way to delete shading nodes

[James Kim]

I have a code where I create a shader and apply it to an object.

However when i run the code again it creates entirely new nodes and applies to the object.

Is there a way to delete the previous node so it doesnt clog up the hypershade?

exampleCode:

testPlane = cmds.polyPlane(name = 'test', width = widthTop/100, height = heightTop/100, sx=0, sy = 0)

shaderT = cmds.shadingNode('testNode', asShader=True)

shading_group1 = cmds.sets(renderable=True, noSurfaceShader=True, empty=True)

cmds.connectAttr('%s.outColor' % shaderT, '%s.surfaceShader' % shading_group1)
cmds.select('test')
cmds.hyperShade(assign = shading_group1)

[Michael Boon]

The easiest way to find the material on a shape is to select it and then use the hypershade command:

cmds.hyperShade(shaderNetworksSelectMaterialNodes=True)
materials = cmds.ls(sl=True)

From there you can find shadingEngines using something like

cmds.listConnections(m, source=False, type='shadingEngine')

(though beware, some of those might be the swatch shader in the Hypershade, which you can't delete)

and then in the other direction, find the incoming connections to the material:

cmds.listConnections(m, destination=False)

and for each of those connections, you probably want to look at its incoming connections and delete those, etc. There are a few things you need to avoid following, like references.

I hope that helps.