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Support Staff 1 Posted by john on 19 Mar, 2024 11:11 PM
Mario,
Good question.
The Nodebox documentation page has a whole series of short tutorials. That's the best place to start:
https://www.nodebox.net/node/documentation/
There are also a set of examples built into NodeBox itself (which many users never notice). From inside the Nodebox app choose Open Examples... from the File Menu. A dialog will appear. Choose either the Topics or Basics tab on the top, then select a subcategory from the list on the left. Then click on any one of the examples on the right.
A nodebox file will then open with the example code already in place. Look through it, render different nodes, change parameters and see what happens. You can use any of these as a starting point and then save copies to use for further experimentation. Playing with actual code is one of the best ways of learning any programming language.
The next thing you should explore is this forum. It's an incredible resource with over ten years of detailed discussion threads. Type any subject of interest into the "Search discussions" field at the top of the forum page, hit Search, and start reading through old discussions. It's how I learned. And I've now answered hundreds of newbie questions with detailed example code, so many of the questions you have may have already been answered.
If you like video tutorials, there are just a few on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nodebox+tutorial
Finally, as you start to play with Nodebox, please don't be shy about asking questions on this forum (as you have already started to do). If no one else does, I will usually respond within a day and I genuinely enjoy answering questions and accepting challenges.
Hope that helps! Good luck and keep those questions coming.
John
2 Posted by Mario Aveni on 20 Mar, 2024 01:49 AM
Hi John,
thank you so much for your detailed response and for providing such
valuable resources for getting started with Nodebox. Your guidance is
immensely appreciated. I will certainly delve into the tutorials on the
Nodebox documentation page and explore the examples within the app. The tip
about utilizing the forum for discussions and searching through old threads
is incredibly helpful. I'll make sure to take full advantage of that.
Once again, thank you for your invaluable help and encouragement.
Best regards, Mario
On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 7:11 PM john <[email blocked]>
wrote:
3 Posted by Mario Aveni on 20 Mar, 2024 02:31 AM
Hey John,
I hope you're doing well! Sorry to bother you again, but I could really use
your expertise with Nodebox.
I've been following the Nodebox documentation tutorial and got to the
Spirograph stage. I managed to follow the steps to colorize by inserting a
colorize node between freehand1 and reflect1. Also, I copied the four nodes
and grouped them by sending them all to a combine node.
However, I've hit a roadblock there. I can't seem to figure out how to
actually colorize the spirograph I created. Could you possibly walk me
through this?
Thanks a ton in advance for your help!
Best regards,
Mario
On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 7:11 PM john <[email blocked]>
wrote:
Support Staff 4 Posted by john on 20 Mar, 2024 03:08 AM
Hi Mario,
I just tried this myself and it worked fine for me. Before adding the colorize node did you see a spirograph drawing with black lines?
After adding the colorize node what did you see?
There are a few tricks to using the colorize node. When colorizing a closed shape (like a square or circle) you will usually want a solid color for the fill and may or may not need a stroke for the outline. So leaving the stroke width at 0 is fine for that.
But when coloring an open line or curve (like the output of the freehand node) you will usually want no fill at all, and you will definitely need a stroke width greater than 0.
So first increase the stroke width of your colorize node and see what happens. If the missing lines suddenly appear you will be halfway home, You can change the color of the outline by changing the stroke color. Change it to red to see what happens.
Now then, how do you get rid of the fill? You do that by setting its opacity to 0. Click the fill color and when the Choose Color dialog comes up, drag the Alpha channel at the bottom from 255 down to 0. As you do this the fill color will first fade and then disappear altogether.
I do this a hundred times a day: add a colorize node, bump the stroke width, open the fill, and set alpha to 0. This is more cumbersome and counterintuitive than it should be, but you will quickly get used to it.
I'm not sure why you copied the nodes. Combining the copies would just draw the spirograph on top of itself. It would not technically group anything - you need a group node for that. But adding a group node would not change the outward appearance.
Try adjusting your fill and stroke width and let me know it that gets you unstuck. If not, please zip up your ndbx file and attach it to your reply so that I can see what you've gotten yourself into!
John
5 Posted by Mario Aveni on 20 Mar, 2024 06:04 PM
Hey John,
I hope you're doing well. Just wanted to drop you a quick note to say
thanks for your time and patience.
So, I gave it another shot and tried to colorize the spiro for the second
time, but I'm still stuck. Can't seem to get any color onto the drawing,
just the same old black lines.
I copied the nodes exactly based on the tutorial instructions. I've
attached a snapshot and zipped the ndbx file for you to take a look at.
Thanks again for all your help!
Best,
Mario
On Tue, Mar 19, 2024 at 11:08 PM john <[email blocked]>
wrote:
Support Staff 6 Posted by john on 20 Mar, 2024 07:22 PM
Mario,
Your problem is very simple.
You hooked your colorize node into the output of the reflect node, but failed to hook the output of the colorize node into the input of the copy node.
Once you do this the colors will flow! You will then want to dial your stroke width way down to 1 or 2.
When I am wiring up nodes I space them out at first so that I can clearly see how everything is connected. Once everything is working, I then go back and tidy up (which is an art form onto itself). I only put nodes in stacks (all touching each other in a single column) if each output feeds directly into the first port of the next node; if it feeds into any other port I add a little more vertical space so you can clearly see which input port is being used.
Checking and double-checking the connections soon become second nature.
Onward and upward!
John
7 Posted by Mario Aveni on 21 Mar, 2024 10:17 PM
Hi John,
Just wanted to drop you a quick note to say a massive thank you for sorting
out that issue I was having. Your advice about the colorize node and
connecting everything up properly was spot on! Once I got that sorted, the
colors started flowing just like you said.
Definitely gonna adopt that approach from now on.
Seriously bud, your help is always top-notch.
Thank you!
On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 3:22 PM john <[email blocked]>
wrote:
8 Posted by Mario Aveni on 21 Mar, 2024 11:06 PM
Hi John, it's me again,
Hope you're doing awesome!
So, I've got this little snag with colorizing the Spiro, the tutorial I
followed only covered coloring the outer lines. Am I totally missing
something here?
You're probably sick of me bugging you with all these questions,(sorry
about that!) but any chance you could throw some wisdom my way on this one?
Thank you thank you thank you!!
On Wed, Mar 20, 2024 at 3:22 PM john <[email blocked]>
wrote:
9 Posted by Mario Aveni on 21 Mar, 2024 11:10 PM
Oh, last-minitue update
I think I cracked it! Just tweaked the Fill box and voila!
Sorry again for bothering you, bud!
Cheers!
On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 7:05 PM Mario Aveni <[email blocked]> wrote:
Support Staff 10 Posted by john on 22 Mar, 2024 04:18 AM
No prob, Mario. And thanks for the thanks.
11 Posted by Mario Aveni on 24 Mar, 2024 10:18 PM
Hey John,
Hope you're doing well! Just dropping you a quick message to say I've thrown in the towel with Nodebox. Those tutorials are driving me up the wall - too confusing and frustrating for my liking.
Plus, I'm really keen on understanding the rationale behind each step in generative design. My little stint with Nodebox left me feeling like the only way to get it is by memorizing everything, but there's just so much to take in!
I do dig the final animated art results though, at least the one I’ve seen from other artists that use the program, and I'm itching to blend them with my music. But honestly, I'm struggling to find a logical approach to learning it. Any other program as options out there? Or more didactic iand ntuitive tutorials? Appreciate any advice you've got!
Cheers!
Support Staff 12 Posted by john on 25 Mar, 2024 08:29 AM
Mario,
Sorry to hear you are throwing in the towel so soon.
Programming languages are a very personal thing. Languages that seem intuitive to one person are maddening to another. So if one language doesn't work, try another, and another.
Many generative artists use Processing (or its cousin P5js). One artist I know uses R, which is normally considered to be a language for statisticians and data scientists. Many 3D artists like Blender. In fact you can do generative art in ANY language.
But every one of these languages will have a learning curve. You will need to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can dance.
As for tutorials, I didn't use them much when I was learning NodeBox - or any other of the many languages I've learned over the years. For me what works best is to have a very specific goal in mind, a project that I am highly motivated to make happen. I then set out immediately to make that particular thing. I try and fail and try again and fail again, getting closer each time, hunting for similar things and looking at other people's code if I can find it, until I finally get the vision in my head to come true. And then I dream of another project.
The key is you have to want it badly enough to keep trying until you get it.
Good luck! I will always be here if you want to come back and try again.
John
13 Posted by Mario Aveni on 25 Mar, 2024 01:27 PM
Hi John,
Thank you so much for your encouraging words and valuable insights. After reading about your experiences, I'm inspired to continue my journey in learning programming languages rather than giving up.
Your advice about exploring different languages and finding the one that resonates with me is truly enlightening. I'll definitely explore the other options.
I really appreciate your offer to be there for guidance if I decide to give it another shot. It means a lot to me.
If you don't mind, could you please share where you are based? I'm currently in New York City.
Also, if you're comfortable sharing, I'd love to know what your personal goal is with NodeBox. Understanding your journey and goals would provide further inspiration for me.
Feel free to reach out to me anytime at [email blocked].
Thank you once again for your encouragement and support.
Best, Mario
Support Staff 14 Posted by john on 25 Mar, 2024 08:48 PM
Mario,
I am based near San Francisco. Aside from my work here on the forum and with my node library trying to keep Nodebox alive, my focus these days is on my generative art. All my art is done using Nodebox.
You can find out more about my art here:
http://www.cartania.com/design.html
Good luck!
John
15 Posted by Mario Aveni on 12 Jun, 2024 07:47 PM
Hi John,
I hope you're doing well. I'm writing to ask for your help with Nodebox.
I'm following the manual and have reached the 'generative tower' section.
I've grouped all the nodes and created a subnetwork called 'tower'.
Everything went smoothly up to that point.
Now, I'd like to create multiple towers or a skyline. I've read the
subnetworks page and successfully created a horde of space invaders.
However, when I return to the tower subnetwork, I see that the tower node
has three input ports: Number of Segments, Change Widths, and Change
Height. Should I modify something inside the root? Could you please walk me
through creating a position port to connect a grid node in order to
generate the skyline or multiple towers?
Thank you so much for your help.
Best regards,
Mario
Support Staff 16 Posted by john on 13 Jun, 2024 12:29 AM
Hi Mario,
Good to hear from you again.
There are multiple ways of approaching a challenge like this. So the first thing you should do is take a step back and think clearly about exactly what you want to do.
You have a tower node that makes a tower, which is a grouped stack of rectangles. You can use this to make as many towers as you want. Varying the number of segments will affect the height; changing the two seed values will change the random widths and heights for each segment to give each tower a different overall shape.
Each tower you make lands in the same place. I made a simpler version of the tower network which I think works about the same as yours. My tower is centered horizontally on the Y axis and grows upward always starting at the origin. (You can check the origin checkbox on the display panel to verify that your tower does the same thing.)
Now then, what do you want to do? You want to make a city skyline composed of a number of different towers all growing upward from the X axis and all sitting next to each other.
Your first decision is to decide EXACTLY what you mean by "sitting next to each other". The image in the tutorial has the towers slightly overlapping each other in some cases. To me it looks like they are simply spaced evenly along the X axis. That's one option.
Another option would be to stack them horizontally so that the towers never overlap at any point with maybe a slight margin between each tower (or even a negative margin if you want them to always overlap slightly).
It's a subtle difference, but it affects how you go about placing your towers. Let's start with the first option, arranging towers evenly along the X axis.
Normally the "position" of a shape in Nodebox is the center of that shape (the centroid). When you set the position of a rectangle or ellipse, you are setting where the center of that rectangle or ellipse will land.
But in this case, I think you want all your towers to rise upwards from the same horizon (the X axis). So in this case it's more useful to think of position simply as the X value of the tower. So a tower at position -45 would grow upwards from the X axis and be centered on a line extending through the point (-45,0). A tower at position 112 would rise up from the point (112,0).
Your next decision is whether to incorporate this position inside the tower node itself, or arrange the towers afterwards. In other words, do you want your tower node to simply make a tower, or do you want your tower node to make a tower and a particular horizontal position? Both are equally valid and entail about the same amount of work
Let's add a position parameter to your tower node. Inside your tower node create a new number node. I like to rename the nodes I use as parameters, but that is optional. Publish this node as "Position".
Feed your position node into the X port of a make_point node (leaving the Y value at 0). This will create a position point along the X axis.
Now feed the group node at the bottom of your tower subnetwork into an align node and render that node. Feed your make_point node into the position port of that align node. Set Horizontal Align to "Center" and Vertical Align to "Bottom".
Now test your improved tower node. If you've done everything right, changing the position value should cause your tower to scoot left and right along the X axis,
Creating a skyline is now easy! Make a range node and set Start to -400, End to 401, and Step to 50. This will generate 17 numbers: -400, --350, .... , 350, 400. (I use 50 as the step value because that was the upper range of the random width used in the tutorial, so your towers are at most 50 pixels wide.)
Now hook the single output of that range node to THREE of your tower node ports: Change Width, Change Height, and Position. Voila! Instant Skyline.
The numbers feeding into the Change Width and Change Height nodes simply furnish different random seeds to make each tower look different; these values could be anything as long as they are different. The position value determines where along the X axis each of the 17 towers will land.
So that's one solution.
Just for fun, here is another way. Unhook the link from your range node to the position port of your tower node, leaving the position value at 0. Now all 17 towers are on top of each other; this is how it would work if you didn't even have a position parameter.
Now hook your tower node to a stack node and leave the stack settings at Direction East with a Margin of 5 and render that stack node. Voila! Another skyline.
This stacked skyline will start at Y=0 and move eastward instead of being centered, but you can fix that by grouping all 17 towers and feeding that group into an align node. Also the towers will be just slightly more spaced out; you can adjust how much by changing the margin value in the stack node.
So there you have it: two different but similar ways of generating a skyline. You should try following my instructions to modify your tower node yourself in order to get the hang of it. But just in case you are confused by any step, I have attached a screenshot and simple demo, which you can refer to. Feel free to ask more questions if you have them.
Good luck and please keep at it! I know when you are first starting out it can feel painfully slow feeling your way through basic exercises like this. But the more you do it, the more natural it becomes. Crawl, then walk, then dance!
John
17 Posted by lastvector on 13 Jun, 2024 12:20 PM
Hi Mario
I am also a Nodebox beginner and would like to encourage you to continue
learning Nodebox. I certainly wouldn't want to be without it anymore.
One thing that would make it easier for me to use Nodebox would
be a better comment function. I think that's solved wonderfully in Nodebox Live
with the note-it like comments
But otherwise I have fun with it, even if my understanding isn't that deep.
It helped me to read a lot of posts in the forum and the downloadable
examples were always very helpful.
I usually start with a certain search term such as "lists" and see what
has been written about it. I've learned a lot about using Nodebox that way.
Sometimes the penny doesn't drop until a little later, but it does drop :)
So happy Nodeboxing
gottfried
18 Posted by Mario on 13 Jun, 2024 05:20 PM
Hey John. Thank you immensely for your superbly directed instructions! With your guidance, I succeeded beyond expectations.
I have a quick question regarding the skyline colorization process. While I can colorize the entire skyline with one color, what if I want to mix it up with different colors for each rectangle? Additionally, Also, I'm itching to give it some animation or movement. what would be the next steps?
Your expertise has been instrumental thus far, and I'm eager to delve deeper into these possibilities.
Gratitude is an understatement! :pray:
Mario
19 Posted by Mario on 13 Jun, 2024 05:24 PM
Hi Lastvector,
It's a relief knowing I'm not the only newbie with Node Box. Thanks a bunch for the pep talk and encouragement!
Cheers!
Support Staff 20 Posted by john on 14 Jun, 2024 01:11 AM
Mario,
To color the rectangles comprising each tower, just feed the rect node into a colorize node and feed a list of colors into the fill port of the colorize node.
The auto-repeating nature of Nodebox lists makes this fun to play with. If you feed in a list of, say, three colors, those three colors will keep repeating no matter how many segments your tower has. So you can try endless variations of a small number of colors and see dramatic and surprising effects.
There are many ways to generate a palette or short list of colors. The simplest is to create a different color node for each color and then simply combine them with a combine node - but this is rather cumbersome if you want to do a lot of experimentation.
An easier way to generate colors is by using one of the color nodes from the most recent release of my Cartan Node Library. Any of these will do:
Copy-paste one of these, set the amount to the number of colors you want, and feed the list into your colorize node.
If you add the colorization inside your tower node, each tower in your skyline will have the same mix of colors. If you want to color each tower differently, you will either need to add a new parameter (as you did with position) or color them afterwards using a separate node or nodes.
To add a parameter to your tower node, create a color node inside the tower node and publish it as "colors". BUT you must do one more thing. You must select the tower node, click Metadata above the parameter pane to open the Metadata dialog, choose colors from the list of parameters, and change the Range setting from Value to LIST.
This is a tricky but very important topic that I have written about elsewhere: you can either input values to a node one at a time (value) or all at once (list). In this case, you want to input a whole list of colors into the tower node all at once and then distribute them inside the node. If you were to input the colors one a time, the first tower in your skyline would all be entirely colored with the first color, the second tower would get the second color, etc. That is probably not what you want.
Another way of doing the same thing is to leave your tower node as it was and then color each tower afterwards. In order to do this you would have to make a new node (subnetwork) that would take in each tower one at a time, ungroup it into multiple segments, color those segments, and then regroup it. So black tower goes in, colored tower comes out.
So far so good. But what if you want to color each tower in the skyline differently? To do this you will once again need to take a step back and think about exactly what you want your tower node to do. Passing a list of colors won't work because you don't want one list, you want, in effect, a different list each time a tower is created.
One approach would be to give each tower a "color scheme". Each color scheme can be assigned a number, scheme 1, scheme 2, etc. Then you can pass in a different scheme for each tower just as you did with position.
One easy way to define such a color scheme is simply to place one of my color nodes, say "Colors", inside your tower node and then publish the seed value of that Colors node. So each number you pass in for color scheme will generate a different random list of, say, 3 colors.
I modified my earlier demo to show all three of these approaches (attached). You can render three different nodes to see three examples: TOWER, RECOLOR, and MULTI_TOWER.
TOWER
I modified the earlier tower node to include a colors parameter and used my colors node to feed in a palette of 3 colors (picked at random). You can easily change these colors by changing values in the colors node floating above and to the right: the seed, the number of colors (I used 3 to start with), or fiddling with the other settings. Seeing the entire skyline change with each change is when Nodebox really starts to get fun.
NOTE: If you increase the number of colors from 3 to any value greater than 20 (the current number of segments in each tower), your towers will start to grow! Why? Because when a Nodebox node takes in two different lists (both set to range=value), the longer list is used to determine how many times that node fires. In this case the node in question is the colorize node deep inside your new tower node. If that colorize node sees a list of 20 rectangles AND a list of, say, 27 colors, it will fire 27 times instead of just 20 times, generating a stack of 27 colored rectangles instead of just 20. This is one of the ways Nodebox can surprise you.
RECOLOR
To the right of the tower node, I left my earlier tower1 node alone and added a new subnetwork below it: recolor. Recolor takes in each tower and recolors it, in this case using the same list I used for the tower node. Doing this as a subnetwork instead of a subtree of nodes on the main level allows you to handle one tower at a time. You can look inside the recolor node to see how it works.
In this case, there is no particular advantage to using a separate node like recolor to do the coloring, but in other cases there might be. If your tower node was already stuffed full of parameters, and you needed a bunch of parameters to control the coloring, it might make sense to handle the coloring separately. The point is that there are generally many different ways to do things in Nodebox, and even if you have a complex object like a tower, you can still take it apart and put it back together if you need to.
MULTI_TOWER
Render the multi_tower node to see each tower colored with a separate palette. Multi_tower is just a slightly modified version of tower, with my colors node on the inside. The "color scheme" parameter simply changes the random seed of that colors node.
Before passing the scheme number I apply an abs node to use the absolute value because random seeds need to be positive integers. If I didn't do this, all negative values would be treated as a seed of 1 and would look the same. Since I lazily pass in the same list of position numbers (-400, -350, ... 350, 400) for the color scheme numbers, the color schemes are reflected across the skyline. You have to look closely to notice this. If you don't like that, just use a separate range node to feed in the numbers 1 through 17 (or however many towers you have) to color scheme instead.
Just changing the seed value of my colors node only scratches the surface of what is possible. You could vary other parameters (eg. number of colors), or use any of my other color nodes, or come up with even more elaborate ways of coloring your towers. The possibilities are truly endless.
ANIMATION
Animation is an entirely different topic, easily as endless as colors are, and this note is already too long, so I won't go into depth about it right now. I will only toss out a few general ideas off the top of my head:
Again, the possibilities are endless.
I hope you have fun playing with these ideas. Your original question has morphed into a nice little mini-tutorial of its own.
John
21 Posted by mario on 14 Jun, 2024 07:02 PM
Thank you once again John for the thoroughness of your explanations. I think I get anxious by trying to chew more than I can bite, so when I realize how big this is, I guess I need to be patient and learn one thing at a time. I don’t want to be a hassle by asking so many questions, but I might need to continue seeking your guidance.
Regarding colorizing the towers, I didn't know how to generate a list of colors inside the metadata, but I created a combine node and connected its output to the colorize node. Additionally, I created three separate color nodes and connected each list port of the combine node to the color nodes.
Thank you,
Mario
22 Posted by lastvector on 14 Jun, 2024 10:07 PM
Hi Mario
Made here a somewhat simple Nodebox Tree
related to your wishes. It may give some inspiration.
Try different Values with the Nodes
and try to create a Version yourself
23 Posted by mario on 15 Jun, 2024 02:48 AM
Hey, lastvector, yeah! it's beautiful! Thanks a lot for sharing it
24 Posted by lastvector on 15 Jun, 2024 06:14 AM
Mario
you welcome,
i learn so much from other Users by searching through this Forum.
And not to forget from John. So i am happy to help and share.
Even that my knowledge is limited.
I have fun with Pattern making, if i find something interesting to create.
I often try to rebuild it in Nodebox. Because its so easy to experiment
because everything stay editable, changeable.
While I don't have extensive knowledge of using Nodebox, I am very familiar
with vector graphics and i know many vector graphics programs and the
Tools they use.
In this context, Nodebox is a very nice addition to other vector graphics programs.
Designs can be easily exchanged for further processing in both directions using
the SVG file format.
I'm going to make a video showing some ways to repeat shapes in Nodebox,
but that will take some time yet.
Happy Nodeboxing
gottfried
Support Staff 25 Posted by john on 15 Jun, 2024 12:15 PM
Gottfried,
Thanks for joining in the play! It warms my heart to see Nodeboxers sharing ideas and examples. Please keep it coming!
Mario,
I realize my last note to you was a lot to take in. I originally intended to write a short and sweet note to answer your immediate question, but as I considered various aspects my note grew longer and began to touch on various other interconnected issues.
You are right to take things one step at a time. As you grow comfortable with one way of coloring your towers, you can reread my note to help you explore other ways. And there is nothing at all wrong with using a combine node to build a palette; but once you build your share of palettes, I encourage you to seek out my library and try some of my color nodes to find other ways.
Much of my previous note was actually about the subtleties of subnetworks. This is what most confused me when I was starting out, and I eventually came to understand that it was the key to unlocking the full power of Nodebox. But there's no need to learn all of that in one gulp.
Keep playing. Keep asking questions. And, as Gottfried suggested, keep searching the forum to learn from other fellow Nodeboxers.
John
26 Posted by lastvector on 15 Jun, 2024 01:44 PM
John
always happy to help
have nice day
gottfried
27 Posted by mario on 19 Jun, 2024 05:33 PM
Hey John, sorry to bug you again with questions. I'm following the website tutorial and got stuck on the "The cost" part. I've created an import CSV node but don't know how to select Debtris.csv in File. Also, after creating a text path node and selecting a font, I can't seem to type, and I'm not sure where my typing is supposed to show up. I’m still hoping that following every instruction in the tutorial will someday open my mind and I’ll see the light so everything starts falling into place. Can you walk me through it? Thanks a ton for your help! I'm loving your awesome work on Instagram—you're an amazing artist!
Support Staff 28 Posted by john on 19 Jun, 2024 09:25 PM
Hi Mario,
The file name, in this case Debris.csv, is a parameter just like any other that the CSV node needs to do its thing. So you don't go up to the File menu.
Instead, select the CSV node and, in the parameter pane, click the ellipsis (three dots) button to the right of the File field. That will bring up a dialog that will allow you to navigate to and select the Debris.csv file.
Once you do this, the contents of the file should appear In the content pane on the left. Switch to Data mode (second button from the top left) to see it clearly.
You can now feed the CSV node into some lookup nodes to pull out individual columns of data. You can then feed the description column into the text port of your textpath node. This will create one text path for each description in the file. Initially they we all be drawn on top of each other; you will later use a translate node to move each description into its final position.
I'm not sure what you meant when you said you "can't seem to type". The textpath node converts a line of text into a path of letter shapes using a particular font; you can type that line of text into the text parameter of the textpath node. But in this tutorial, when you hook the lookup node into that text parameter, it will instead fire the textpath node repeatedly, once for each description in the CSV file.
Does that clear things up? Keep fiddling around until you figure it out. Just remember that each node has a set of input ports with a parameter for each port. You can either feed in lists of one or more values to each port from nodes upstream, or you can enter those values directly. Different kinds of parameters will have different kinds of inputs which appear in the parameter pane whenever you select a node. Those inputs can include text fields, checkboxes, pulldown menus, and, in the case of file parameters, a button which brings up a file dialog.
If you get stuck again don't hesitate to ask for help. And thanks for your kind words about my art, both here on on Instagram.
John
29 Posted by mario on 20 Jun, 2024 11:18 PM
Got it, thanks for clarifying! Thanks, John. It all started from a misreading on my end. If I get stuck again, I'll definitely ask for help. Thanks a ton! And by the way, yes, once again, your art is amazing!
Mario
30 Posted by mario on 24 Jun, 2024 02:05 AM
Hey John,
Hope you're having a great end to your weekend! I'm working on the animation part of the tutorial and I've made a wave animation. I set up a couple of subnetworks: one called 'thing' for making a mandala or galaxy-like figure as shown in the tutorial, and the other called 'positioned.'
I'm at the final part of the animation tutorial now, but I'm stuck on creating multiple mandala-like figures. Could you take a look and see what I'm doing wrong? Thanks a bunch for your help!
Cheers!
Mario