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Krakatoa Channels Editor Main Menu Bar

 Available in Krakatoa v1.5.0 and higher

File Menu

New Flow... (Ctrl+N)

  • When selected, a prompt will appear asking for confirmation.
  • If answered with Yes, the current flow will be reset. The Output operator will be switched to Position, float32[3] and implicit connection to node #2.

Open Flow... (Ctrl+O)

  • When selected, a file open dialog will open at the default saving location for Flow files.
  • The type will be set to *.KCF (Krakatoa ChannelEditor Flow)
  • If a valid file is selected, the flow will be loaded from disk and will replace any existing flow.
  • The Zoom and Pan will be reset to defaults.

Save Flow As... (Ctrl+S)

  • When selected, a file save dialog will open at the default saving location for Flow files.
  • The file anme will be set to Flow.KCF.
  • The saved file is pure ASCII text and contain the flow definition as a MAXScript expression. It can be edited by hand if necessary.

Close (Ctrl+Q)

  • When selected, the editor will be closed. If opened again, the flow will be there but the undo records from the last session will be lost.

Edit Menu

Undo (Ctrl+Z)

  • Undoes the last editing step.
    • Equivalent to pressing the Undo button in the bottom right corner of the editor.

Redo (Ctrl+Y)

  • Redoes one editing step.
    • Equivalent to pressing the Redo button in the bottom right corner of the editor.
    • It simply restores the state of the editor at that step and does NOT apply again the same operation as in some applications like MS Word.

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Copy (Ctrl+C)

  • Copies the selected nodes into the MagmaFlow Clipboard.

Paste (Ctrl+V)

  • Pastes the content of the MagmaFlow Clipboard into the flow.
    • This works inside the same Flow as well as between Flows in different KCM modifies.

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Select All Nodes (Ctrl+A)

  • Selects all nodes, for example to move them around in the editor together.

Invert Selection (Ctrl+I)

  • Inverts the selection, selecting the unselected and deselecting the selection.

Deselect All Nodes (Ctrl+D)

  • Deselects all nodes.

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Select Unconnected Nodes (Ctrl+U)

  • Selects all nodes that have no output connection.
    • This could be useful for disabling all nodes that are currently in the editor but not part of the flow - press Ctrl+U to select them, then Ctrl+P to set them to Pass Through.

Select Disabled Nodes (Shift+Ctrl+U)

  • Selects all nodes that are currently set to Pass Through mode.
    • This can be useful when trying to enable all disabled nodes - press Shift+Ctrl+U to select all disabled nodes, then Ctrl+P to toggle Pass Through off.

Select All Input Nodes

  • Selects all Input nodes in the editor regardless of type incl. Float, Vector, Integer, Channel, TextureMaps and Scripts.

Select All Operator Nodes

  • Selects all Operator nodes in the editor regardless of the operation type.

Select All BlackOp Nodes

  • Selects all BlackOp Nodes in the editor.

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Grow Selection - Add Children (Shift+PgDn)

  • Grows the selection by adding the children of the selected nodes to the selection.

Grow Selection - Add Parents (Shift+PgUp)

  • Grows the selection by adding the parents of the selected nodes to the selection.

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Delete Selected Nodes (Del.)

  • Deletes the selected nodes and all their connections.

View Menu

  • The View Menu provides controls over
    • The automatic reordering of the flow,
    • the placement of unconnected nodes in the editing area,
    • the alignment of nodes and snapping to the Grid
    • the pan and zoom of the editor
    • and the display of the Depot (which is also available via the Depot right-click menu)
  • The menu provides the following options:

Reorder Flow Now (Ctrl+R)

  • Reorders the flow according to the options below

Auto-Reorder - Toggle

  • When checked, all operations like creating nodes, deleting nodes and connecting nodes will cause the flow to reorder automatically.
  • When unchecked, new nodes will appear at the mouse cursor, deleting and connecting will not change the positions of existing nodes.

Reorder Patterns... submenu

Row Pattern

  • This pattern distributes the nodes from right (Output node) to the left in a row, moving leaf nodes down where needed according to their parents and number of parent's sockets:

Top Aligned Row Pattern

  • This pattern is a variation of the Row Pattern. Every vertical column starts back from top instead of using the least vertical coordinate of the previous row:

Weighted Reorder

  • In this patten, the parent nodes will be shifted vertically to the middle point between their input nodes (children) as far as this is possible:

Pyramidal Pattern

  • In this pattern, the nodes will be distributed vertically away from the Output node, following columns like a stack of boxes typically resulting in a pyramid-like structure:

Tree Pattern

  • In this pattern, the nodes will be distributed vertically away from the Output node, but also offset horizontally according to the input sockets of the parent node:

  • The Display Options node size and spacing settings can be used to customize the overall appearance of the flow in the various modes:

Allow Sockets Auto-Flipping On Reorder - Toggle

  • When checked, the Auto-Reorder operations will flip the location of the input and output sockets to achieve best results.
  • When unchecked, the socket positions specified by the user manually will be preserved, even if they make no sense.

Flip Sockets Of...

All Input Nodes Out Sockets Left

All Input Nodes Out Sockets Right

All Operator Nodes Out Sockets Left

All Operator Nodes Out Sockets Right

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Unconnected Nodes Auto-Placement...

  • When nodes are placed in the editor and are not connected to the flow and Auto-Reorder mode is on or the user attempts to reorder manually using the Reorder Now feature, these nodes have to be placed somewhere outside of the flow to avoid overlapping and make the reading of the flow easier.
  • Unconnected nodes are drawn slightly darker than their connected counterparts.
  • The following options define where the unconnected nodes will be placed in these cases:

Left Side Of Flow

  • This is useful when using Pyramidal or Tree structure and the Depot is placed at the bottom or is collapsed on the left.

Right Side Of Flow

  • This is useful when using Row reorder patterns with Depot at the bottom.

Bottom Of Flow

  • This is useful when using Row reorder patterns.

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Align All Nodes To Grid (Shift+Ctrl+A)

  • When selected, all nodes will be snapped once to the closest view grid intersection.

Snap To Grid Toggle (Ctrl+G)

  • When selected, the Grid Snapping will be toggled on and off.
  • This will also toggle the display of the Grid.
  • Note that the Grid Size and Colors can be customized in the Display Options rollout.

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Auto-Zoom Extents - Toggle

  • When checked, performs a Zoom Extents (see below) on each operation that modifies the flow including node creation, connecting and deletion.

Zoom Extents (Z)

  • If the flow contains more than one non-Output node, the view will be zoomed at the nodes.

Zoom Extents Selected (Shift+Z)

  • If the flow contains more than one selected node, the view will be zoomed at the selected nodes.

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Reset Zoom (X)

  • Sets the Zoom factor to 1.0, but does not change the Pan Offset.

Reset Pan (Shift+X)

  • Sets the Pan Offset to [0,0], but does not change the Zoom factor.

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Depot Display

Depot Off

Depot At Left

Depot On Bottom

Depot On Bottom - Rollup

Depot On Bottom - Reverse Rollup

Show BackOp Categories In Depot

Use Depot Categories

Auto-Collapse Categories On DragAndDrop

Expose Menu

Select Exposed Inputs

  • Selects all Inputs in the current flow that have been exposed to the KCM's User Interface.

Unexpose Selected Inputs

  • Unexposes all Inputs that are both selected and have been exposed previously to the KCM's User Interface.
  • Any selected nodes that are not Inputs and are not exposed will be ignored.

Expose Selected Inputs

  • Exposes all Inputs that are both selected and not yet exposed and have a type of Float, Vector or Integer.
  • Any other selected nodes will be ignored.

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Update Exposed Inputs

  • Rebuilds the Custom Attributes of the Krakatoa Channels Modifier the flow is assigned to, reexposing all Inputs already marked for exposing.

Macro Menu

Save Undo Buffer As A Macro Recording

  • Opens a save dialog and lets you create a file on disk containing the current Undo buffer.

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Load Macro Recording...

  • Opens a load file dialog and lets you load a file previously saved from the Undo buffer.
  • Additional MacroRecorder controls will appear in the Command Panel area, right above the View and Undo controls.

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Edit Macro

  • This option is only enabled if a valid MacroRecording is already in memory, either through the Save or Load operation.
  • It opens the Macro Editor which can be used to change the timing and notes of every record and remove lines from the recording.

Debug Menu

Debug Mode

  • This toggle enables the simple Debug mode currently implemented in the MagmaFlow Editor.
  • When Debug Mode is toggled on, all channel inputs will use a special debug value (which can be set by the user) and all other inputs will simply pass their current values through the flow, displaying all intermediate results in the Operator nodes and the Output node.
  • This way, the user can see what would happen if specific values would pass through the flow.
  • Actual channel values from the real particle streams CANNOT be seen in this mode yet.

Help Menu

Krakatoa MagmaFlow Editor Online Documentation

  • Opens the Krakatoa Online Help > Krakatoa MagmaFlow Editor index topic in the default Web Browser.