This node sets an attribute (called name by default) on the selected points/primitives to a certain value. For example, you can select a single face, or small set of faces, on some polygonal geometry, and “name” it foo (that is, create a primitive attribute name with the value foo) on the faces. You can then refer to the primitives in subsequent nodes using @name=foo.

This is very similar to groups: using @name=foo is similar to creating a group foo and referring to it using @foo. However, name attributes have two differences from groups:

• Names are more efficient than groups. For example, you can assign different names to hundreds or thousands of individual faces, while creating hundreds of groups, each with a single member, would be problematic.

• Names enforce the constraint that each primitive can only have one name value at a time (that is, a primitive can’t be included in both @name=foo and @name=bar), whereas a primitive can be a member of multiple groups. This constraint may be useful in some workflows.

Mantra uses named primitives to determine how to bind volumes to shaders during rendering. The Volume Vop node uses named primitives to determine binding if Autobind is on.

In addition to assigning names to points and primitives, you can also use this node to rename existing named groups, using the Global, From, and To parameters. This works like the Attrib String Edit node. See the help for Attrib String Edit for more information.