MagmaFlow Input Nodes
Available in Krakatoa v1.5.0 and higher
- An Input Node can represent a channel, a texture map, a script expression, one or more geometry objects, or a user-defined value to be wired to input sockets of other nodes.
- The default color of the Input node is a different hue of blue-green-violet depending on the type.
- The Input Node has no input sockets and one output socket.
- An Input node can be switched between all supported Input Node types, except for the Notes Input Node which appears in the same Input category of the Depot but cannot be converted from/to the other Input Node Types.
- The general properties of the Input Node include:
Input Type drop-down list
- The list defines the type of the node - either Channel, Value, TextureMap, Script or Geometry.
- Depending on this setting, the rest of the controls in the Input Node will change.
- The Input Node Type can be changed freely as needed, except for the Notes Input Node which appears in the same category as the types listed above but cannot be converted from/to them.
Channel Input Nodes are used to load existing Particle Channel data coming up the stack from the base object or other modifiers.
Value Input Nodes are used to provide a static or animated Integer, Float or Vector (Point3) value, the latter also used to represent Color values.
Script Input Nodes can be used to perform MAXScript-based calculations and output a supported value (Integer, Float or Vector) once per update. Note that it is not possible to evaluate a Script per particle as this would be very slow.
TextureMap Input Nodes can be used to inject 2D or 3D texture map data directly into the MagmaFlow. The Color, Mono or Perturb output of the map can be used as a Vector or Float value in regular calculations.
Geometry Input Nodes are used to provide one or more geometry objects to the kd-tree acceleration structure employed by the RayIntersect and NearestPoint Surface operators - Available in v1.6.0 and higher.
Notes Input Node
Available in Krakatoa v1.6.0 and higher
- The Notes Input Node is found in the Inputs category of the Depot, but is not a mode of the general Input type - it is a separate unique node that cannot be switched to other Input Node types.
- The Notes Input Node has only one function - to place notes within the MagmaFlow view that help the users read and use the flow in question.
- It cannot be connected to other nodes as it has no input or output sockets.
- It cannot be collapsed by double-clicking.
- It will change its width and height to accommodate the width and height of the text to be displayed.
- All other MagmaFlow nodes provide a User Notes field and can contain comments which can be revealed by holding down the Ctrl key while hovering the mouse over them, but the Notes Input Node has the advantage of showing the text permanently.
