Changing Brick Names: I can't find a way to do this from the Poser UI (P6, P8 or P9), but it's easily done by editing the MC6/MT5 files. Seems to work fine.

Q1: Can somebody confirm that this is a sensible way to do it?

(I initially thought this was causing other problems - Subject: P6 Material Room: setting Image_Source to None loads random image? - but that happens even if I don't change the brick names)

Changing Input Parameter Names: Again, no obvious way to do this form the UI (P6, P8, or P9). I tried the same 'edit the MC6/MT5' approach, but the changes seem to have absolutely no effect.

Q2:Any ideas?

P.S. I want the stuff I'm doing to work in Poser 6.

TIA

http://www.poseworks.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/14-Rename-Node-Wacro.html

Says it works in poser 6, but it also works in poser 8. I don't know if this is the case in 9 and 2012. I was always under the impression that this script was included with poser 6 and can be accessed via Wacros; User Defined.

I've never seen any scripts that rename input parameter names... I'm sure that some python savvy individual will show up with a solution or answer, though.

The node rename is not actually supported by Poser - it (external name) is officially used to present the names in non-English languages, such as in Japanese, while having the internal names be in English for coding purposes.

We get away with changing the external name, but it isn't carried through in all cases. For example, if you copy and paste such nodes, they lose the custom names.

Nevertheless, I do this all the time, by putting the name I want into the material file, since I make materials with matmatic, not with the Poser user interface. However, the rename node wacro or similar will do it. There are a couple versions around. VSS also does node naming, because I take advantage of that feature to know what an image's job is.

All my experiments show that you cannot change the parameter names - Poser won't pay attention to the modified values. For that matter, I would expect it not to pay attention to the node names either. But Poser is consistent in that it is inconsistent.

Thanks for the replies

primorge - The only node-related Wacro I see in Poser 6 (6.0.3.140) is 'Remove Detached Nodes', so I downloaded the one you suggested - it seems to do the trick (although I need to play more): and it's easier than editing the PP2!

bagginsbill - If node renaming works, albeit unofficially, I'm happy. Meaningful node names are essential for what I'm tying to do - a shader for three material layers on one surface with mask images defining the extent of top and middle layers. With the default names I'm lost! Parameter names I can live with (which is lucky, since it seems I have no choice!).

By the way - is there any sort of rule-of-thumb regarding the number of nodes in a shader, or do you just keep adding them till your computer crashes? I'm reckoning on using maybe 10 of the Poser Surface inputs with about 8-12 nodes driving each  input: so around 100 nodes in all, which sounds a heck of a lot to me!

Snarly's free SceneFixer has the ability to rename nodes (and is extremely useful in many other ways).

Some of BB's materials have dozens and dozens of nodes; I've no idea if there's an upper limit, but 12 nodes for a single material is nowhere near "a lot".

I have a herringbone cloth that is 440 nodes. I have a 3D volumetric cloud shader that is 1100 node.

So - those you have are not a lot.