computer can only follow a set of rules.  The problem is "garbage" comes in many forms and is easy for you and me to spot but next to impossible for a computer because the "garbage" is technically correct just used in the wrong context.  In my example people should not be green or blue because in real life a blue or green person is wrong or "garbage".  How is the computer suppose to know that a green person is not garbage?

 

The first part of my quote says that what you really want is a bunch of presets.  Since most parts of a node are animateable then you should be able to have a dial on the figure once you apply the node to the figure and dial in what you want. 

 

Are there no python scripts that present a palette of colors to apply to an object? 

 

 Well, of course you'd still be able to make skin green. Or blue or purple. And you are missing what I'm meaning with the presets. But I'm certainly not gonna argue about it.

Laurie