Hdas Inside Vex Surface Context - Renaming Outputs

[Vormav]

I'm trying to create some HDAs as new VEX operators inside of the vex surface context (note: not referring to vex shaders as hdas!), and all is well, with the one exception being that I'm not seeing any easy way to be able to rename the outputs of my HDAs to have sensible names. Right now, I have outputs like clr, clr_1, etc.

The Type Properties window for the HDAs doesn't list any of the outputs in the intput/output window (bug? 9.1.124, btw), just inputs, so I can't change the names there. I can pass my variable through a parameter with "use input value if parameter not bound" checked on: the variable name will then be whatever I have set the parameter name to. But that means creating a shader parameter when I don't want one.

As a better solution, I can pass my variable through an inline vop, and add code to just spit out the input value to a named output. But if you have 20 outputs to rename, this is hardly a quick and simple solution.

At the moment, I have an HDA that uses an embedded subnet to swap a constant value with the input value, so that by changing the name of the constant, I change the name of the output. This works fine, but it seems very hackish, and I can't help but feel that I must be missing something. The input/output window looks like what I want, and I definitely like the idea of using different input/output signatures, but like I said, none of my outputs are showing up.

Am I missing something?

Edited March 3, 2008 by Vormav