Making libary node into local sub-graph?

Report · Oct 24, 2024

And available to modification without messing with original one in the library ? Is it possiblee somehow ? Perhaps by editing sbs file in text editor?

Something like in Blender when you drop a node group from library , make it local and opened for tweaks , and now it saves with current blend file while the libary one stays intact?

Report · Oct 24, 2024

Hi Kirill,

That is possible, it's quite similar like you would do it in blender. Right-Click on the library node, open the reference .sbs and copy the graph into your project, when the graph is in your project, it's basically a "local copy" of the original node, you can edit this graph and drag it into your material graph, like any other subgraph.

I hope this is what you are looking for.

Stay healthy and creative Marco

Report · Oct 25, 2024

Thanks Marco. I meant a bit diffrent scenario. I have alredy big graph with lots of nodes I droped from library . How could I relink them to local one I copy /pasted to my sbs ?

Report · Oct 25, 2024

You just open the Dependency Manager and search for the graph you want to replace, right-click on the node-name and choose "Relocate" from the context menu, you can either just use your current .sbs file, or even use another .sbs. You just have to make sure, that the graph name is the same. For example if you are replacing a perlin_noise the new graph has to be named also perlin_noise, it can be stored in any filename, but the graph has to be the same. As soon as you relocated the Reference, you can also rename it. I also made a quick demo video so you see the workflow.

Stay healthy and creative Marco

Report · Oct 25, 2024

Thank you very much Marco . But I came to another issue . Once I relocated library node to local copy that copy instantly got ghost nodes inside. My guess I had to first collect all the other nodes and saved functions that library node uses from other library nodes . The ghost node seems is not showing what it was in original library node.

I tried to ask ChatGPT , the "1o" one with "advanced reasoning" to make me a python script that would collect everything in current sbs but it asks for "automation toolkit" I have no idea where to get. And contrary to Blender I never managed to make Chat do something working for Designer or Painter anyway. So it wasn't a big hope.

The only way I see now is meticulously do same dependency manager procedure for the whole chain up to defaul Designer nodes which are usually keep evrything necessary in same sbs . Is there still a trick to do it in a quick way ?

Report · Oct 26, 2024

Hey Kirill,

That is very unfortunate, I'm really sorry this doesn't work as intended. Unfortunately the Substance Designer API isn't published on the web somewhere, so ChatGPT couldn't learn it, that's why it doesn't really make any working scripts in python. If I have some time I can write a script, but at the moment I'm very busy and I don't know, when I will have the time to do this. But in the meantime you can try to do it a little different, when you copy the whole .sbs file containing the library node, you want to change into a new folder, it should be editable and still use all dependencies like the original one, then relocate the node to the new file, like before. I haven't tried this but it should be working. Usually when you open the graph, and there are missing dependencies, Substance Designer asks for the location of the files, that should simplify things a little.

If you want to give the automation toolkit a try here is a post, which should help you. https://community.adobe.com/t5/substance-3d-designer-discussions/where-to-find-substance-3d-automati...

Stay healthy and creative Marco

Report · Oct 26, 2024

Thanks for your help Marco

Report · Oct 27, 2024

Hey Kirill,

I think I found another solution to you task. You can export your graph with dependencies, this creates a new folder, where all dependency-graphs are stored.

You need to Right-Click on the graph you want to export.

In the export-window make sure you uncheck sbs-alias, so it exports the library packages as well.

Click OK and open the newly created .sbs from the new folder.

Now all dependencies are inside the dependencies folder and are local copies of their orignal files, so they can be edited.

Sorry, that I didn't come up with this earlier, I just don't use this function so I forgot it exists.

Stay healthy and creative Marco

Report · Oct 28, 2024

Thanks again Marco. Year, I know about this. But the problem is . Whenever I try to make such archived export Designer wants to collects a half of my hard drive , sometimes GBs of data . Unused images and a huge pile of just junk from my laptop. Nothing of that is really necessary to open sbs file and I have to click "no" when it asks for the paths for minutes. Wish it would show "no for all" checkbox.