Preventing node view from becoming a rat's nest of tangles?

[hidefguy]

Any suggestions/advice about organizing nodes for a relative newby?

[Jessie]

I'm pretty new to nodes as well and am having the same problem. Thanks for posting the question.

[Aruna]

Constantly rearrange.. The lineup hotkey is your friend. You can also use the snap to grid feature. That's the only way to be sure that your shake nodes don't get messy.

[jbidwell]

You can also hit the L key to automatically layout your nodes.

[Matt P]

Selecting groups of nodes and hitting 'G' puts them into a group of which you can colour the background. I'm not sure if it's common practice, though I often group nodes per element so as to keep things organised (and colourful).

-Matt

[Double Supercool]

I'd be very, very careful with the "L" key . . . if you have the wrong things selected it will completely destroy your carefully laid out script and there is no undo. I speak from experience

I tend to use "L" for small sections of nodes in a row that I want to line up vertically (does it better than the "X" key).

Download either the "null" or "through" nodes from www.fxshare.com. These are nodes that don't do anything, they just let you pipe through them and rearrange stuff a lot neater. I use null all the time to make my scripts legible to anyone who picks them up.

[Varun]

i usually use the dots, stickies, backdrops and the likes to keep it tidy .. not forgetting to place the node in an orderly form

take time to rearrange.. its your script

[Kai01/W]

Maybe it is just me but I'm often shocked to see how even some experienced professionals do not sort out their scripts. I think the time it takes you to get some order into it might save you later on when you keep overview.
What is even worse if other people have to take over these scripts cause shots were changed or people left without it being done, etc. It is always difficult cause everyone has a specific way of doing things but if the scipts are a huge mess than sometimes its easier to just start from scratch. Which is totally unnecessary!
A few things I tend to do (you might disagree):

Keep a general slight left to right direction (top left to bottom right actually). That is the way we read. For me it also makes it easier to read a script.

For this left to right direction I tend to prefer the "Under" instead of the "Over" node cause that way the previous section can easily flow as BG from left into that node. Which leads me to my next thing:

Avoid crossing noodles. Sure you cannot avoid it completely but I try hard to minimize it. I think it really helps the readibility of the script. See above: use Over or Under alternatively if that avoids crossing noodles.

Use groups. Using uncollapsed groups to mark different functional sections of the script helps alot. I also give the same color to groups that belong to a certain aspect of my comp (all keying, all BG, etc.). Groups also make it alot easier to sort your script cause you can easily move them around instead of having to manually select a multitude of nodes.
I tend to write what the group does not so much in the name but rather in the comment section of the group cause it is easier to read there. Which leads me to the next thing:

Name nodes. Surely not every Inside needs a name cause it is often selfexplaining but please the most important ones! I personally do it this way, first what the node does and then what kind of node it is, like "spaceship_On_BG_Comp__Over" or "hair_Darken__Mult"

Avoid changing the default values of the very basic nodes. For instance: Using a "Switch Matte" but turning off the "premult" option. Why not use a "copy" node instead! That way it is easier to understand what is going on without having to look into the parameters of those simple nodes. With the regards to this: do not use the "invert mask" option within the nodes mask section but rather use an invert node on your mask before. Same thing.

In some cases when it is really obvious you can try sorting sections of your scripts to the way they appear in the image. If you have a static shot and you put an explosion into the left half of the screen and a cg building on right you might want to try to sort your script that way. Happens rarely on a huge scale but rather on a small one. For instance if I roto the back of a car and the front seperatly the one being right screen the other left I order my rotos that way before I "Max" them... etc.

Comp the cg/fg together before you put it over the BG. Put the BG last thing in your script. that way you might take advantage of DODs as long as possible.

These are just some rules I tend to follow. As I said you might disagree.

-k

[hidefguy]

Thanks for all the comments; I've found them very helpful.
Greg

[thexdan]

I'd be very, very careful with the "L" key . . . if you have the wrong things selected it will completely destroy your carefully laid out script and there is no undo. I speak from experience

I tend to use "L" for small sections of nodes in a row that I want to line up vertically (does it better than the "X" key).

Download either the "null" or "through" nodes from www.fxshare.com. These are nodes that don't do anything, they just let you pipe through them and rearrange stuff a lot neater. I use null all the time to make my scripts legible to anyone who picks them up.

Do Null's break concatenation? I mean if you put a blank Reorder that breaks it? Is this the same or is it something I can even do in a concatenating tree?

But I love the idea of Null nodes (And you could name them too - kinda like the Rem command in Basic).

[Hugh]

If you put a Reorder node and ignore it, concatenation isn't broken.

[thexdan]

Oh, because I remember the Gnomon Shake 101 where to show what happens when you break concatenation they just stuck blank Reorder nodes in to break concatenation. And looking at a row of nodes with Enhanced node view just showed me the same thing - concatenates without the Reorder, doesn't with it (and they are blank).

[Hugh]

yes, that's true. But if you select the node and press 'i', it will ignore the node and concatenation will be restored.

[thexdan]

Oh yeah, I'm an idiot- I took "ignore" to mean just you know ignore it and not touch it, not "ignore Node".

[tinitron]

You can also create a Null-Node Macro which does simply nothing and therefor doesn't break any concatenation:

image Null(image In=0)
{
    return(In);
}