User Manual

 To exit a compound node you’re editing: To return to the top level node tree, double-
click the leftmost item in the path control at the bottom of the Node Editor, or click the
name of the compound node. You can also right-click in the compound Node Editor
and choose “Exit Compound Node” from the contextual menu.
 To label a compound node: Right-click a compound node, choose Change Label from
the contextual menu, and type a new label for that node. Press the Return key when
you’re finished.
 To decompose a compound node: Right-click the compound node you want to
decompose, and choose “Decompose Compound Node” from the contextual menu.
The compound node disappears, replaced by the original nodes within. Please note,
if you had applied an adjustment to the compound node itself, that adjustment is lost
when you decompose it back into its constituent nodes. If you want to preserve the
compound node adjustment itself, you can copy it, then decompose the node, and then
create a new node and paste the adjustment you’d copied.
Adding Inputs and Outputs to Compound Nodes
When you open the contents of a compound node using the Show Compound Node command,
you can make whatever adjustments you like to the node tree within, but you also have the
option of right-clicking within the Node Editor and choosing Add Source to add an input to the
compound node, or Add Output to add an output. Adding more inputs and outputs lets you set
up the node to connect to the rest of your node tree in more complicated ways. Disconnected
inputs and outputs have no effect on your grade.
Furthermore, you can also use the Add Alpha Source and Add Alpha Output contextual menu
commands to add KEY inputs and outputs to a compound node, making it easy to route key or
alpha channel data to other connections in the enclosing node tree.
Nesting Compound Nodes
Compound nodes can also be nested within other compound nodes, if necessary.
Grading Compound Nodes
After you’ve created a compound node, you can select it to make one or more adjustments
using the compound node itself, which effectively adds those adjustments after all other
adjustments that take place via the nodes that are inside of the compound node. This gives you
the opportunity to “trim” the effect that compound node is having on your grade, or to limit it
using a qualifier or window.
To adjust the individual nodes nested within a compound node, you need to first open the
compound node. Then, you can select and adjust any node as you ordinarily would.
Chapter – 124 Node EditingBasics 2839