Introduction

The Shader Editor is made of several areas. At the right side you will find the sidebar. Here you will find further options and settings for the Shader Editor nodes and its tools.

Right Click menus

You will open the usual right click menus when clicking with the right mouse at elements in the sidebar. Its content is in big parts self explaining.

The right click menus are explained in the chapter 6 Editors Introduction.

Node Tab

Node Tab - Node Panel

In this panel you can give nodes and node groups a name and a label, and change its color.

Name

The type of the node.

Label

The label name of the node.

Width and Location

Type exact numbers to size and place the selected node. Handy for keeping big node trees tidy and lined up.

Color

Give the node a color of its own, so parts of a big node tree are easy to tell apart. Tick Color and click the color field to pick one.

The two small buttons next to the color field help when you color many nodes.

Copy Color

Gives all selected nodes the same color as the active node. Select the nodes, make the one with the color you want active, then click the copy button.

Presets

Stores colors you like, so you can reuse them with one click. Presets are saved globally, so they work in your other files too.

Node Tab - Properties Panel

This panel shows usually the same properties than the properties at the node. These properties are already explained in the Add menu chapters. So we won't repeat them here.

But there are exceptions like the Image node. Here the Properties panel shows much more options than at the node. It shows all the possible image settings. We will explain the extra options here.

Node Tab - Properties Panel with Image node

Contains image related settings. Size, type, and so on.

Image Property

Load an image and / or switch to other images.

From left to right ...

Source

Choose the image type. This type gets usually automatically set. When you create a new image, then this image is generated. When you load an image then the Source switches to Single Image.

Generated images does not have a path.

Source Type Single Image

Path edit box

Color Space

The color space for the image.

Alpha

How to calculate the alpha channel.

Half Float Precision

Just with image material that uses 32 bit float. Use just 16 Bit per channel instead of the full 32 bit. This lowers the memory usage while rendering.

View as Render

Display the image with using the color management settings. The color management can be adjusted in the properties editor in the Render tab.

Seam Margin

This option belongs to the UV Editor, and has no effect in the Image editor. Take a margin into account when fixing UV seams during painting.

Source Type Movie + Image Sequence

Path edit box

Color Space

Choose the color space type for the movie or image sequence files.

Alpha

Choose the alpha channel mode. Straight or Premultiplied.

Half Float Precision

Just with image material that uses 32 bit float. Use just 16 Bit per channel instead of the full 32 bit. This lowers the memory usage while rendering.

View as Render

Display the image with using the color management settings. The color management can be adjusted in the properties editor in the Render tab.

Seam Margin

This option belongs to the UV Editor, and has no effect in the Image editor. Take a margin into account when fixing UV seams during painting.

Source Type Generated

X / Y

The image width and height.

Float Buffer

Use a floating point buffer. 8 Bit images uses integers. 32 Bit works with floats.

Generated Type Blank

This type displays an image with one blank color

Color

The color of the blank image.

Generated Type UV Grid

This type displays a with a black and white checker texture but colored dots.

Generated Type Color Grid

This type displays a with a colored checker texture with numbers.

Color Space

Choose the color space type for the image.

Half Float Precision

Just with image material that uses 32 bit float. Use just 16 Bit per channel instead of the full 32 bit. This lowers the memory usage while rendering.

View as Render

Display the image with using the color management settings. The color management can be adjusted in the properties editor in the Render tab.

Seam Margin

This option belongs to the UV Editor, and has no effect in the Image editor. Take a margin into account when fixing UV seams during painting.

Source Type Udim

UDIM is an enhancement to the UV mapping and texturing workflow. And does not belong here. But in the UV Editor. It is just in the list because it shares the same menus with the UV Editor.

Info string

Some information about the currently loaded image. Resolution and color space.

Color Space

Choose the color space type for the movie or image sequence files.

Alpha

Choose the alpha channel mode. Straight or Premultiplied.

Half Float Precision

Just with color space sRGB. Use just 16 Bit per channel instead of the full 32 bit. This lowers the memory usage while rendering.

View as Render

Display the image with using the color management settings. The color management can be adjusted in the properties editor in the Render tab.

Seam Margin

This option belongs to the UV Editor, and has no effect in the Image editor. Take a margin into account when fixing UV seams during painting.

Tool Tab

Tool Tab

Contains the settings of the currently active tool in the tool shelf.

In the node editor we don't have something special here. The tool related settings are explained in the tool shelf chapter.

View Tab

View Tab - Annotation Panel

Contains view related settings. Which is in the node editor just the Annotations panel where you can manage the Annotation layers and materials.

When you don't have drawn an annotation yet then the panel just contains a New button.

Annotations prop

Add, remove and rename new annotations.

Drop down box

A list of the available annotation layers.

List of Annotation Strokes

Here you see your Annotation layers for the current Annotation. Every layer can have an own color.

At the right side you find buttons to sort them and to add and remove new Annotation layers.

You can change the color by clicking at the color field. A color dialog will pop up. You can rename annotation layers by double clicking at it.

The eye icon allows you to make it invisible And it has a search field.

Onion Skin

Enable Onion Skinning.

Onion Skinning allows to show ghosts of the keyframes before and after the current frame. In this sub panel you can adjust the color of the onion skin frames.

With the numbers below the colors you can define how many frames before or after are displayed that way.

Options Tab

Options Tab - Settings panel

In the Options tab you will find general shading options for the current material for the render engines Eevee and Cycles. The Workbench renderer does not have any extra shading options.

The options tab moves around, dependent of what render engine you have chosen. With cycles the tab is at the end of the list.

The Settings panel appears with a mesh object selected.

Settings panel with Eevee

Surface subpanel

Backface Culling

Displacement

Method

Method to use for the displacement.

Transparency

Transparent Shadows

Use transparent shadows for this material if it contains a transparent bsdf node.

Method

The rendering method. Forward rendering or Deferred rendering.

Render

Thickness

Approximation used to model the light interactions inside the object.

Light Probe Volume Backfaces

Consider material single sided for light probe volume capture.

Volume Subpanel

Intersection

Which inner part of the mesh will produce the volumetric effect.

Settings panel with Cycles

Pass Index

Index number for the material render index pass

Surface sub panel

Displacement

Adjust the displacement method. Bump mapping is an old image based shader technique to fake displacement. Displacement deforms the geometry.

Emission Sampling

Sampling strategy for emissive surfaces.

Volume Sub panel

Sampling

The volume sampling method.

Interpolation

The volume interpolation method. Linear or cubic.

Options Tab - Light panel

The Light panel appears with a light object selected.

With Eevee + Cycles

Type

The light type. The light settings changes, dependent of what light type you have chosen.

Animate Property

This property can be animated.

Point light

Sun light

Spot light

Area light

Shape

The shape of the light emitting area of the light.

Size X / Y

The size of the light emitting area of the light.

With Workbench

Type

The light type. The light settings changes, dependent of what light type you have chosen.

Options Tab - Viewport Display panel

Adjust how the mesh object is displayed in the viewport when the viewport shading in the 3D view is in solid mode.

The content is the same for all three render engines.

Add Tab

Add Tab

Here you can find the same nodes than in the Add menu. Panels are more convenient to use. They stay open for example. It's your decision with what system you want to work.

We won't explain the content of the panels again. The single nodes are explained in the add menu chapter.

Usage

Click at one of the node buttons, then move the mouse into the viewport. The created node sticks at the mouse. Click again to release it.

Add tab - Display Panel

Icon Buttons

You can display the nodes in the panels either as text buttons or as pure icon buttons.

Common

This checkbox allows you to display just the most common nodes for quicker search and find.

Relations Tab

Relations tab - Display Panel

Icon Buttons

You can display the nodes in the panels either as text buttons or as pure icon buttons.

Relations tab - Group Panel

Node groups allows you to group different nodes of the material together to reduce the visual complexity. A node group acts like any other node.

Material node groups should not include Input nodes, like Image nodes, or Output nodes.

If you include a source node in your group, you will end up having the source node appearing twice: once inside the group, and once outside the group in the new material node tree.

If you include an output node in the group, there will not be an output socket available from the group!

Make Group

Groups the selected nodes together.

Select the nodes that you want to group together. Choose Make Group. You will now see a green background. This indicates that the group is created, and that you are in edit mode for the group now.

To exit the group edit mode press Tab key, or choose Toggle Edit Group menu item . That way you can also enter the Group Edit mode again.

There is a third way to enter the group edit mode. Click at the right upper icon of the group node.

A group can be further collapsed by clicking at the triangle button in the upper left corner.

The group can be renamed in the sidebar in the Item tab and in the Properties tab in the Node panel.

Group Insert

Inserts the selected node into the selected group.

Usage

Select the node.

Hold down shift, and select the group.

Click the Group Insert button. The node will now be part of the group, and you will land in group edit mode. Press tab to exit the group edit mode.

Group Input

Adds a group input node.

Group Output

Adds a group output node.

Relations tab - Node Group Panel

When you create a node group, then this node group is listed here. And can be dragged from there for reuse too.

Relations tab - Layout Panel

These nodes helps organizing the node layout.

Frame

The Frame node allows you to drop nodes into a frame. This frame can be dragged around as a whole.

Adding and Removing Nodes

Nodes can be added by simply dropping them onto the frame. Or with the Join in New Frame menu item in the Node menu.

To remove a node from the frame use Remove from Frame.

Resizing Frame

When the Frame node is first placed in the node editor workspace you can resize it by dragging one of the edges.

Once a node is placed in the Frame, the Frame shrinks around the nodes. You cannot resize it anymore with handlers. Just by dragging around the nodes inside of the frame.

This behavior can be changed by disabling the Shrink option in the Item tab in the Properties panel. Then you can resize the frame again by dragging the edges.

Label and Color

You can change the name of a frame in the Node panel. And you can give it a custom color by checking the Color checkbox and adjusting the color then.

Reroute

Adds a reroute point that can be used to reroute connections. It allows just one input, but allows multiple output connections.

To quickly add a Reroute node into an existing connection, hold Shift and Right Mouse and drag the mouse to cut through the link. A new reroute node will be added.

When you exceed a specific angle amount between the reroute nodes, then the node connection becomes a sharp corner, and not longer a Bezier like soft curve.

Move, Rotate, Scale

A normal node has a handler. The reroute dot not. You can't simply move it around with the mouse by clicking at the top area. It has none. You have to use the move, rotate and scale commands. They can be found in the View menu.

Group Tab

Group tab - Introduction

The Geometry Node sidebar Group tab at the right side contains options and settings for node groups nodes and socket input and output properties.

Group Properties Panel

Name

Change the name of the current node group. Type in a new name and hit enter.

Description

Change the description of the current node group. Type in a new name and hit enter.

Color Tag

Changes the header color of the current node group.

Node Width

The default width of the node.

Group Sockets Panel

Manage the input and output properties of the Group Input and Output nodes.

More than one input and output slot can be useful when you want to modify the geometry in the node group in more than one way.

Group Socket List

List of available input and output sockets.

List

The list of input and output sockets.

Name

Change the name of the current selected input socket by double clicking on the socket in the list. Type in a new name and hit enter.

New Item

Adds a new input sockets to the list.

Entry	What it does
Duplicate Item	Duplicates the active socket.
Remove Item	Removes the selected input socket from the list.

Move Item Up/Down

Moves the active item to the specified direction. You can move the active item up or down the list.

Type

What kind of node group input or output type it is. To know more about the properties of the socket types, refer to the next section.

Type Float

Description

Add a tooltip to the socket description.

Subtype

Subtype of the default value.

Type Integer

Description

Add a tooltip to the socket description.

Subtype

Subtype of the default value.

Type Boolean

Type Vector

Description

Add a tooltip to the socket description.

Subtype

What special math operation is required. The subtype menu allows you to define the socket type sliders and read-out.

Type Color

Type Menu

Type Shader

Type Bundle

Type Closure

Animation Panel

Allows you to add FCurvces for animation.

TODO