How to copy paste a node setup from one file to another

Question

I have one file with a node setup that I want to use on another file how do I do this with put doing it node by node.

Answer 1

One option to help keep things organised is to create a Node Group from your setup.

• Select all the nodes you want in your group
• Ctrl G form a Node Group from them

• Give the group a name by typing it into the field on its node. Click the shield on the right. This will give the group a fake user, so it won't be garbage-collected and deleted when saving the source .blend, in the event that it's not being used by anything else in the file.

Now, in any other .blend, you can hit File > Append.. look up the source .blend file.. and the group will be found in the 'Node Tree' folder. Clicking it makes a local copy available under the Shift A > Group listing in the Node Editor.

You can Ctrl AltG un-group the node, locally.

(You can create libraries of any of the entities in a .blend file this way, to be linked or appended to other files)

Answer 2

Go into the nodes and select which ever nodes you want and then choose copy under the node dropdown. Then go to your new material and choose paste from the node dropdown.