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Link creation modes | Substance 3D Designer

In Substance graphs, you may connect nodes using one of 3 link creation modes:

Link creation mode: standard

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 Standard (1)

No conditions are enforced.

Link creation mode: material

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 Material (2)

Inputs and outputs are matched based on their usages.

If only one of the two has a usage, the connection is performed as in Standard mode.

Link creation mode: compact material

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 Compact Material (3)

Same as Material.

Inputs and outputs belonging to a same group are collapsed.

You can switch between modes at any moment in the graph toolbar by clicking on the  Link creation mode button or with the keyboard shortcuts listed above.

In Material and Compact Material modes, connections beteen inputs and outputs with non-matching usages are prohibited.


The modes

 Standard

 Compact

 Compact Material

Inputs

All inputs are visible

All inputs are visible

Only 1 input per group

Outputs

All outputs are visible

All outputs are visible

Only 1 output per group

Links

All links are visible

All links are visible

Only 1 link per group (green)

Connections

You connect links one by one

You connect links together as a multi-link material group based on matching usages.

 

When a usage is present on one end, the connection is a Standard one.

You connect links together as
a single-link material group.


Assigning groups

You should assign groups to the graph's Input and Output nodes in order to use the Material and Compact material modes.

You assign a group in the Attributes parameters of the node, by filling the group name in the Group property. A group can be any string value, and links will be grouped if they share the exact same, case-sensitive group name.

Grouped inputs and outputs of a graph are denoted visually by being enclosed in a dark capsule on node instances referencing that graph.

Group capsule on node

Group attribute

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Link matching with usage

Once links are grouped, individual inputs need to be matched with outputs. This is done through the Usage attribute of Input and Output nodes. If the usage between both input and output matches, a link will be created. If no matching usage is found, no link is made.

Usage attribute

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