Groom Operator
A Groom operator encapsulates a whole network of Ornatrix operators inside a single operator. It stores its own internal graph - everything needed to generate, modify, or convert hair, guides, and meshes - and presents it in the stack as one unit. It can also expose a few parameters of its own, so a complex groom can be driven through a small, tidy set of controls.
Why encapsulate a groom
Wrapping a network into a Groom operator keeps a complex setup manageable and reusable. The internal graph travels with the scene, so the encapsulated groom is self-contained, and the exposed parameters let you adjust it without opening up its internals.
How a groom operator is created
A Groom operator can arise in several ways:
- Importing a groom into the scene as a groom operator, rather than as a loose set of operators. See Template Grooms.
- Boxing one or more operators together into a single unit. See Operator Boxing and Unboxing.
- Grafting a groom onto a surface, which places it as a self-contained groom. See Graft Grooms.
Working with groom operators
In the stack a Groom operator behaves like any other operator: you can place operators below it to feed it and above it to process its output. Its exposed parameters appear in the Editing Operator Properties panel. To edit the network inside, unbox it or open it as appropriate. See Operator Boxing and Unboxing.
Navigating into the sub-groom
When a groom operator's internal graph is embedded in the file (rather than referenced from a separate groom file), you can step into it and edit it in place as if it were the whole scene. Choosing the sub-groom from the breadcrumb path performs a complete reload of the viewport, the renderers, and every panel onto that nested graph, without opening or saving a file. Edits you make there are kept in the encapsulated groom, and stepping back out returns you to the original file exactly as you left it.
The breadcrumb path appears between the menu bar and the toolbar. It is shown automatically while you are inside a sub-groom, and at the root it can be shown or hidden with the sub-groom path button among the view toggles in the status bar. Each entry in the path is a menu of the grooms available at that level, so you can move between sibling grooms or step back out; a trailing menu steps further into a nested groom. Only embedded grooms are listed, since grooms referenced from an external file are loaded from disk rather than stored in the scene.
While you are inside a sub-groom the window title still shows the loaded groom file, so you always know which file you are working in.