Node Reference
Alphabetized quick-reference of every Natsura node that currently has a documentation page.
An alphabetized index of every Natsura node that currently has a documentation page, with a one-line summary and its category. Natsura ships roughly 180 nodes in total (most are internal machinery); this table lists the user-facing ones that are documented today and grows as more pages are written.
For categorized overviews, see the topic pages: Decorations · Effectors · Mapping · Traits · Internal Nodes
| Node | Category | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| Ancestor Effector | Effector | Reads a direction attribute from an ancestor (parent, grandparent, etc.) in the growth hierarchy. |
| Assembly Decoration | Decoration | Places pre-rigged library assemblies at points on a tree using trait matching. The default tool for foliage placement. |
| Assembly Edit | Assembly | Interactive state for rotating, deforming, and fixing rigged assemblies after auto-rigging. |
| Assembly Pack | Assembly | Packs rigged assemblies into the canonical packed-primitive form downstream nodes consume. |
| Assembly Resource | Assembly | Wrapper that prepares a library of rigged assemblies for an Assembly Decoration. |
| Atlas 3D | Atlas | Lifts flat atlas cards into 3D where geometric thickness is wanted. |
| Atlas Emboss | Atlas | Uses the height channel to emboss border, spine, and vein shapes on lifted cards. |
| Atlas Import | Atlas | First step of the atlas pipeline. Brings atlas source images into the workflow. |
| Atlas Layout | Atlas | Identifies the individual cards in an atlas image and prepares per-card controls. |
| Atlas Material | Atlas | Derives per-channel material outputs (colour, alpha, roughness, height, normal, subsurface) from an atlas. |
| Atlas Mesh | Atlas | Mesh construction, subdivision, and per-region shaping for atlas cards. |
| Atlas Remesh | Atlas | Cleans traced and lifted atlas geometry into uniform polygonal output. |
| Atlas Source | Atlas | Provides a source surface and merge-threshold control for combining nearby atlas regions. |
| Atlas Trace | Atlas | Converts a 2D atlas image into a traced outline mesh whose silhouette follows the alpha. |
| Atlas Wizard | Atlas | Guided high-level entry to the atlas pipeline in a few clicks. |
| Bake | Utility | COPs-based texture baker. Converts high-poly geometry into colour, height, and normal maps. |
| Build Assembly Rig | Assembly | Auto-rigging step that produces Natsura's assembly rig, preserving instancing through placement. |
| Classify | Assembly | Standalone node exposing trait-based classification of assembly library entries. |
| Cluster Decoration | Decoration | Attaches and deforms external meshes (leaves, flowers, fruit) along the skeleton. |
| Core Decoration | Decoration | Base node for creating custom decorations. |
| Create Graft Mesh | Trunks | Remeshes imported high-poly geometry and prepares the region where procedural extensions attach. |
| Create Proxy | Utility | Generates a clustered proxy of a tree for LOD, collision, and lightweight viewport stand-ins. |
| Debug Tree Rig | Utility | Inspects the rig, skin, joints, and bone-capture state of a tree before export. |
| Deflection Effector | Effector | Reacts to the tree's own shape so branches stay aware of each other and avoid overcrowding. |
| Delay | Utility | Pauses growth on selected branches for a set number of iterations, staggering development. |
| Direction Effector | Effector | Outputs a constant directional vector as an effector growth nodes can read. |
| Effector (Custom Base) | Effector | The core effector node. Base for authoring custom effectors in VEX. |
| Effector Template | Effector | Authoring node for defining a custom effector surface on a target HDA. |
| Export Unreal Nanite Assembly | Export | Exports assemblies to Unreal as Nanite Skeletal Assemblies: USD plus a wind.json. |
| Gravity Effector | Effector | A uniform up-vector across the tree. Drives the gravitropic response. |
| Grow | Growth | The fundamental building block. Extends structure from current endpoints with control over length, angle, and width. |
| Grow Draw | Growth | Draw growth by hand and let the simulator pick up from your input and fill in the rest. |
| Identify Shared Instances | Utility | Tags geometry so instance relationships survive downstream processing and export. |
| Import Assembly | Assembly | Brings source geometry (SOPs, USD, BGEO) into the assembly workflow for auto-rigging. |
| Import Highpoly | Trunks | Loads high-resolution scanned or photogrammetry meshes for trunk extraction and reference. |
| Import Props | Utility | Loads external meshes (leaves, flowers, rocks) as props for cluster decoration workflows. |
| Kill | Growth | Immediately halts future growth on branches that meet conditions. Distinct from Prune. |
| Magnet Effector | Effector | User-placed sphere of influence that pulls or pushes branches within its radius. |
| Map | Mapping | The building block for parameter control. Applies one operation and blends the result. |
| Map Attribute | Mapping | Reads a per-internode attribute into a Map chain: the "read u to drive taper" step. |
| Map Blend | Mapping | Blends two mapping chains together based on a weight. |
| Map Constant | Mapping | Emits a fixed value into a Map chain: the base-value step at the head of a chain. |
| Map If | Mapping | Applies a map chain only if a condition is met. |
| Map Random | Mapping | Emits a stable per-internode random value into a Map chain. |
| Mapping Template | Mapping | Authoring node for defining mappable parameters on a target HDA. |
| Noise Effector | Effector | Generates a 3D noise vector field to influence growth direction. |
| Pivot Edit | Assembly | Interactive state for placing pivots on assembly geometry when auto-rigging fails. |
| Prune | Growth | Removes branches during growth by re-testing conditions, simulating die-back and self-pruning. |
| Repeat | Growth | A looping block: encapsulates a subgraph and re-evaluates it N times with time-varying attributes. |
| Rig to Assembly | Assembly | Converts a Simulate's output into a reusable assembly library to decorate another tree. |
| Scan Material | Trunks | Assigns a material to a scanned mesh inside the high-poly import and graft workflows. |
| Scan Profiles | Trunks | Interactive picker for selecting end-tube points on a scanned trunk. |
| Scan Rig | Trunks | Creates rigged tubular sections from scanned geometry for tiling-texture extraction. |
| Scan to Parts | Trunks | Filters a scanned mesh to a selected region via interactive viewport selection. |
| Scan to Patch | Trunks | Identifies a smaller square region within a tube section for patch-style tiling textures. |
| Scan to Tube | Trunks | Turns a rigged tubular section into a cleanly-UVed tube for use as a tiling-texture source. |
| Seed Points | Utility | Generates a scatter of input points with per-point seed, age, and species attributes for stands and forests. |
| Select Decoration | Decoration | (Deprecated, expected to return.) Gating layer controlling which parts of a tree get which mesh. |
| Signal | Utility | Integrates environmental signals (proximity, vector fields) to guide growth dynamically. |
| Simplify Tree Rig and Skin | Utility | Reduces joint count and skin complexity before export. The standard pre-export step. |
| Simulate | Core | The solver. Traverses the graph, executes growth, resolves mappings, generates geometry. |
| Split | Growth | Creates explicit parallel branches in the graph topology, distinct from innate forking. |
| Surface Decoration | Decoration | Generates skin or bark geometry for the skeleton. |
| Surface Resource | Decoration | Defines the material a Surface Decoration applies: colour, normal, roughness, displacement, tint. |
| Surface Wizard | Decoration | High-level wrapper that prepares surface-decoration input geometry in one node. |
| Switch | Growth | Routes growth to different subgraphs based on attributes, thresholds, or mappings. |
| Treeparameterize | Utility | Resamples and parameterises imported tree geometry into the form Natsura's nodes expect. |
| Trunk Decoration | Decoration | Specialised surface decoration for trunks, with enhanced UV/displacement and trunk-extension support. |
| Unreal Wizard (Deprecated) | Export | Deprecated. Use the Nanite Skeletal Assembly export workflow instead. |
| Wind Config | Utility | Assigns layered wind classes to the skeleton for motion in game engines. |
| Wind Previs | Utility | In-Houdini preview of a Wind Config chain. Not one-for-one with the engine-side wind. |
| Wrangle | Growth | Advanced VEX interface. Emit attributes, define gates, or prototype effectors. |