This article provides information on using the Corona Node Material Editor in Corona for Cinema 4D. 


Overview

Corona for Cinema 4D comes with its own Node Material Editor. The Corona Node Material Editor provides a more visual and intuitive way of creating materials by displaying the whole connection graph of nodes/shaders.


Any change to a Material or Shader made using the Corona Node Material Editor updates the Material or the Shader in the Cinema 4D's built-in material editor as well.


Accessing the Corona Node Material Editor

The Corona Node Material Editor is available in the Corona menu.


||Corona menu|| > Node material editor...



Key features

  • Simplifies working with complex material setups using an intuitive node representation.
  • Simplifies using the same shader (node) in more than one material channel.
  • If required, a node can be soloed, resulting in the material temporarily displaying the soloed node as the main shader for easy representation in the Viewport until the Solo mode for the node is disabled.
  • Different views (working spaces) can be created to improve the organization of the materials/nodes loaded in the Node Material Editor.

Incoming and outcoming nodes/connections are easily selected by right-clicking on a node and using any of the following options:

  • Select connected nodes
  • Select incoming nodes
  • Select outcoming nodes

Alternatively, the Alt + Left-click shortcut is available to select the node's incoming connections.

Any previously created material can be loaded in the Corona Node Material Editor by dragging and dropping it in the workspace area or using any of the options available from the Create menu.

When a material is loaded to the active view, all its nodes/connections (including the material node itself) are automatically selected.



Create menu

New shader – Creates a new shader.

New material – Creates a new material.

It is possible to work with Standard Cinema 4D Materials, Corona Shaders, and Corona Materials in the Node Material Editor.

Add existing... – Loads an existing material from the scene into the current Node Material Editor's view.

  • The materials listed here are only the materials available in the scene project.
  • Only Corona Materials, Shaders, and Cinema 4D Standard Materials are listed.
  • Materials or Shaders should be added one at a time.




View menu

Create view – Creates a new Node Material Editor view (working space).

Node Material Editor views are workspaces useful for organizing materials that are being edited using this tool, avoiding having a large number of materials in a single workspace.

Rename view – Renames a previously created Node Material Editor view (working space).

Delete view – Deletes an existing Node Material Editor view (working space).

Show previews – Shows the node's preview thumbnails regardless of whether it's a shader or a material.

Hide previews – Hides the node previews thumbnails regardless of whether it's a shader or a material.

Show ports – Displays all the ports (connections) available for the node.

Hide ports – Hides all the ports (connections) available for the node resulting in a minimalistic view of the node.

Fit to screen – Zooms in/out the workspace/view so that every node in the view fits into the Node Material Editor's window size.

Add all connections – When a node/connection is removed/hidden from the current active view, this retrieves/shows the hidden nodes/connections for the selected node.

Sort all nodes – Sorts and align all the nodes in the view

Delete unused shaders – Deles all unused shader nodes in the view.

Delete unused materials – Deletes all unused material nodes in the view.


Node menu

Hide preview – Hides the preview thumbnail for the selected node.

Hide body – Hides the node's UI body and keeps only the preview thumbnail.

Add connections – When a node/connection is removed/hidden from the current active view, this retrieves/shows the hidden nodes/connections for the selected node.

Sort selected nodes – Sorts and align the selected nodes.

Remove from view – Removes a selected node from the current view. This action does not remove the node from the scene project, only from the current view.

Delete – Deletes the selected node.

Select connected nodes – Adds all the connected incoming and outgoing nodes from the selected node to the current selection.

Select incoming nodes – Adds all the connected incoming nodes from the selected node to the current selection.

Select outgoing nodes – Adds all the connected outgoing nodes from the selected node to the current selection.


Tools menu

Save without shared shaders... – Saves a copy of the scene, replacing the shared nodes in the scene by making them unique.


Toolbar

The Node Material Editor comes with a basic toolbar which includes:

Pan – Pans the workspace area for the active view.

Zoom in/out – Zooms in/out the workspace area for the active view.

Side panel – Shows/Hide the properties side panel for the Corona Node Material Editor.

Active View – Lists all the available views for the Corona Node Material Editor for the current scene project and sets the current active view.




Examples


Node Solo

The Solo mode can be enabled for either shaders or materials.