Node Tracer — Documentation

Requires Blender 5.2 or later.

1. In Blender, open Edit > Preferences > Get Extensions.

2. Click the dropdown arrow at the top right of the window and choose Install from Disk…

3. Select NodeTracer-1.0.0.zip. Blender asks for no permission: the add-on reads and writes nothing on disk and never accesses the network.

4. The extension installs and enables itself. There is nothing to set up: the Double Click trigger is already active in every Node Editor, and Ctrl + L is ready to select a chain.

To update later, install the newer zip the same way; it replaces the previous version. To stop tracing, disable the add-on in Edit > Preferences > Add-ons: its highlight and its shortcuts go away immediately. The add-on adds no data to your files: it only draws on top of the Node Editor, so your .blend files open exactly the same without it.

With the default Double Click trigger, a double-click is all it takes.

1. In a Node Editor — Shader Editor, Geometry Node Editor or Compositor — double-click a node, on its header or on an empty spot of its body rather than on one of its fields.

2. The node and its whole chain light up: every node that feeds it, back to the sources, every node it feeds, up to the output, and the links between them. The rest of the tree fades toward the editor background.

3. To clear the trace, double-click the same node again, or double-click empty space. Double-click another node to move the trace to it.

The trace stays where you put it while you work: move the mouse, pan, zoom, select or drag nodes — the highlight follows the nodes as they move. Each Node Editor keeps its own trace, and showing another node tree in the editor hides it until you come back. Double-clicking a node group traces it instead of entering it: press Tab to enter the group, as usual.

The Trigger setting decides what starts a trace. Change it in the preferences, see section 8.

Frames are never traced: hovering or double-clicking the empty part of a frame acts like empty space, and the nodes inside it are traced normally. With any trigger other than Double Click, a double-click keeps Blender's own behavior and enters node groups.

Node Tracer reads the links of the node tree: the chain is every node the traced node depends on, and every node that depends on it.

A link to a hidden socket is followed but not drawn — Blender doesn't draw it either. Frames and zone backgrounds fade with the rest of the tree; the traced nodes inside them stay lit. The Depth, Upstream and Downstream settings can limit the chain, see section 9.

With Socket Precision on, the default, you can trace one socket instead of the whole node.

1. Double-click right on the circle of a socket — or, with a Hover trigger, hover it.

2. A ring in the Focus color marks the socket, and only the chain flowing through it lights up.

Double-click the header of the node to go back to tracing the whole node. Turn Socket Precision off to always trace whole nodes. Tracing a socket needs the exact position of each socket: if the preferences show Approximate socket positions, see section 9.

The chain keeps its full brightness, while everything else fades toward the editor background.

To move, frame or copy the nodes of a chain, turn the trace into a selection with Select Chain.

1. Trace a node, or make it the active node.

2. With the mouse over the Node Editor, press Ctrl + L.

3. Every node of the chain is selected, every other node is deselected, and the traced node becomes the active node. The status bar tells how many nodes were selected.

With nothing traced and no active selected node, the status bar says “Trace or select a node first”. The command is also listed in Edit > Preferences > Keymap, see section 8.

Open Edit > Preferences > Add-ons and expand Node Tracer. The three buttons at the top switch between the Settings, Style and Shortcuts modules. Each change applies to every Node Editor right away — no restart, no need to reopen the file.

The settings are saved with your preferences. The shortcuts are regular Blender keymap entries: they are saved with your preferences too, and listed in Edit > Preferences > Keymap, under Node Editor. Hover tracing uses a third entry, Node Tracer Hover, under Window: keep it on for the Hover triggers to work.