SuperTools in Katana | 01 Dynamically Build Nodes with Custom UI Using Python

SuperTools are a very powerful way of creating custom tools inside Katana that can be tailored to different studios to help streamline artists' workflows. Similarly to OpScript nodes, SuperTools can be used to create custom nodes that don’t already exist inside Katana. However, their setup and functionalities differ.

SuperTools are compound nodes that use a set of Python files to create a custom UI as well as dynamically creating and controlling the internal node structure. This means the internal nodes can be created, deleted, and modified depending on the user's actions.

Katana ships with some SuperTool nodes such as GafferThree and Importomatic nodes, as well as example SuperTools. Adam will take a look at some of these examples in this video and examine their Python structure to demonstrate where to create the UI and where to build the internal node structure.

Chapters:
00:00 - 01:11 - Introduction
01:11 - 02:37 - How to Load the Included SuperTool Examples
02:37 - 03:44 - Examining the Pony Stack Code Example
03:44 - 04:33 - Creating the User Interface with the Editor
04:33 - 04:57 - Building the Internal Node Structure
04:57 - 05:31 - Using ScriptActions to Share Functions Between Editor and Node
05:31 - 05:31 - Adding New Packages to pre-existing SuperTools
06:47 - 10:14 - Using Python to Interact with Packages in GafferThree