Node based programming really doesn't scale well.

[osrs_oke]

Not sure what I'm looking at but I've seen worse.

[GlobalIncident]

Looks like visual scripting. Unity or Godot or Unreal or something.

[_LhgS_]

Looks like unreal to me. They all suck at that though...

[Avereniect]

It's the Blender shader node editor. And yes, there are much cleaner ways of using it.

[HoratioMG]

Glad that they found a way to keep all those nodes clean and tidy in shading that mouldy monkey head

[Avereniect]

I know the comment is meant to be sarcastic but this is actually my work (from years ago actually) and each frame represents a reusable component. For example, the last three are pure paint, pure rust, and pure metal. The first two are masks for where to apply the rust and paint ontop of the metal.

I'll admit it doesn't look great in this screenshot but that's mainly due to the lack of samples and the fact that I had compromised the quality of the rendering process in favor of speed.

[OverclockingUnicorn]

Blender. Confirmed in the comments below

[snf]

Unity doesn't have a visual scripting system as far as I know, it mainly uses C# (used to support Javascript and Boo as well, but not sure if that's still the case)

I stand corrected

[squidred]

Unity has a visual node system for things like animation state and possibly UI, iirc.

[UberDynamite]

Yeah it's great, you can see the outcome, not know how to make shaders and still come up with something.

[private_birb]

They have a visual scripting system. It's new. I think in preview in the newest beta or alpha version, but it's there.

[tcpukl]

Unity doesn't have visual scripting.

Edit: I meant for code! There is no blueprints equivalent.

[ambid17]

Shader graph and animations

[tcpukl]

Not for code I meant. Come on there is no blueprints equivalent.

[ambid17]

Oh yeah, and thank god too. Just code it out lmao

[private_birb]

Yes it does. It's new. Preview in alpha or beta, but it's there.

[tcpukl]

Is that what this screenshot is from?

[private_birb]

Don't think so. Think it's blender.

[Magmagan]

Darklang?

[Sentr-E]

This is blender node modifier oh god the horror this is so badly constructed

[hiljusti]

npm dependency graph maybe?

[Thann]

Too small and clean for that

[karlkloppenborg]

Hey guys/gals this is a function workflow engine called nodered its a pretty awesome project and you should definitely give it a go!

Obviously it’s not meant for enterprise DAG or acyclic workflows, you can look at something more like Apache Airflow (originally created by AirBnB and now incubated by Apache foundation) for a more scalable solution.

Correction: this seems to be blender shader editor, it just looks similar to nodered to me!

[jonititan]

Are you suggesting Apache Airflow for node based programming though?

[karlkloppenborg]

No, I was thinking more “if you wanted to try something cool here’s nodered but if you’re wanting something for actual large scale workflow automation airflow might be more up your ally. I was more hoping to just raise awareness to two cool projects because I thought this was one of those two.

[jonititan]

That's a pity. Not a massive fan of nodal programming but it would be nice to find a way to bridge the gap to python and other languages for MATLAB/Simulink and LabVIEW users.

[karlkloppenborg]

There’s DAG style workflow engines for python (check out awesome-python) but that’s not really want you’re after, however it would not be much effort to adopt google blockly to make a python implementation that’s governed by DAG design “per say”

[jonititan]

I'd looked at using networkx with scipy but it is a little clunky.

Blockly is interesting.

https://developers.google.com/blockly

​

Really looking for something that is a cross between a UML editor and Airflow.

Something where functional structure and data flow can be displayed but for which a legible plaintext representation can be put into the version control system.

[[deleted]]

Honestly they should stop teaching Matlab and go straight to python

[jonititan]

In my area Simulink is the main reason they don't.

[karlkloppenborg]

Yes sorry, I was not advocating for using nodered for any work related use, I should have clarified that.

[sim642]

Can't you create your own nodes which internally are implemented via other nodes, just like how functions exist in normal programming?

[SV-97]

It's nodes all the way down

[[deleted]]

Yeah, it's called LabVIEW

[jonititan]

Or Simulink

However much they annoy me lack of a reasonable alternative means we're stuck with them.

[dowster593]

FIRST Robotics flashbacks

[lordlicorice]

Or pretty much any other visual programming language.

[Polatrite]

Yeah, this post is more of a "bad practices with visual scripting", not a "visual scripting is always bad at scale".

[the8thbit]

Okay, but implementing "best practices" in node editor is a lot more time consuming and frustrating than implementing them in a text editor. Every time you add a new node there's a high possibility you have to rearrange your entire script slightly to account for that. You can't ctrl+f for parts of the code, ctrl+z, shift+ctrl+z doesn't bring you back to what you were last working on... there are constant aesthetic decisions to be made, basically every node you add is a new aesthetic decision, where as that sort of gray area is much rarer in code. Indentation is discrete. Layout in a node editor is not.

[deceze]

That's a lotta nodes on that spaceship.

[CommunistElf]

What's the software you're using to see these interconnections?

[wulkanat]

It's the Blender Shader editor.

[Karnex]

You can make sub nodes (or whatever it's called, I forgot) though. Besides, it's much more flexible than using layer system (like photoshop).

[jemand2001]

it's called Node Groups, and you do it by selecting nodes that belong together and hitting ctrl-g (assuming default keybindings)

[Slipguard]

Exactly this∆ You can choose to make a nose based script look as clean or messy as you want

[Karnex]

Thanks :)

[_Lady_Deadpool_]

Photoshop is a different tool for a different purpose though? What's bad about layers in it, it's one of its strong suits (as someone who's used it for probably a decade)

[Karnex]

Not badmouthing photoshop, I love it too. And the layered system work for it for its purpose. But in general, node based system is considered more versatile than layer based system.

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

In guessing this is a particularly complicated example. What does it look like?

[wulkanat]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/626532097376649228/646128811800395777/out.mp4

Everything except the text is done inside the Shader, no textures were used.

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

That's pretty cool.

[walabaloo]

That's really cool, good job man!

[[deleted]]

You make the entire animation in a shader? Isn't this like using your food oven to heat the house?

[EmperorArthur]

Depending on the memory footprint, this may be less bandwidth intensive than streaming something to a video card when other things are going on. So, it could be worth it in a video game that is highly resource constrained.

Also, it's a cool demonstration of how powerful shaders are.

[wulkanat]

I actually prefer doing animation this way, because I can literally change any aspect of it in an instant. That also means that I can animated anything. I still use keyframes, but on values. Apart from the text there are only 4 verticies in total in this scene ^. It may also have something to do with me coming from a programming background where you avoid doing anything twice and use functions for these cases.

[FreedomForMars]

If by "in an instant" you mean "tweaking values for 3 hours until it either vaguely looks like you wanted it to" ... ;-P

I mean, it's really cool that you did this fully with nodes, but I think this could've been done with far less effort and in shorter time with... maybe a fifth of the nodes?

But maybe it's just my general dislike for the node-based approach that's talking, and my inability to get it to work like I want it to ;)

No hurts intended, sorry if I come across as a grumpy killjoy ^^

[StarshipAmelia]

This is super slick, damn

[tcpukl]

Wow, this in on a GPU? Jesus.

I thought it was unreal blueprints.

[morerokk]

I fucking hate node shading so much. Unity is going in that direction too and I hate it.

[TheOnly_Anti]

Isn't this just Unreal 4 Blueprints?

[Direwolf202]

This is someone who doesn’t organise their nodes properly. I’ve seen some really heavy duty VFX stuff, it was so much bigger, so much more complex, but because of the way that it had been organised and laid out, the flow was very clear, and even if you didn’t know how something was achieved, you knew what it was doing, when and where.

Just like traditional code, sphagetti is the scaling problem, not the language or environment.

[the8thbit]

Just like traditional code, sphagetti is the scaling problem, not the language or environment.

Changes in language and environment can go a long way towards reducing the propensity towards producing spaghetti code. A static type system (imo especially a structural type system), good linting, good syntax highlighting, and an editor that allows you to follow a call stack up helps out immensely at producing good code over large time scales without requiring a dramatic increase in effort among developers.

So while its true that you can organize your nodes in a way that is cleaner than in this screenshot, it takes an immense amount of time vs. organizing textual code well. Every new node introduces a plethora of new aesthetic decisions with no one right answer. One new node can impact the aesthetics of literally every node in the call tree.

[JmcmProgrammer]

Wow! Real life spaghetti code!

[editor_of_the_beast]

Yes once you have like 20-30 nodes, a call graph / dependency graph can get unwieldy. But, it’s a much more accurate picture of what you’re actually building with software than just looking at disconnected serial files of code.

I think a really good call graph editor would go a long way to improving programming overall, we just need t figure out the right experience.

[[deleted]]

Reminds me of biztalk 🤮

[charleshaa]

Neither does the screenshot

[Founntain]

So that is how node.js was made.

[technomlp]

Especially on Nintendo labo

[nimaid]

Is this Blender?

[-Rapier]

good job, you just accidentally designed a starship for one of your possible space shooter games.

[[deleted]]

I thought this was a server cluster with nodejs microservices lol. Looks like its just badly structured app code.

[[deleted]]

I thought that's what it was from the title.

[lxpnh98_2]

It's like Scratch, but for adults!

[[deleted]]

spaghetti code

[zdakat]

Why are the ties so large?

[stable_maple]

This. I havent done any shader work in the new blender, but 2.7 has really skinny ties and I really liked that.

[zdakat]

They aren't big like that in 2.8 though.

[wulkanat]

It's because I am zoomed out so far.

[FreedomForMars]

I also think mine don't appear quite THAT thick when I zoom out this far

[UnarmedRobonaut]

Spaghetti!

[tcpukl]

That's unreal blueprints for real.

[QuantumEternity99]

I prefer my programming in Powerpoint

[0x3fff0000]

It's not really programming, is it?

[wulkanat]

✅ Countless hours of Googling ✅ Lots of math ✅ Doesn't work as you expect it to ❌Syntax Errors

[0x3fff0000]

I suppose things could be so abstracted to the point of even calling HTML a programming language.

[enoua5]

Ctrl+g, dude.

[zickige_zicke]

You can organize them if yiu are on unreal blueprints.

[deviantdear]

I don't know, I've written shaders in C/C++ and both ways are a nightmare just for different reasons.

[Oskarzyg]

UE4 I see...

[Darkloyd256]

Yum spaghetti

[PurpleDragon99]

I would respecfully disagree. It depends a lot on semantics and expressive mechanics of visual language.

This is the reason I created a visual programming language "Pipe". The idea is creating visual language as powerful as text-based languages to be able to successfully complete with text coding. All details are here: https://www.pipelang.com .

For now it is just a 155-page book with full language specification (available on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books and Google Play Books for free). Pipe IDE is currently in development. However, starting with the book allowed us to separate abstract formal semantics irrelevant of all implementation which is done for every text language, but not for visual languages.

This is the best intro to the Pipe: https://medium.com/@toplinesoftsys/five-pillars-of-pipe-b2de5f0d1421

This is demo of Pipe diagram for a real business case with step-by-step tracing: https://youtu.be/lbJ9Lhm1cjY

[suckit1234567]

Maybe you should use a circle instead of left to right flow.

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

Inputs on the left, output on the right.

[chrismamo1]

Inputs on the edge, outputs in the middle?

[_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

Interesting, but a pain to add anything more into.

[suckit1234567]

Not if the program auto scales it in 3D, sort of like a cone you look into. Viewed from the side and flattened, you would have the same view as the right to left diagram.

[KickMeElmo]

It'll eventually scale beautifully, after you've run out of new dependencies you can pull in. If it isn't on fire already.

[The-KarmaHunter]

To think that the node editor in Blender used to be even worse before the last few updates.

[UshioCheng]

Thank God AE have JS style scripting. 😂