(As usual movies disappears after while)
Face example showing stress values on a blend. White is stretch, black
is squeeze
http://www.blender.org/bf/0001_0014.avi
Quick test with softbody stretch
http://www.blender.org/bf/0001_0100.avi
Based on the difference of the "Orco" (original undeformed coordinate)
and the actual render coordinate, a stress value is computed to make
textures react to stretching or wrinking skin.
The texture coordinate is neutral (0) on relaxed state. -1 is squeezed
to zero, +1 is stretched to infinity.
Note that scaling (object itself or parent) also will result in
stress values.
The reason for the huge commit is a cleanup in allocating memory for
the vertices. These were growing too large with new options, so now it
allocates the optional coordinates dynamically.
Saves about 20 MB memory per 1M vertices already. But best of all is that
I now can add much more fun... so tangents, here we come!
New diffuse shader, "Fresnel", which using existing fresnel formula.
Since it hilights edges (away from lamp), nice to fill darker parts with
the new layering system.
Weird stuff though;
http://www.blender.org/bf/0001_0040.avi
(Movie disappears in a couple of days!)
Note; for ray-shadow you need to use the Bias, to prevent 'terminator'
problems. I made that option default now.
(WIP, don't bugs for this in tracker yet please!)
- New Panel "Layers" in Material buttons, allows to add unlimited amount
of materials on top of each other.
- Every Layer is actually just another Material, which gets rendered/shaded
(including texture), and then added on top of previous layer with an
operation like Mix, Add, Mult, etc.
- Layers render fully independent, so bumpmaps are not passed on to next
layers.
- Per Layer you can set if it influences Diffuse, Specular or Alpha
- If a Material returns alpha (like from texture), the alpha value is
used for adding the layers too.
- New texture "Map To" channel allows to have a texture work on a Layer
- Each layer, including basis Material, can be turned on/off individually
Notes:
- at this moment, the full shading pass happens for each layer, including
shadow, AO and raytraced mirror or transparency...
- I had to remove old hacks from preview render, which corrected reflected
normals for preview texturing.
- still needs loadsa testing!
- raytracing code now uses cylinder-line intersect for strands. It used
to intersect with the screen-aligned strand quads, giving too many
misses for tracing.
Note; mirror for hair is still not well supported!
- added in Materials a choice for whether a material is Traceable for
raytracing or whether it is part of Shadow buffers. This way you can
exclude hair strands from raytracing, but still get shadowbuffers for it.
doc;
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Hair_Strand_Rendering.722.0.html
- added width control for strands
- made tangent (anisotropic) render an option
(so you can render strands more solid, like metal/wood)
Also:
- ALT+A anim playback with static particles made cursor flashing
This means the diffuse and specular shaders don't use the normal
for hair (which is actually undefined, a hair is micro cylinder) but
it uses the tangent vector (vector in direction of hair).
For Diffuse, it computes a fake normal now, representing the optimal
hair normal pointing towards the light. All current builtin shaders
work with this, including ramps.
For Specular, it uses another formula to remap dot products for all
lines that now use the tangent vector instead of the normal:
dot = vector * tangent
dot = sqrt(1.0 - dot*dot)
Gives better results than using the 'fake' normal for diffuse. Officially
(according the papers) this could be used for diffuse too, but then hair
becomes very flat. Now you can control the flatness easily with ramps or
using Oren-Nayer for example.
Example image (disappears in some weeks)
http://www.blender.org/bf/rt9.jpg
- Added new texture channel "Strand" to apply textures on hairs over the
length of hair (1 dimensional). Orco now gives 1 fixed coordinate for
the entire hair, based on where it starts.
Note; UV doesn't work yet. Nor vertexcolor.
http://www.blender.org/bf/rt10.jpg
a month ago (trying to cope with vertexcolor 'paint' and 'light'.)
Forgot to add the correct check for calculaing UV texture coords, needed to
have vertexcolor 'paint' working.
Quite harmless, but was lazy code...
When you choosed "Vertex Color Paint" material, the init_render_material()
also set the "Vertex color Light" option, because that flag was checked on
during render to detect vertex colors.
Now it has proper checks in render code.
Aim was to get a total refresh of the animation system. This
is needed because;
- we need to upgrade it with 21st century features
- current code is spaghetti/hack combo, and hides good design
- it should become lag-free with using dependency graphs
A full log, with complete code API/structure/design explanation
will follow, that's a load of work... so here below the list with
hot changes;
- The entire object update system (matrices, geometry) is now
centralized. Calls to where_is_object and makeDispList are
forbidden, instead we tag objects 'changed' and let the
depgraph code sort it out
- Removed all old "Ika" code
- Depgraph is aware of all relationships, including meta balls,
constraints, bevelcurve, and so on.
- Made depgraph aware of relation types and layers, to do smart
flushing of 'changed' events. Nothing gets calculated too often!
- Transform uses depgraph to detect changes
- On frame-advance, depgraph flushes animated changes
Armatures;
Almost all armature related code has been fully built from scratch.
It now reveils the original design much better, with a very clean
implementation, lag free without even calculating each Bone more than
once. Result is quite a speedup yes!
Important to note is;
1) Armature is data containing the 'rest position'
2) Pose is the changes of rest position, and always on object level.
That way more Objects can use same Pose. Also constraints are in Pose
3) Actions only contain the Ipos to change values in Poses.
- Bones draw unrotated now
- Drawing bones speedup enormously (10-20 times)
- Bone selecting in EditMode, selection state is saved for PoseMode,
and vice-versa
- Undo in editmode
- Bone renaming does vertexgroups, constraints, posechannels, actions,
for all users of Armature in entire file
- Added Bone renaming in NKey panel
- Nkey PoseMode shows eulers now
- EditMode and PoseMode now have 'active' bone too (last clicked)
- Parenting in EditMode' CTRL+P, ALT+P, with nice options!
- Pose is added in Outliner now, with showing that constraints are in
the Pose, not Armature
- Disconnected IK solving from constraints. It's a separate phase now,
on top of the full Pose calculations
- Pose itself has a dependency graph too, so evaluation order is lag free.
TODO NOW;
- Rotating in Posemode has incorrect inverse transform (Martin will fix)
- Python Bone/Armature/Pose API disabled... needs full recode too
(wait for my doc!)
- Game engine will need upgrade too
- Depgraph code needs revision, cleanup, can be much faster!
(But, compliments for Jean-Luc, it works like a charm!)
- IK changed, it now doesnt use previous position to advance to next
position anymore. That system looks nice (no flips) but is not well
suited for NLA and background render.
TODO LATER;
We now can do loadsa new nifty features as well; like:
- Kill PoseMode (can be option for armatures itself)
- Make B-Bones (Bezier, Bspline, like for spines)
- Move all silly button level edit to 3d window (like CTRL+I = add
IK)
- Much better & informative drawing
- Fix action/nla editors
- Put all ipos in Actions (object, mesh key, lamp color)
- Add hooks
- Null bones
- Much more advanced constraints...
Bugfixes;
- OGL render (view3d header) had wrong first frame on anim render
- Ipo 'recording' mode had wrong playback speed
- Vertex-key mode now sticks to show 'active key', until frame change
-Ton-
- For avoiding the 'overlapping character problem' in Text objects, I had
changed the sorting code for filling nurbs to use nu->charidx (a new
variable incremented with each new character) instead of nu->mat_nr
(which used to work for material indices inside a 2D Curve).
- This broke material indices in normal 2D Curves completely, thus:
- nu->charidx is now not only used for seperating
characters in text objects for filling, but also for normal 2D curves
when they contain material indices. In fact, charidx is just set to
the material index.
- There's compatibility code in readfile.c that sets nu->charidx to nu->mat_nr
when reading curves from files that are not text objects
- So, the big conclusion: Instead of using material indices for creating
'filling groups', filldisplist() now uses nu->charidx, which is set
appropriately when reading old files and assigning/deleting material
indices in curves.
- This is all pretty obscure and hard to explain. If I haven't been clear,
ask.
- If it breaks anything, complain!
This will add Minneart diffuse and WardIso specular to our shader menu.
Minneart gives nice control over darkness/brightness areas, the wardIso
over 'plastic' style sharp or fuzzy specular.
Webpage is being made with nice samples. Will be in release log.
Jorge: one change is in the do_versions, you inserted it on wrong location.
Jkey, for showing spare render page, didn't work when using ztransp
material, or buttons F5 open or shaded view.... quite strange eh!
Caused by init-render-material setting R.flag to use Ztransp render.
Globals causing havock yes...
It *should* be there, but its a bad-level-include. The bad_level_calls.h
makes it compiling nice, but that wasnt the purpose.
Error is in the winstuff.h in render.h most likely
Render:
- New; support for dual CPU render (SDL thread)
Currently only works with alternating scanlines, but gives excellent
performance. For both normal render as unified implemented.
Note the "mutex" locks on z-transp buffer render and imbuf loads.
- This has been made possible by major cleanups in render code, especially
getting rid of globals (example Tin Tr Tg Tb Ta for textures) or struct
OSA or using Materials or Texture data to write to.
- Made normal render fully 4x32 floats too, and removed all old optimizes
with chars or shorts.
- Made normal render and unified render use same code for sky and halo
render, giving equal (and better) results for halo render. Old render
now also uses PostProcess options (brightness, mul, gamma)
- Added option ("FBuf") in F10 Output Panel, this keeps a 4x32 bits buffer
after render. Using PostProcess menu you will note an immediate re-
display of image too (32 bits RGBA)
- Added "Hue" and "Saturation" sliders to PostProcess options
- Render module is still not having a "nice" API, but amount of dependencies
went down a lot. Next todo: remove abusive "previewrender" code.
The last main global in Render (struct Render) now can be re-used for fully
controlling a render, to allow multiple "instances" of render to open.
- Renderwindow now displays a smal bar on top with the stats, and keeps the
stats after render too. Including "spare" page support.
Not only easier visible that way, but also to remove the awkward code that
was drawing stats in the Info header (extreme slow on some ATIs too)
- Cleaned up blendef.h and BKE_utildefines.h, these two had overlapping
defines.
- I might have forgotten stuff... and will write a nice doc on the architecture!
channels to link texture to.
The amount of code changes seems large, but is mostly getting rind of
hardcoded values (6 and 8) for channels, replacing it with MAX_MTEX.
Further did some fixes;
- Ipo for Lamp showed too many mapping channels
- Texture MapTo buttons for lamp missed the slider to blend texture color
- Lamp texture mapping "View" only worked for Spot, now it uses lamp-
view vector for all types. (Nice for projections!)
With material slider "Ray Mir" set non zero, but with toggle "Ray Mirror"
off, Blender accidentally entered a part of raytracing code, screwing up
the alpha value of the result.
Two accumulating errors, causing 'scanline' errors too, but now based on
using different filtering values for transparent shadows.
Was another 2 cases of unused variable render as well. :)
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! :)
- added mesh_set_smooth_flag, mesh_delete_material_index function
- isolated some globals
- got rid of reliance on meshdata in buttons_editing.c and material.c
(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.
it by precalculating all needed Osa vectors when rendering glass, this
because it is unpredictable what is exactly going to be needed after.
- a hint that this should be done better is in the code... will mostly
improve sharpness and a bit rendertime though
(thanks bugmaster intrr!)
recalculate the O.dxno and O.dyno for each pixel. This causes scanline
errors (stripes) when in same scanline something else is called that
calculates O.dxno/dyno...
- changed code to make use of actual textures, not the hackish
'externtex', which is only for tools
- added a 'displacement' vector in ShadeInput, and moved calculation of
displacement vector to texture.c itself. So it works with stencil, but
also for options as 'add', 'mult' and 'sub'.
- for RGB textures it uses the brightness value of color for displace
- for stucci, and plugin textures returning a normal, it uses that
- Also: wrote call in end of preparing renderfaces, to split non-flat
quad faces in triangles. gives a lot fewer errors in displace textures,
but also raytracing irregular subsurfs goes better now.
- texture mapping that works for displace: orco, sticky, global, obj, normal.
UV not yet. Reflection-displace? uhh! :)
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
- 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.
This is a revision of the old NeoGeo raytracer, dusted off, improved quite
a lot, and nicely integrated in the rest of rendering pipeline.
Enable it with F10-"Ray", and set either a 'ray-shadow' lamp or give the
Material a "RayMirror" value.
It has been added for 2 reasons:
- get feedback on validity... I need artists to play around with it if it's
actually useful. It still *is* raytracing, meaning complex scenes will
easily become slow.
- for educational purposes. All raytracing happens in ray.c, which can be
quite easily adjusted for other effects.
When too many disasters pop up with this, I'll make it a compile #ifdef.
But so far, it seems to do a decent job.
Demo files: http://www.blender.org/docs/ray_test.tgz
An article (tech) about how it works, and about the new octree invention
will be posted soon. :)
Note: it doesn't work with unified render yet.
Updated the Make environment to point to the correct location. The include
paths were still pointing to source/blender/bpython/include while it should be
source/blender/python.
I did not encounter the build problems because I'm always working with the
autoconf build environment.
EEEK! It doesn't look well yet! Hopefully it inspires others to come
with great solutions.
- the material buttons have 6 panels, three of them merged
- some drawing errors in preview render
- made settings for new Material that makes sense for Flares
- the link order for Blender has changed, the libradiosity.a has to be moved after the librender.a (obviously for a new dependency!). Check blender/source/Makefile
- there's a new file: blender/source/radiosity/intern/source/radrender.c
Here's what the new code does:
Using the core routines of the Radiosity tool, each renderface with 'emit material' and each renderface with 'radio material flag' set will be used to itterate to a global illumination solution. Per face with high energy (emit) little images are rendered (hemicubes) which makes up lookup tables to 'shoot' its energy to other faces.
In the end this energy - color - then is directly added to the pixel colors while rendering, Gouraud shaded.
Since it's done with renderfaces, it works for all primitives in Blender.
What is doesn't do yet:
- take into account textured color of faces. Currently it uses the material RGB color for filtering distributed energy.
- do some smart pre-subdividing. I don't know yet if this is useful... Right now it means that you'll have to balance the models yourself, to deliver small faces where you want a high accuracy for shadowing.
- unified render (is at my todo list)
User notes:
- per Material you want to have included in radiosity render: set the 'radio' flag. For newly added Materials it is ON by default now.
- the Ambient slider in Material controls the amount of radiosity color.
- for enabling radiosity rendering, set the F10 "Radio" button.
- the Radiosity buttons now only show the relevant radiosity rendering options. Pressing "collect meshes" will show all buttons again.
- for meshes, the faces who use Radio material always call the 'autosmooth' routine, this to make sure sharp angles (like corners in a room) do not have shared vertices. For some smooth models (like the raptor example) you might increase the standard smoothing angle from 30 to 45 degree.
Technical notes:
- I had to expand the renderface and rendervertices for it... shame on me! Faces have one pointer extra, render vertices four floats...
- The size of the hemicubes is now based at the boundbox of the entire scene (0.002 of it). This should be more reliable... to be done
- I fixed a bug in radiosity render, where sometimes backfaces where lit
In general:
I'd like everyone to play a bit with this system. It's not easy to get good results with it. A simple "hit and go" isn't there... maybe some good suggestions?
do a make clean in source/blender/ to be sure!
- Included the new shaders from Cessen... well, only the shader calls
themselves. To make sure the shaders work I nicely integrated it
- MaterialButtons: layout changed a bit, but still resembles the old
layout. The 'shader' options now are located together.
- Shaders are separated in 'diffuse' and 'specular'. You can combine them
freely.
- diffuse Lambert: old shader
diffuse Oren Nayar: new shader, gives sandy/silky/skinny material well
diffuse Toon: for cartoon render
- specular Phong: new spec, traditional 70ies spec
specular CookTorr: a reduced version of cook torrance shading, does
off specular peak well
specular Blinn: new spec, same features as CookTorr, but with extra
'refraction' setting
specular Toon: new spec for cartoon render
- default blender starts with settings that render compatible!
- works in shaded view and preview-render
- works in unified render
Further little changes:
- removed paranoia compile warnings from render/loader/blenlib
- and the warnings at files I worked at were removed.
