lk, that's exactly what I built in my last job. Multiple inputs and outputs. The names were whatever the user wanted.

I also built things called "bundles" - these were composite wires. You could combine various wires in a bundle, and then you could connect all the wires in the bundle to other nodes by just dragging one fat wire. Inside, you unbundled to get the individual wires again.

There were also user-defined parameters that could be assigned to a composite. These parameter values were then available to configure the interior nodes. For example, you could set the scale on one top-level parameter, and inside it would alter the scale of all the internal nodes that require synchronized scaling.

There could be composites within composites, of course. And once a useful composite was built, it was a single click to publish it as a new library component.

The most cool thing about it was this: if a library component was updated (to fix a bug, or make it faster or whatever) then all the deployed copies in specific solutions were automatically updated as well. It was not a copy - but a reference.

I have several patent applications filed in the US and Europe on all this. Still waiting for the lawyers to sort it out.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)