Hey there, I’m trying to make a texturing macro mostly for my own use, since my texturing networks tend to get a little bit messy. My idea is to have a base “default” texture that combines water/terrain/erosion data with several custom gradients, applying some other stuff here and there. I want to also include functionality for setting custom biome zones based on masks, but if possible, I only want those inputs to show up on the actual macro device if a box is ticked. It seems like there’s no way to have a macro parameter affect how many inputs there are, though. Is this correct, or am I missing something? If it’s correct, is this something that can be changed in the future? I feel like having that slight bit more of control over the appearance of the macro itself could be very useful for more than just this specific scenario (such as making complex macros that unlock more functionality, but only provide basic functions at first, to not confuse new users).
The number of inputs can’t be varied dynamically, as far as I know. Not yet at least. @Stephen desparately needed feature for macro creators imo! Could it be implemented for LTE?
Working on a big complex texturing macro as well, for personal use as well as maybe public release. Need to simplify my cluttered node setup at least for texturing.
Ahh, that’s unfortunate. It would be a very useful feature! In the meantime, I was reading in the documentation that one should “short circuit” devices that may not need to be built based on user selections, and it said it would go further in depth in a later chapter, but I haven’t been able to find that, is there something I’m missing, or has that part of the documentation not been written yet? In the latter case, can anyone advise on how to accomplish that? Would it be as simple as setting up a router to determine which “path” the build process follows, or is it more complex than that?
Edit: Dynamic port variation could also be useful for the parameters as well. Again using this specific texturing macro that I’m working on, being able to dynamically change how many biomes are in a project could be super helpful, so it’d be nice to be able to have a parameter that was, for example, just an integer that determines how many biome parameters show up in the dialogue box.
Hi folks,
Having ports be controllable on macros is an interesting idea - I haven’t thought of it before, but I agree there are lots of good use cases! Will see what I can do for implementing this sooner than later. I strongly want to raise the level of abstraction that you work with in WM generally, while preserving full nitty-gritty-details if needed, and this could help.
LTE will bring a lot of other improvements in this regard; for example, parameters can be flagged as “advanced”, and hidden from view unless called for, simplying complex devices/macros enormously.
Regarding short-circuiting macro processing, here’s a forum thread talking about it. The essence is to make sure devices have a dependence on a macro input, so that if that input is not available, the device won’t build.