Graph Conveniences

Gaea supplies numerous quality-of-life features to help you create and navigate complex graphs with as little effort as possible. These conveniences can reduce your workload dramatically when adopted into your standard workflow.

Create Nodes

Shortcodes

Each node has a corresponding shortcode. For example, Perlin is p, Mountain is m, Erosion2 is e2, Cone is con, and so on.

You can enter the shortcode instead of the full name when searching for nodes.

Chained Creation

You can use shortcodes (or full names) to quickly create a linear sequence of nodes. As you press the , key, Gaea will expand the shortcode or the first matching node in the Search results.

Enter m,e2,e2,tb,sm to create Mountain > Erosion2 > Erosion2 > TextureBase > SatMap.

Out to Out

When you drag a connection from an Out port and connect it to another Out port, instead of denying the connection as a disallowed right-to-left direction flow, Gaea will create a Combine node and route both Out ports to the Combine node.

MultiMix

Combine: MultiMix can be called from the Graph toolbar or by simply pressing F8. It connects the primary Output of all selected nodes to one or more inputs in a Combine node.

Mixer: Alternatively, if you press Ctrl + F8 or select the To Mixer option in the Graph toolbar, the outputs will be connected as Layer inputs for a Mixer node. This is useful when you want to layer multiple color textures and mask them using the Mixer node.

Portals

For detailed information on Portals, see Portals and Chokepoints

Convert Connection to Portal

Right-click on a connection and select "Convert to Portal" (or press Ctrl + P to convert an existing connection to a Portal. This will also convert the Out port to a Portal.

Other connections associated with that Port will not be affected.

Insert Node

• Right-click on a connection and choose "Insert node." This action opens a search menu.

• Select the node you wish to insert from this menu, and it will be automatically placed between the existing connection.

Connect to Portals

When you press P to bring up the Portal Management menu and select an In port, you will be presented with a list of available Portals that can be consumed.

Navigation

Navigate Menu

• Press the , key while a node is selected to open the navigate menu. This menu displays all incoming and outgoing connections linked to the selected node.

• Click on a connection within the menu to select and automatically navigate to the corresponding node.

Node Bookmarks

Allows you to bookmark selected node. When a node is bookmarked, it is shown in the bookmark menu. Clicking on the node will select and navigate to that node.

Organization

Select Nodes

You can select all nodes upstream (ancestors) or downstream (descendants) of a specific node from the Node menu or the Menus and Toolbars.

Group/Ungroup nodes

To create a group, select multiple nodes and choose "Group/Ungroup" from the menu. This action groups the selected nodes together. Clicking "Group/Ungroup" again while a group is selected will ungroup the nodes, placing them individually back onto the graph.

Combine nodes

Select two or more nodes and click on the "Combine Nodes" menu option. This will connect the selected nodes using a combine node.

Convert port to portals

This feature displays a list of output ports. Click on a port to convert it into a portal.

Move to Tab

This option provides a list of graph tabs. Click on a tab to move the selected nodes to the selected tab.

Auto Layout

Pressing F4 when one or more nodes are selected will automatically layout the nodes.

Push Nodes

Dragging the cursor on the graph while holding Ctrl + Shift lets you push all nodes to the right of the cursor. It is a handy tool to quickly organize portions of a graph.