Read today's meeting minutes for a description.
Bjornmose: We'll need some example and screenshots for the dev pages of blender3d.org. If you can do some, neat, if not, I'll do them.
Matt, Emilie and Chris: Please review UI addition. Pixel alignement and all that fun stuff has not be overly looked for (though I did some cleaning by adding alignment blocks).
- file-to-memory save
- incremental difference steps (compression)
everthing has been tightly coded to use minimum of memcpy or allocs. In
fact this system works with a single full buffer (=file) in memory, and undosteps as differences from it.
Speed gain is factor 4-8 faster. I've added it in CTRL+ALT+T timer menu for
a test. Please note the gain is especially in the undo-storing, not in
retrieving undo.
Also new: file read option to skip UI read (file menu). This now also is
default for the undo system.
Next to the "BevOb" button you now have a "TaperOb" button to give a name
of a curve object which defines the width of extrusion of the 'BevObj'
along the curve. The TaperOb curve typically is horizontal, where the
height denotes the width.
Important rules;
- Only the firste curve in TaperObj is evaluated
- the first width is left, last width is right
- it scales the width of normal extrusions based on evaluating the taper
curve; which means sharp corners in taper curve won't be easily visible
(That latter feature could be improved by extrusing based on the points
in the taper curve; this is a *lot* more work)
Moved get_con_target from editconstraint to constraint kernel file and renamed to get_constraint_target
Make scene.c use constraint functions from kernel instead of doing the switch itself (regrouping specific constraint code in one file).
Add LockTrack as an option in the Make Track menu (Ctrl-T)
Adding fun for vortex forces in 3D window, the representation now match the orientation and direction of the force (this is code will need optimisation). I'll probably be slapped for mixing two things in one commit but some function calls needed to be fixed for the new spelling and since this is really isolated code I didn't feel like wasting time getting a fresh copy, doing the changes and then readded this after commiting.
Fixed some warning regarding implicit casts and constants (this last one is a MSVCism where you need to explicitely tell the compiler to use floats with an f. AFAIK, it doesn't affect/bother other compilers).
Removed a useless commented piece of code in readfile (there was an uncommented copy a couple of lines before)
Apparently appending or linking from other files didn't call a proper
do_version() patch to initialize new variables correctly. Was result of
the streamgluing stuff in NaN period... fixed.
New objects were not created with correct 'ipowin' value, to denote the
default ipo to show. That caused sometimes wrong display with weird empty
menu button in header.
- now more than 31 channels possible for ipos
- added lotsa new channels all over
- Texture block has ipo now too
- recoded getname_ei functions
(Will ask nathan to give release log info when he's back!)
Edges in Mesh
- adds automatic when you use creases. For other situations; call the
void make_edges(Mesh *me) in mesh.c. Of course, once in editmode the
edges are automatically recreated.
- in F9 buttons you can add/remove edges too
- both for Mesh and DisplistMesh, so it speeds up drawing quite some in
wireframe
- render for edges can't work... edges have no material nor tface nor col..
so here still the faces are rendered in wire
Creases in Subsurf
- based on the code by Chris McFarlen
- main changes is that now edges are used, saving quite some data in file
- use SHIFT+E in editmode to set edges-sharpness. values go from 0-1
- in F9 buttons you can set draw-crease mode. It draws now blended from
wire color to edge-select color (as provided in Theme)
Known issue: setting sharpness on 1 cube (subdiv 2) gives weird results
with some values... Chris, can you check?
Further; code cleanups, changing 0 in NULL when needed, no warnings, etc etc
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Ramp_Shaders.348.0.html
Material color and specular now can be defined by a Colorband. The actual
color then is defined during shading based on:
- shade value (like dotproduct)
- energy value (dot product plus light)
- normal
- result of all shading (useful for adding stuff in the end)
Special request from [A]ndy! :)
New is that objects can have a force field, and Meshes can even deflect
(collide) particles. This is in a new sub-menu in Object buttons F7
The full instructions where on the web, Leon mailed it me and I will put
it in CMS tomorrow. For those who like to play with it now, here are demo
files:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/
Quite some changes where in the integration though... so previous created
particle deflectors will not work. Changes to mention now are:
- gravity is renamed to 'force field'
- force field and deflector options are in Object now, not in Mesh
- the options also have its own struct, doesnt add to Object by default
- force fields are possible for all object types, but only work on center.
So empty objects are typical for it.
Work to do:
- add draw method in 3d win to denote forcefield objects
- check on the UI (panel with different size?)
- add 'recalc' button in deflector panel
- usage of relative paths "//" now can be controlled with a button in the
fileselect header
- relative path support added for linked Library files
Note: in oops window you can see the library file names, select the last
icon button in header to show the blocks.
The Image texture repeat options, now allow a "Checker" repeat. With
odd and even tiles set separately, and a size button to set a
'Mortar' inbetween tiles.
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Render_engine_features.215.0.html
Also fixed bug: using 'CalcAlpha' option for image textures didn't give
antialised edges for image.
- New module + doc: Blender.Library:
It's like File->Append, loads datablocks from .blend files.
- small updates to fix warnings and accomodate for the new module, in readfile.[ch]
- New Blender.sys module function: time, a wrapper of the PIL get time function.
- Updated original makefile and scons builds.
appeared that the standard size (64x64x64) just works fine for small
scenes, like a single character in a small environment. Larger scenes and
larger environments became exponentional slower.
Disadvantage of larger octrees is longer build time, and overhead traver-
sing it though, so something to tweak based on some experimenting.
A table with test results + blender file will be in CMS soon.
New button is in F10 Render panel, in bottom. Last free spot there! O_o
Sizes supported now 64, 128, 256 or 512.
Problem: when appending data, it called the local_all() function, which
indeed made all data local, including all other dynamic linked data.
Not very nice... but mixing dynamic & appending data from single file is
headcrunching code.
Solution: when appending data, it now only makes local_all() the data from
that specific library file, leaving dynamic data from other files linked.
(Bug report 1183)
Added support for Panels, and converted old NKEY menu here.
Also enabled zooming in further, as for Action Window.
(note: this editor can use some work, this action stuff is underdeveloped
and mysterious!)
- UI code
Brought back fix that sets for each Panel a GL matrix for UI code thats
coming after it. This makes system more flexible, and prevents conflicts
with other uiBlocks in a window (like ipo, action).
This will give a tinsy bit more load for moving mouse around... please
report back if this causes troubles.
it for the UV Image window (as Nkey replacement). Blendix can take
this further now.
Other little improvement: vertices in UV window now draw unselected
first, and then selected over it. Less confusing!
Next spaces: Action and Nla.
the directories decrypt, deflate, encrypt, inflate, readstreamglue,
sign, writeblenfile and writestreamglue.
Sirdude was so kind to modify the makefiles, so SCons and
Make are ready to build with the new Blender.
Visual Studio workspaces, solutions and projectfiles still need
to be updated (I'll do the .vcprojs and .sln myself after this commit).
Runtimes created with the Blender Publisher are not anymore
recognised - if you want these available, you'll have to convert
them first to .blends with the Publisher.
- AO energy slider to control amount
- option "Use sky color" for colored AO. The horizon color will define
bottom diffuse color, the zenith works on top
- option "Use sky texture" will do a full sky render to define AO color
Please note that AO energy and color only is found when a ray does not
intersect. So for interior scenes make sure 'Dist' value is sufficient
low.
New also is:
- World "Map input" allows "Ang Map" (Angular mapping) which can be used
for 360 degree spherical maps, aka as Light Probes. Check samples here:
http://www.debevec.org/Probes/
Note that Blender doesn't support HDRI images yet, but option "Use sky tex"
already gives intersting results with such images
- World sky rendering with Image Textures now correctly filters and uses
antialiasing. Also noticable for raytrace mirror reflections
- World preview render for sky type "Real" now gives correct view as
defined by current used camera.
I tried to speed up AO tracing with coherence systems, none of it really
worked yet... time to tackle octree itself i guess!
- Ambient Occlusion is a more sophisticated ambient trick, which takes
nearby faces into account by firing a hemisphere of shadow-rays
around. AKA 'dirt shader'.
- Eeshlo made it a Lamp type, which doesn't fit well. I've moved the
settings to the World menu, and let the Material->ambient value control
the amount it contributes
- currently, the AO value is added/subtracted/mixed with the 'diffuse'
factor while shading, before it is multiplied with Material color
Buttons are in new Panel 'Amb Occ" in F8 menu. Note:
- "Dist:" by shortening the length of rays you get subtler effects and it
renders faster too
- "DistF:" the attennuation factor gives control over how the 'shadow'
spreads out.
Further it's just raytracing, so tends to be slooooow.... :)
Here same tricks as for other raytraced scenes apply, especially try to
keep the environment as small as possible (exclude faces from Octree by
giving them no Material Traceable).
I still have to think over a couple of aspects, will await feedback on it:
- AO color? Now it just adds 'white'
- other sampling patterns? I tried dithering, which was so-so
- method of controlling final 'samples' in F10? Might be useful for other
oversampling too (area light) to have it reacting to a percentage or so..
Basically this provides three new things:
1. Choice of a list of noise-base functions, which can be used by the
current Clouds, Marble, Wood textures as well.
2. Three new texture types: Musgrave, Voronoi and DistortedNoise
3. Python access to noise functions (not for render!)
All of this together makes Blender's builtin procedural textures a LOT
more powerful. Here again, a full webpage should be made to show off all
possibilities, and explain some of the more scientific names for settings.
A good read on Musgrave textures can be found here:
http://www.ypoart.com/Downloads/Musgrave.htm
About Voronoi:
http://www.ypoart.com/Downloads/Worley.htm
I can't find official DistortedNoise docs easily... maybe its something
Eeshlo created himself.
I've spent some time to change the patch Eeshlo provided. Worth noting:
- created main texture "Musgrave" with 5 sub choices (instead of 5 new
main textures)
- added for all new textures the option to scale (zoom in out)
- added patch in do_versions to initialize variables
I hope the Python team will check on the Noise.c API. And include in docs!
(MVert,MFace,etc) off into DNA_meshdata_types.h, to isolate areas
of source that actually edit mesh *data* vs. areas that just edit
mesh object information.
Z axis. (ported from tuhopuu2)
Controls are found in the 3D View Properties panel (with
the rest of the grid settings). This is more flexible for
people like me who hate the grid getting in the way when
modelling - turning off the grid floor and turning on the Z
axis gives a setup like in Wings 3D or Clay.
* Cleaned up the 3D View Properties and Background Image panel's layout while I was adding the new buttons (including change over to UiDefButBit).
re-using old one. New one = 'exp'.
- at first I used the old 'exposure' value, and just mapped it to 0. this
causes a problem with upward compatibility, old blenders then render a
black picture. is too confusing!
- warning; exposure values saved with commit of last week will get lost.
reported crash with a popular Python script that apparantly doesnt
initialize a Mesh good (setting totcol, but not creating pointer array)
When no Material array is present, 'totcol' is set at zero now.
- based at 1.0-exp(-color) trick in Yafray. But to guarantee backwards
compatibility, and some more control, Stefano Selleri hacked a useful
formula for it.
- We now have 2 values to set:
- "exp": the exponential correction value (0-1)
- "range": the light range that maps on color 1.0 (0-5)
- Using exp(x) (is e^x) we can much better prevent overflows from render,
which are currently hard-clipped in Blender. Setting a small 'exp' value
wil efficiently smooth out high energy and map that back to a color for
display.
- total formula:
newcol= linfac*(1.0-exp(col*logfac))
col, newcol are colors
linfac= 1.0 + 1.0/((2.0*wrld.exp +0.5)^10)
logfac= log( (linfac-1.0)/linfac )/wrld.range
wrld.exp and wrld.range are the button values
- default setting: exp=0.0 and range=1.0 give results extremely close to
previous rendering.
- graph: http://www.selleri.org/Blender/buffer/Image1.png for 'exp' setting
ranging from 0-1, and with 'range'=2
Thanks Stefano for the help!
- New lamp type added "Area". This uses the radiosity formula (Stoke) to
calculate the amount of energy which is received from a plane. Result
is very nice local light, which nicely spreads out.
- Area lamps have a 'gamma' option to control the light spread
- Area lamp builtin sizes: square, rect, cube & box. Only first 2 are
implemented. Set a type, and define area size
- Button area size won't affect the amount of energy. But scaling the lamp
in 3d window will do. This is to cover the case when you scale an entire
scene, the light then will remain identical
If you just want to change area lamp size, use buttons when you dont want
to make the scene too bright or too dark
- Since area lights realistically are sensitive for distance (quadratic), the
effect it has is quickly too much, or too less. For this the "Dist" value
in Lamp can be used. Set it at Dist=10 to have reasonable light on distance
10 Blender units (assumed you didnt scale lamp object).
- I tried square sized specularity, but this looked totally weird. Not
committed
- Plan is to extend area light with 3d dimensions, boxes and cubes.
- Note that area light is one-sided, towards negative Z. I need to design
a nice drawing method for it.
Area Shadow
- Since there are a lot of variables associated with soft shadow, they now
only are available for Area lights. Allowing spot & normal lamp to have
soft shadow is possible though, but will require a reorganisation of the
Lamp buttons. Is a point of research & feedback still.
- Apart from area size, you now can individually set amount of samples in
X and Y direction (for area lamp type 'Rect'). For box type area lamp,
this will become 3 dimensions
- Area shadows have four options:
"Clip circle" : only uses a circular shape of samples, gives smoother
results
"Dither" : use a 2x2 dither mask
"Jitter" : applys a pseudo-random offset to samples
"Umbra" : extra emphasis on area that's fully in shadow.
Raytrace speedup
- improved filling in faces in Octree. Large faces occupied too many nodes
- added a coherence check; rays fired sequentially that begin and end in
same octree nodes, and that don't intersect, are quickly rejected
- rendering shadow scenes benefits from this 20-40%. My statue test monkey
file now renders in 19 seconds (was 30).
Plus:
- adjusted specular max to 511, and made sure Blinn spec has again this
incredible small spec size
- for UI rounded theme: the color "button" displayed RGB color too dark
- fixed countall() function, to also include Subsurf totals
- removed setting the 'near' clipping for pressing dot-key numpad
- when you press the buttons-window icon for 'Shading Context' the context
automaticilly switches as with F5 hotkey
Please be warned that this is not a release... settings in files might not
work as it did, nor guaranteed to work when we do a release. :)
Based on feedback (thnx phase!) I found a big disadvantage of the 'real'
fresnel formula. It doesnt degrade to 0.0, causing 2-3 times too many
rays being fired compared to the previous one. So; a lot slower.
Now committed is a hybrid which allows (close to) real, and nice artistic
freedom, *and* it really goes to 0.0 and 1.0, assisting nicely in optimal
render times.
A real doc how it works (with pics) will be made before real release.
- Fixed bug in raytrace: the first renderpass didn't use fresnel for mirror.
- Fixed bug in previewrender, now it closer matches how fresnel renders
At last irc meeting, eeshlo pointed to an error in the code. It didn't
use the IOR value correctly. This has been solved. So how it works now:
- the IOR button value influences (very subtle) the fresnel effect.
Only for realism diehards.
- the Fresnel value (slider) now denotes the power in the function
rf + (1-rf) * (1-c)^5
where rf= rf = ((ior-1)/(ior+1))^2
and c the dot-product ray/normal.
- so, set the slider at '5' and you have real fresnel. Lower values
for interesting artistic effects.
- put back the forgotten code for gaussian corrected sampling during
antialising render. Normally, each sub-pixel sample in Blender counts
equally, and together make up the pixel color.
With 'Gauss' option set (F10 menu) each sub-pixel sample creates a small
weighted mask with variable size, which (can) affect neighbouring pixels
as well. The result is smoother edges, less sensitive for gamma, and
well suited to reduce motion-aliasing (when things move extreme slow).
This is result of *long* period of research in NeoGeo days, and based on
every scientific sampling/reconstructing theory we could find. Plus a
little bit of our selves. :)
- I should write once how blender constructs Jitter tables for sub-sampling.
this is a very nice method, and superior to normal block filter or random
jittering... time!
- implemented tracing of transparency for shadows. This is a material
option, in the new RayTrace panel.
it only traces color and alpha, not shading. So the results of some
transparant colored unlit faces can look odd. I will look onto that.
- changed fresnel formula (got hint from eeshlo!). this simplifies the UI,
now only one button needed. The fresnel value "should" be identical as
the refraction index, but that is booooring! So i added a special fresnel
refraction slider for both mirroring and transparency. By setting all 3
sliders equal, you get 'realism'.
- fresnel for transparancy works for Ztra rendering too. Same for transpa-
rent shadow. But then you need to set 'ray' on in F10 menu.
- uploaded new monkey_glass blend in download.blender.org/demo/test/
Next stage: killing the globals from render, and implement "translucency"
which is effectively allowing faces being lit from behind, as paper or
cloth.
Changelog:
- enable refraction with button "Ray Transp" in Material buttons.
- set "Angular Index" value for amount of refraction.
- use the "Alpha" value to define transparency.
- remember to set a higher "Depth" too... glass can bounce quite some
more than expected.
- for correct refraction, 3D models MUST have normals pointing in the
right direction (consistently pointing outside).
- refraction 'sees' the thickness of glass based on what you model. So
make for realistic glass both sides of a surface.
- I needed to do some rewriting for correct mirroring/refraction,
especially to prevent specularity being blended away.
Solved this with localizing shading results in the rendercore.c.
Now specularity correctly is added, and reduces the 'mirror' value.
- Localizing more parts of the render code is being planned. The old
render heavily relies on struct Render and struct Osa to store globals.
For scanline render no problem, but recursive raytracing dislikes that.
- done test with gamma-corrected summation of colors during tracing, is
commented out still. But this will give more balanced reflections. Now
dark reflections that are reflected in a bright surface seem incorrect.
- Introduced 'Fresnel' effect for Mirror and Transparency. This
influences the amount of mirror/transparency based at viewing angle.
Next to a new Fresnel slider, also a 'falloff' button has been added to
define the way it spreads.
- Fresnel also works for Ztransp rendering
- created new Panel for Raytrace options
I have to evaluate still where it all should be logically located.
- material preview shows fake reflection and fake refraction as well.
- add a new space: Space Script
- add a new dna struct: Script
- add these two properly everywhere they are meant to
It's not a tiny commit, but most of it is ground work for what is still to be done.
Right now the benefits should be: freeing the Text Editor to be used in a window even while a script w/ gui in "on" and letting more than one currently running script w/ gui be accessible from each window
Some files are added, so some build systems (not autotools) will need updates
this is safe initialization only.
based at report from madprof.. he had a 2.30 file without this
data correctly initialized... but how it happens? tuhopuu files?
anyhoo, we might think of splitting do_versions in 2 parts:
1. do_versions initialization of old variables that changed
like physics properties that need to be scaled or so
2. do_init for newly created variables that are not allowed to be zero,
this can safely be done for each file
a follow-path constraint in 2.28c without data assigned.
this patch checks for proper data in a constraint, if not available
it will turn the type into CONSTRAINT_TYPE_NULL
- i will forward the demo file to theeth for further check
Axis options for TrackTo
LockTrack
FollowPath
Auto creation of TrackTo constraint from Ctrl-T (old track still an option)
Auto creation of FollowPath when parenting to path (Normal parent still an option)
Backward compatibility stuff to convert the per object axis settings to per constraint when a Track constraint is present.
Function to convert old track to constraint (commented out)
Revamped the constraints interface with Matt's work from tuhopuu and the stuff we were discussing earlier.
--------------------
For coders:
unique_constraint_name and *new_constraint_data moved to the kernel (constraint.c)
new Projf function in arithb gives the projection of a vector on another vector
add_new_constraint now takes a constraint type (int) parameter
add_constraint_to_object(bConstraint *con, Object *ob) to link a constraint to an object
add_constraint_to_client(bConstraint *con) to link constraint to current client (object or bone)
add_influence_key_to_constraint (bConstraint *con) to (eventually) add a keyframe to the influence IPO of a constraint
- currently only implemented for 3d window
- create as many themes you like, and name them
- default theme is not editable, and always will be defined at startup
(initTheme)
- saves in .B.blend
- themes for spaces can become local too, so you can set individual
3d windows at theme 'Maya' or so. (to be implemented)
- it uses alpha as well...!
API:
This doesnt use the old method with BFCOLORID blahblah. The API is copied
from OpenGL conventions (naming) as much as possible:
- void BIF_ThemeColor(ScrArea *sa, int colorid)
sets a color... id's are in BIF_resources.h (TH_GRID, TH_WIRE, etc)
- void BIF_ThemeColorShade(ScrArea *sa, int colorid, int offset)
sets a color with offset, no more weird COLORSHADE_LGREY stuff
- void BIF_GetThemeColor3fv(ScrArea *sa, int colorid, float *col)
like opengl, this gives you in *col the three rgb values
- void BIF_GetThemeColor4ubv(ScrArea *sa, int colorid, char *col)
or the one to get 4 bytes
ThemeColor calls for globals (UI etc) can also call NULL for *sa... this
is to be implemented still.
Next step: cleaning up interface.c for all weird colorcalls.
window (type)
- each SpaceData struct (not the window!) can get 'block handlers'
assigned, basically event codes that invoke drawing button panels.
- this is saved in files, and Panels behave in any window like it does now
in buttonswindow
- it also means that a 'space window' should leave with a matrix set for
buttons level
- try it in view3d header menu, 'view'->'backdrop'. this opens the old
viewbuttons
- it all works non blocking! instant updates of viewbuttons visible in
3d window now.
Not done yet:
- checking and fixing frontbuffer drawing (select a wireframe draws over)
- temporally vertices cannot be selected, is my next project
- closing or hiding Panels...
- styling stuff... i committed for others to review as well.
Have fun. this is certainly a huge improvement over the old viewbuttons!
