by Simon Wendsche·Workflow
Images © Simon Wendsche. Used for product review; image policy.
Node Preview holds a spot in the superhive library at rank 38, with a 5-star rating across 59 reviews and over 6,600 sales since it was published more than five years ago. It's Simon Wendsche's second commercial addon, following ImageNodePreview.
Node Preview adds rendered thumbnails above shader nodes in Blender, giving each node its own preview across Cycles and Eevee. When you edit the node tree, every affected node updates automatically. Rendering happens in a background process, which keeps the Blender interface fluid and responsive while previews generate.
The addon makes no changes to the .blend itself, so collaborators without the addon can still open your scenes without problems. It also supports high-resolution displays and works with Blender's resolution scale feature.
A few limits are worth noting. To show previews for packed images, the .blend has to be saved to disk first. Thumbnails of image sequences are not updated when changing frames, and IES nodes are not currently supported. A demo video is available, and the addon runs under a GPL license.
Node Preview is best for blender artists building shaders and materials in the node editor who want a rendered thumbnail above each node in Cycles and Eevee.
Node Preview is completely free to download and use.
Node Preview is listed for Blender versions 4.0 through 5.0, and it renders previews using the Cycles and Eevee engines. Some users have reported problems with the Vulkan backend; the developer notes everything works on their Windows 11 system, but if you run into issues you can switch back to the OpenGL backend in the meantime. For current compatibility details, check the developer's page.
Node Preview makes no changes to the .blend file itself, so collaborators who don't have the addon installed can still open your scenes without problems. Previews render in a background process and appear above the shader nodes in the editor, keeping the Blender interface fluid and responsive while they generate. The addon also supports high-resolution displays and works with Blender's resolution scale feature.
Node Preview does not currently support IES nodes, so those will not display a thumbnail. Thumbnails of image sequences are also not updated when you change frames. For packed images, the .blend file needs to be saved to disk first, since they are loaded through linking from the file. These are the main limitations noted by the developer, and the developer's page has the latest details.
Node Preview is listed as free in this catalog. Pricing and availability can change over time and may differ on the developer's own store, so it's worth checking the developer's page for the current terms before you download. The addon is distributed under a GPL license and, according to the developer, is also available on Gumroad. For the most accurate and up-to-date licensing details, refer directly to the developer's page.
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