Shader View – A Smarter Way to Preview Your Nodes

Tired of endless switching nodes to the material output just to check their effect? Shader View simplifies your workflow by displaying real-time output previews directly above each node, making shader creation faster, more efficient, and more intuitive.

It's also available on Gumroad

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Editing shader materials can be frustrating — especially when they get complex. Instead of manually connecting each node to the material output, Shader View gives you instant previews of all nodes in your material at once.

Compare Versions

Shader View is available in two versions: Standard and Pro. Choose the one that best fits your needs:

Scalar Previews – Debug with Precision (Pro Version Only)

Shader View Pro goes beyond visual previews — it provides precise numerical insights into your shader calculations. No more guesswork when dealing with clamped values or invisible for colors data ranges!

🔹 Real Value Display – Standard previews may clamp values, but Shader View Pro shows the actual scalar values processed by each node.

🔹 Scalar Grid Preview – See how values distribute across your node output. This color-coded grid highlights:

• Red shades for values above 1.0 (overexposed areas).
• Blue shades for negative values (invisible in standard previews).
• Gradient transitions to analyze value changes and detect logic issues.

🔹 Min/Max Value Display – Instantly see the min/max for any node output, crucial for height maps, bump maps, and displacement precision.

🔹 Scalar Preview Modes for 3-Channel Sockets – Switch between multiple visualization modes on vector or color outputs:

• Lume Mode (Luminance): General vector preview.
• Vector Length Mode: Shows the magnitude of a vector, great for displacement/normal debugging.
• Normal Dot Mode: Dot product between output vector and geometry normal, ideal for shading analysis.

Why This Matters

For procedural textures, displacement maps, or mathematical shaders, understanding the real values behind the visuals is essential. Shader View Pro offers full transparency of each node’s processing, so you can:

• ✔️ Debug shaders precisely by detecting clamping or missing detail.
• ✔️ Improve procedural material accuracy by knowing exact value distribution.
• ✔️ Quickly identify and fix problematic areas in texture-based calculations.

Other Pro Features:

Shader View continues to evolve with each update, improving workflow, boosting performance, and adding powerful new tools.

Smart Preview – Keep Your Node Editor Clean and Organized

In Blender, post-process drawing (POST_PIXEL) is the only way to overlay custom visuals in the Shader Editor. This often causes previews to overlap with other nodes. Shader View Pro solves this by:

• Maintaining the original “z-order” of nodes.
• Masking previews to prevent overlap with nodes or UI elements.

The result? Previews remain visible and unobtrusive, leaving your node connections and UI elements easy to manage.

You can toggle it in add-on settings to balance visual clarity with system efficiency.

Customize Previews In Your Own Way (Standard & Pro)

Everyone’s workflow is unique. Shader View gives you full control over previews. Adjust each preview independently, ensuring the add-on works exactly the way you want.

You can also adjust render samples, switch between EEVEE and Cycles, and toggle lighting mode—great for normal map work. All settings can be adjusted independently per-node, giving you total flexibility.

Seamless & Fast – Even on Big Node Trees

Shader View is designed for optimal performance, even on low-end machines. It processes node output previews in a background process, ensuring smooth workflow and real-time updates. Instead of updating all nodes at once, the add-on “chunks” the node tree, so you can balance speed vs. performance to match your needs.

Tune Performance in Add-on Settings:

• Render Window – controls how many nodes are processed per batch.
• Update Threshold – adjusts tree update frequency (default: 0.1s). Lower = faster, but heavier on CPU; higher = less CPU usage.

Key Features

• ✅ Real-Time Updates – changes appear instantly.
• ✅ Automatic Sync – update all connected nodes at once.
• ✅ Background Process – render previews in the background for a smooth, responsive Blender interface.
• ✅ Non-Destructive – no permanent changes to your .blend file; others can open it without the add-on.

Who Is This For?

Anyone working with shaders! If you use Blender's Node Editor, Shader View will make your life easier. Stop wasting time toggling between nodes and the material output — get Shader View today and boost your workflow! 🚀

Important Notes:

• The add-on runs a background process (EEVEE by default). On macOS, using EEVEE can cause an extra bouncing app icon, since Blender spawns a secondary instance. As of version 1.0.18, you can switch to Cycles in the settings (Pro only). Restart Blender after changing engines.
• The add-on can restart its background process if it exceeds the render time limit (Pro only). For very complex materials, consider raising the default Render Threshold from 3.0 to a higher value.
• Although many bugs have been fixed since release, some might still exist. If you find any issues, contact me on Twitter or Blender Market, and I’ll address them ASAP.

Don’t Miss a Thing

👉 Join me on Discord for behind-the-scenes progress on upcoming add-ons, shader tricks, and exclusive promos—just for the community. Don’t miss out!

Last Update:

March 30

• Fixed file settings for the Standard version. Previously, the .zip file was missing after purchase—this has now been resolved.

Full changelog is available in the Documentation.