Operator Boxing and Unboxing
Boxing collapses one or more operators into a single Groom Operator, while preserving everything they do. The reverse - expanding a groom operator back into its individual operators - is called unboxing. Boxing is a way to tidy and reuse a complex part of a stack without losing any of its behavior, and unlike baking it keeps the operators live rather than freezing their result.
Boxing operators
To box operators, select a consecutive run of them in the stack (with no unselected operators in between) and use the box action. They are replaced by a single Groom Operator that contains them. You can choose to expose some of the inner operators' parameters on the groom operator, so the boxed network can still be adjusted through a small, clean set of controls.
Unboxing
Unboxing does the opposite: it explodes a Groom Operator back into the individual operators it contains, returning them to the stack so you can edit each one directly.
Boxing versus baking
- Boxing keeps the operators live inside a groom operator - the result still recomputes, and you can unbox to edit. Use it to organize and reuse.
- Baking freezes the computed strands into a stored result that no longer recomputes. Use it for performance and stability.
See Baking Hair and Guides and Groom Operator.