RE - Right-Click Menu Node

Another right-click menu is opened when you select a node and right-click. Most of the nodes share exactly the same entries, but there are some exceptions with extra functionality: meshes, RealWave surfaces, hubs and groups.

Entries without Submenus

Name

Each node right-click menu displays the name of the currently selected element.

Description

If you want to know more about a node, you can open a brief description about it here. The description is more interesting for "RealFlow Graphs".

Rename node

A click on this entry makes the node's name editable and you can enter a new label. The name will also be updated in the “Nodes” window and the viewport caption.

Copy node name

This function copies the name to the clipboard. With “Rename node” it can be transferred to any other node, but please bear in mind that identical names are not allowed. You can use the copied name as a prefix or suffix and add a consecutive number, for example.

Collapse/Expand (“Group” node only)

This entry is only available for group nodes and is used to show or hide the members of the group. When a group is expanded, the included elements are displayed within a separate area. There you can move the nodes freely and the frame will be adjusted automatically.

Hide Selected from Editor

To make a node invisible in the editor (not the viewport), use this option.

Group/Ungroup

If you want to group one or more nodes, select them from either the editor “Nodes” panel or the viewport, and choose “Group”. The “Ungroup” entry is only visible when the selected node is part of a group.

Remove selected nodes

All currently selected nodes can be removed from the scene with this entry. Of course, deleted nodes lose their connections as well. When a “Hub” is removed, all connections between the remaining elements have to be recreated.

Connections Submenu

This is a dynamic submenu and contains a list of the node's connections to other elements.

Connection name

You can select each link individually and delete the connection with the “Remove connection” entry from the associated context menu.

Implicit

When nodes are connected via a “Hub”, you can only see the links to and from the “Hub”, but not the individual lines between the symbols. These so-called implicit connections represent the lines you have to draw when you link the nodes without a “Hub”. This menu contains a list with all of the node's implicit connections.

Disconnect all

If you want to remove the links of the currently selected nodes, please click on this entry. After this action, the node is completely isolated and cannot interact with other nodes in the scene.

Move to Group Submenu

If your scene contains at least one group then this submenu is visible. It contains a list of the available groups and you choose to which of them you want to move the node. The “Relationship Editor” does not provide drag-and-drop grouping and therefore you have to use this function or group them in the “Nodes” panel. There, drag-and-drop actions are supported.

"Simulation" Submenu

Active

This and the following two icons influence the node selection's "Simulation" parameter in the "Node Params" "Node" panel. This is the first button and activates the node selection.

Cache

This button sets the node selection to "Cache" mode. When a node is in cache mode, RealFlow reads the previously simulated and stored data from disk and displays them in the viewport. The distinctive feature is that cached elements can still influence fluid, objects and RealWave nodes which are not cached, but they cannot be influenced themselves. Cached elements are very often used with RealFlow's grid fluid technology (“Hybrido”), because there the common workflow is subdivided into passes and each new simulation requires the cached data from the previous calculation cycle.

Inactive

This button sets the node selection to "Inactive". From this moment, the node no longer contributes to the simulation.

"Visibility" Submenu

Visible/Hidden

Change a node's or node group's visibility.

Render with Maxwell Render

Each node can be made visible to Maxwell Render individually with this button. Please bear in mind that the “Set Selected Visible” and “Set Selected Invisible” settings have no influence on whether a node is rendered or not. If you want to consider the node's viewport visibility, please change its state to “Same as viewport” in the “Renderable” option of the “Maxwell” panel. For a large amount of nodes we recommend using the "Layers" tool. 

Hide from Maxwell Render

This is the counterpart to the option above is used to hide a node from the Maxwell Render engine.

"Shading" Submenu

RealFlow provides four different shading modes and you can toggle between them easily.

"Export" Submenu

The entries of this submenu provide a very fast and convenient method to manage a node's export resources. It also gives you an overview of which resources are currently enabled or disabled. This compilation is dynamically created and different for each node, because it depends on the available file formats. In the image below you can see the export resources of a grid fluid domain.

Enable data export

With this function, all standard export resources will be activated

Disable data export

When this option is used, none of the available data resource will be enabled. Please bear in mind that this will also disable playback and rendering, because RealFlow does not write any cache files.

Export now

You can write a cache file at the current frame with this menu entry.

Available Export Formats

This menu is different for each node and dynamically created. Active resources are checked. Instead of using “Export Central”, the node's export formats can be changed here as well.

"Mesh" Submenu

This submenu contains everything you need to build meshes and is – hence the name – only available for mesh nodes. We have added these functions here as well, in order to provide a consistent workflow throughout the “Nodes” panel and the “Relationship Editor”. Please note that the function set is slightly different for particle and grid meshes.

For a detailed explanation of the individual entries, please visit this page: “Meshes - Right-Click Menu Nodes”.

"Add Wave" Submenu

RealWave nodes provide an additional submenu: “Add Wave”. From here you can choose surface modifiers to create different kinds of waves. The mode of operation for each modifier is explained in detail in the “RealWave” chapter. Please bear in mind that RealFlow supports only one RealWave surface/node per scene.

Info Submenu

“Hub” nodes show an additional submenu with a node list: it contains all elements which are currently connected to the “Hub”.