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In Blender versions lower than 3.4, I was able to connect the viewer node with a geometry and an arbitrary value, which was then displayed to me in the spreadsheet:

Viewer Node in Blender 3.3.1Viewer Node in Blender 3.3.1

This was very convenient, because it showed the final result in the viewport, and only the values the viewer node was connected to in the spreadsheet.

This has obviously changed with Blender version 3.4.

There the values are shown in the spreadsheet, but in addition the display in the viewport always changes to the state of the geometry connected to the Viewer node.

Viewer Node in Blender 3.4Viewer Node in Blender 3.4

How can I change the behavior of the viewer node so that the viewport shows the final result, but the spreadsheet shows the values the viewer node is connected to?

Thanks to Markus von Broady for this interesting question, which was asked in the chat.

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1 Answer 1

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Apparently at this point the developers of Blender thought it would be a good decision to change the behavior of the viewer node...

I don't agree, and in fact it should be switchable which state - independent of the values in the spreadsheet - should be output in the viewport.

But you can get back the original behavior of the node with a little workaround by doing the following:

  • Connect the viewer node to the geometry and values you want displayed in the spreadsheet.
  • Turn on the pinning in the spreadsheet.
  • Disable the eye symbol of the viewer node.

Workaround in Blender 3.4 Workaround in Blender 3.4

It would have been nice if the function to display the currently pinned geometry in the viewport was also made optional.

Possibly there will be some improvement here.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks! Just started learning 3.4 because it's no longer alpha, and at first I thought it's a bug. On the other hand it's nice to have the color debugging like in shaders. $\endgroup$
    – Markus von Broady
    Nov 13, 2022 at 19:39
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    $\begingroup$ Agreed. I still haven't got the hang of the 3.4 behaviour... it's still annoying me... $\endgroup$
    – Robin Betts ♦
    Nov 13, 2022 at 21:15
  • $\begingroup$ Just ran into this as a long time Geometry Nodes user. The viewer node does not show values when it is inside node groups (even with above workaround). Not sure if it is a bug or a "feature".. Edit: To be specific after the Instance On Points node. $\endgroup$
    – VSB
    Dec 29, 2022 at 3:07

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