Implements "Auto-offset" (called "insert offset" in code) feature for Node Editor, developed during and after LSOC :)
Idea and sponsoring by Sebastian König, blendFX, Mathias Eimann, Mikavaa, Knick Design
When you drop a node with at least one input and one output socket onto a an existing connection between two nodes, Auto-offset will, depending on the direction setting, automatically and animated move the left or right and all of its following nodes away to make room for the new node.
The direction for offsetting can be toggled while you are moving the node by pressing „T“.
The auto-offset is enabled by default but can be disabled in the header of the node-editor. The offset margin can be changed in the editing section of the User Preferences.
Thanks a lot to the sponsors, and especially to Sebastian who helped *a lot* with this. That's how users can help developing Blender!
Official Documentation:
http://www.blender.org/manual/render/workflows/multiview.html
Implemented Features
====================
Builtin Stereo Camera
* Convergence Mode
* Interocular Distance
* Convergence Distance
* Pivot Mode
Viewport
* Cameras
* Plane
* Volume
Compositor
* View Switch Node
* Image Node Multi-View OpenEXR support
Sequencer
* Image/Movie Strips 'Use Multiview'
UV/Image Editor
* Option to see Multi-View images in Stereo-3D or its individual images
* Save/Open Multi-View (OpenEXR, Stereo3D, individual views) images
I/O
* Save/Open Multi-View (OpenEXR, Stereo3D, individual views) images
Scene Render Views
* Ability to have an arbitrary number of views in the scene
Missing Bits
============
First rule of Multi-View bug report: If something is not working as it should *when Views is off* this is a severe bug, do mention this in the report.
Second rule is, if something works *when Views is off* but doesn't (or crashes) when *Views is on*, this is a important bug. Do mention this in the report.
Everything else is likely small todos, and may wait until we are sure none of the above is happening.
Apart from that there are those known issues:
* Compositor Image Node poorly working for Multi-View OpenEXR
(this was working prefectly before the 'Use Multi-View' functionality)
* Selecting camera from Multi-View when looking from camera is problematic
* Animation Playback (ctrl+F11) doesn't support stereo formats
* Wrong filepath when trying to play back animated scene
* Viewport Rendering doesn't support Multi-View
* Overscan Rendering
* Fullscreen display modes need to warn the user
* Object copy should be aware of views suffix
Acknowledgments
===============
* Francesco Siddi for the help with the original feature specs and design
* Brecht Van Lommel for the original review of the code and design early on
* Blender Foundation for the Development Fund to support the project wrap up
Final patch reviewers:
* Antony Riakiotakis (psy-fi)
* Campbell Barton (ideasman42)
* Julian Eisel (Severin)
* Sergey Sharybin (nazgul)
* Thomas Dinged (dingto)
Code contributors of the original branch in github:
* Alexey Akishin
* Gabriel Caraballo
Added Shift + Tab for Snap and Ctrl + Shift + Tab for Snap Element Menu (consistent to
3D View)
NOTE: Exit Group is now Ctrl + Tab instead of Shift + Tab
* The `NODE_OT_parent_clear` operator has been removed. This was a very
simplistic operator that detached every selected node, which is not very
useful in case of hierarchical frames. The `NODE_OT_detach` operator
only detaches the top parent nodes in the selection, keeping the
hierarchy of selected nodes intact.
* The `ALT+P` shortcut has been reassigned to the `NODE_OT_detach`
operator which replaces the previous `NODE_OT_clear` mapping with
similar behavior (also gives a menu entry shortcut now).
* Shortcuts for `NODE_OT_detach_translate_attach` have been removed, due
to crowded and messy keymap and unintuitive shortcut `ALT+F`. This macro
operator is still registered, in case hardcore users want to make their
own keymaps, but not mapped by default. Node keymaps may need some
redesign in the future for these things.
Ne op is similar to other 'Select Grouped' ones in Blender.
Based on patch D288 by Cruentus_Nex (Steve).
Reviewed by Campbell Barton, thanks!
Revision: D288.
Preserve buffer form previous runs so it's possible to make
a compo of full frame, then draw a border and start tweaking
nodes and see updates in that border.
Main idea is to make it able to visually compare difference
between what was changed inside the border and how frame
looked before the tweaks outside of the border.
Also implemented Clear Viewer Border in compositor, shortcut
it Ctrl-Alt-B.
Reviewers: lukastoenne, jbakker
CC: venomgfx, sebastian_k
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D582
Circle select was missing from node editor, and C key was assigned to now defunct "show cyclic dependencies". This patch remaps the key and adds circle select operator.
Functions to check intersection between rctf/rcti and a circle were also added to rct.c for code cleanliness and consistency.
called the generic node tree update function, which is happening anyway after all relevant node operators (if it doesn't that has to be considered a bug).
It has been suggested to better use the C key for circle select, this remains to be discussed.
A new operator to alter the backdrop zoom level so that it fits fully within the node editor area, and centers the image.
Shortcut alt-home, as home is used for fitting stuff into the view everywhere.
The node link operator had a feature to automatically expose sockets in node groups when ctrl+shift+clicking on a node socket, which would create a node group input/output node. This was intended as a shortcut but conflicts with other features such as socket selection and viewer creation. It is also hardly necessary now that input/output nodes have an extension socket, which is much easier to use. Removed this expose functionality completely.
The original rationale for adding the node_type property was to allow node group operators work generically on any node group type automatically. The problem is that detecting the appropriate node group type and node tree type to use for a group depends on using a node base type. Due to the fact that RNA does not allow multiple inheritance (mixin classes) this is impossible to achieve if node types also have to use a base type such as ShaderNode, CompositingNode or TextureNode.
The idea is now to just "make it work" by limiting the node group operators to the standard tree types. For future pynodes we can implement these operators nicely in Python, which will allow pynodes to use mixin base classes or derive their own operator types and re-use the same keymapping.
Historically, F shortcut was for 'add edge/face' in Blender.
In Node editor, F makes a noodle, ctrl+f made a noodle replace too.
To keep ALT+F work for "Unattach from frame", the solution I now propose
is to make CTRL+F for finding nodes, and SHIFT+F for 'add noodle with replace'.
New operator "Find Node".
Opens search menu, and allows to find a node based on name or label.
On selecting name, menu selects/activates the node and moves the view to it.
Shortcut: ALT+F
Menu: Node editor, "Select"
To complete previous commit:
New "Activate same type next/prev" operator - replaces the two not working previous ones.
This selects/activates and views the next or previous node of same type.
Shortcuts: Shift ] and Shift [
This is the first half of the commit, it's going to be reviewed further.
It also depends on other work in node drawing (to not reshuffle order on
every select/activate).
At least it works quite nice for the shortcuts shift [ and shift ]
PyNodes opens up the node system in Blender to scripters and adds a number of UI-level improvements.
=== Dynamic node type registration ===
Node types can now be added at runtime, using the RNA registration mechanism from python. This enables addons such as render engines to create a complete user interface with nodes.
Examples of how such nodes can be defined can be found in my personal wiki docs atm [1] and as a script template in release/scripts/templates_py/custom_nodes.py [2].
=== Node group improvements ===
Each node editor now has a tree history of edited node groups, which allows opening and editing nested node groups. The node editor also supports pinning now, so that different spaces can be used to edit different node groups simultaneously. For more ramblings and rationale see (really old) blog post on code.blender.org [3].
The interface of node groups has been overhauled. Sockets of a node group are no longer displayed in columns on either side, but instead special input/output nodes are used to mirror group sockets inside a node tree. This solves the problem of long node lines in groups and allows more adaptable node layout. Internal sockets can be exposed from a group by either connecting to the extension sockets in input/output nodes (shown as empty circle) or by adding sockets from the node property bar in the "Interface" panel. Further details such as the socket name can also be changed there.
[1] http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Phonybone/Python_Nodes
[2] http://projects.blender.org/scm/viewvc.php/trunk/blender/release/scripts/templates_py/custom_nodes.py?view=markup&root=bf-blender
[3] http://code.blender.org/index.php/2012/01/improving-node-group-interface-editing/
This adds border option to compositor, which affects on
a backdrop and viewer nodes, which is useful for faster
previews and tweaks.
Final compositing still happens for the whole frame, but
if it'll be needed it's not so difficult to support it
as well.
To use border there's Ctrl-B shortcut in the compositor
editor, which i used to define region you want to restrict
compositing to. There's also "Viewer Border" option in
the N-panel in case you'll want to disable border
compositing.
Some areas could be cleaned a bit, like ideally it shall
not be viewer image clearing in viewer_border_update RNA
callback, but currently it's not so much clear how to
make it the same fast as simple memset and glue it
somehow to compositor. Will think of nicer solution a
bit later.
* Shader script node added, which stores either a link to a text datablock or
file on disk, and has functions to add and remove sockets.
* Callback RenderEngine.update_script_node(self, node) added for render engines
to compile the shader and update the node with new sockets.
Thanks to Thomas, Lukas and Dalai for the implementation.
Currently does not support copying of animation data. This would require copying of individual fcurves etc. between data block, which is not implemented yet.
Also it is currently possible to circumvent some constraints of the nodes, in particular for node groups (e.g. no groups inside groups, render layer not inside groups).
1) For inserting into existing groups:
The 'Make Group from selected' (CTRL+g) operator shows a selection popup (like the object parenting operator), with options depending on the type of the active node (last selected):
* "New" -> regular operator, creates new group type with all selected nodes inside.
* "Insert" (only if active node is a group) -> adds all other selected nodes into the group.
Currently still prohibits groups inside groups in general, though would be technically possible as long as no actual recursion occurs (group containing itself).
2) For extracting from an existing group:
New 'Separate from group' operator (p), works similar to separating vertices/edges/faces from mesh. Two modes:
* "Copy" makes a copy of the nodes in the parent tree, but keeps the original group intact.
* "Move" removes selected nodes from the node group and adds them to the parent tree
By holding shift and "cutting" a node link a new reroute helper node can be inserted. This consists of a single socket that can be used to insert additional connection points into a link. This can be used to keep a connection point in the tree when deleting a node, or to control the path of long connections for layout cleanup.
For an detailed user-level description of new features see the following blogpost:
http://code.blender.org/index.php/2012/05/node-editing-tweaks/
TL;DR:
* Frame node gets more usable bounding-box behavior
* Node resizing has helpful mouse cursor indicators and works on all borders
* Node selection/active colors are themeable independently
* Customizable background colors for nodes (useful for frames visual
distinction).
This operator still had some built-in assumptions about the connectivity of input/output sockets (1-to-n in all current node systems). For future node systems (e.g. flow-based particles) and for general customizable nodes the operator is now fully symmetric and supports all kinds of connectivity limits (1:1, 1:n, m:1, m:n).
The operator data can also store a list of node links as opposed to a single link now, so that multiple links can be redirected at once. Holding the CTRL key when clicking a socket, all links from/to that socket are detached and can be moved to a different socket. This is useful for quickly appending a node without moving every individual link.
* Removed the struct_type identifier from sockets completely. Any specialization of socket types can be done by using separate collections in RNA and customized socket draw callbacks in node type. Sockets themselves are pure data inputs/outputs now. Possibly the sock->storage data could also be removed, but this will change anyway with id properties in custom nodes.
* Replaced the direct socket button draw calls by extra callbacks in node types. This allows nodes to draw sockets in specialized ways without referring to the additional struct_type identifier. Default is simply drawing the socket default_value button, only file output node overrides this atm.
* File output node slots now use a separate file sub-path in their storage data, instead of using the socket name. That way the path is an actual PROP_FILEPATH property and it works better with the UI list template (name property is local to the data struct).
* Node draw contexts for options on the node itself and detail buttons in the sidebar now have an extra context pointer "node" (uiLayoutSetContextPointer). This can be used to bind operator buttons to a specific node, instead of having to rely on the active/selected node(s) or making weak links via node name. Compare to modifiers and logic bricks, they use the same feature.
* Added another operator for reordering custom input slots in the file output node.
Socket selection is indicated by a simple white highlight circle.
Multiple inputs can be selected by holding SHIFTKEY (just like regular node select). Only one output socket can be selected at a time for each node, but several outputs in different nodes are allowed.
The auto-connect operator will prefer selected sockets on nodes for creating links. If either the output or input side have no selected sockets it will fall back to the previous behavior of chosing 'best' sockets first (colors, then vectors, then values). This could be improved in the future, but is out of scope here.
1) Old CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_FILE and CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_MULTI_FILE have been merged,
only CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_FILE remains. All functions renamed accordingly.
2) do_versions code for converting single-file output nodes into multi-file
output nodes. If a Z buffer input is used, the node is made into a multilayer
exr with two inputs. (see below). Also re-identifies multi-file output nodes
with the CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_FILE type.
3) "Global" format is stored in node now. By default this overrides any
per-socket settings.
4) Multilayer EXR output implemented. When M.EXR format is selected for node
format, all socket format details are ignored. Socket names are used for layer
names.
5) Input buffer types are used as-is when possible, i.e. stored as B/W, RGB or
RGBA. In regular file output the format dictates the number of actual channels,
so the CompBuf is typechecked to the right type first. For multilayer EXR the
number of channels is more flexible, so an input buffer will store only the
channels it actually uses.
6) The editor socket type is updated from linked sockets as an indicator of the
actual data written to files. This may not be totally accurate for regular file
output though, due to restrictions of format setting.
There are a number of features that use a kind of "internal linking" in nodes:
1. muting
2. delete + reconnect (restore link to/from node after delete)
3. the new detach operator (same as 2, but don't delete the node)
The desired behavior in all cases is the same: find a sensible mapping of inputs-to-outputs of a node. In the case of muting these links are displayed in red on the node itself. For the other operators they are used to relink connections, such that one gets the best possible ongoing link between previous up- and downstream nodes.
Muting previously used a complicated callback system to ensure consistent behavior in the editor as well as execution in compositor, shader cpu/gpu and texture nodes. This has been greatly simplified by moving the muting step into the node tree localization functions. Any muted node is now bypassed using the generalized nodeInternalRelink function and then removed from the local tree. This way the internal execution system doesn't have to deal with muted nodes at all, as if they are non-existent.
The same function is also used by the delete_reconnect and the new links_detach operators (which work directly in the editor node tree). Detaching nodes is currently keymapped as a translation variant (macro operator): pressing ALTKEY + moving node first detaches and then continues with regular transform operator. The default key is ALT+DKEY though, instead ALT+GKEY, since the latter is already used for the ungroup operator.
Unlike the existing file output node this node has an arbitrary number of
possible input slots. It has a base path string that can be set to a general
base folder. Every input socket then uses its name as an extension of the base
path for file organization. This can include further subfolders on top of the
base path. Example:
Base path: '/home/user/myproject'
Input 1: 'Compo'
Input 2: 'Diffuse/'
Input 3: 'details/Normals'
would create output files
in /home/user/myproject: Compo0001.png, Compo0002.png, ...
in /home/user/myproject/Diffuse: 0001.png, 0002.png, ... (no filename base
given)
in /home/user/myproject/details: Normals0001.png, Normals0002.png, ...
Most settings for the node can be found in the sidebar (NKEY). New input sockets
can be added with the "Add Input" button. There is a list of input sockets and
below that the details for each socket can be changed, including the sub-path
and filename. Sockets can be removed here as well. By default each socket uses
the render settings file output format, but each can use its own format if
necessary.
To my knowledge this is the first node making use of such dynamic sockets in
trunk. So this is also a design test, other nodes might use this in the future.
Adding operator buttons on top of a node is a bit unwieldy atm, because all node
operators generally work on selected and/or active node(s). The operator button
would therefore either have to make sure the node is activated before the
operator is called (block callback maybe?) OR it has to store the node name
(risky, weak reference). For now it is only used in the sidebar, where only the
active node's buttons are displayed.
Also adds a new struct_type value to bNodeSocket, in order to distinguish
different socket types with the same data type (file inputs are SOCK_RGBA color
sockets). Would be nicer to use data type only for actual data evaluation, but
used in too many places, this works ok for now.
The buttons for "hiding" (collapsing) a node, hiding unlinked sockets, additional options, the preview and for opening a node group were all using a custom mouse test function, which was broken. They now use actual buttons instead of just displaying icons. Before executing the respective operators the button's node has to be selected and activated, so the buttons use an intermediate handle function, which selects the node and then calls the operator.