Notifiers
---------
Various fixes for wrong use of notifiers, and some new notifiers
to make things a bit more clear and consistent, with two notable
changes:
* Geometry changes are now done with NC_GEOM, rather than
NC_OBJECT|ND_GEOM_, so an object does need to be available.
* Space data now use NC_SPACE|ND_SPACE_*, instead of data
notifiers or even NC_WINDOW in some cases. Note that NC_SPACE
should only be used for notifying about changes in space data,
we don't want to go back to allqueue(REDRAW..).
Depsgraph
---------
The dependency graph now has a different flush call:
DAG_object_flush_update(scene, ob, flag)
is replaced by:
DAG_id_flush_update(id, flag)
It still works basically the same, one difference is that it now
also accepts object data (e.g. Mesh), again to avoid requiring an
Object to be available. Other ID types will simply do nothing at
the moment.
Docs
----
I made some guidelines for how/when to do which kinds of updates
and notifiers. I can't specify totally exact how to make these
decisions, but these are basically the guidelines I use. So, new
and updated docs are here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Blender2.5/NotifiersUpdateshttp://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Blender2.5/DataNotifiers
Too many new features to list! But here are the biggies:
- Boids can move on air and/or land, or climb a goal object.
- Proper interaction with collision objects.
* Closest collision object in negative z direction is considered as ground.
* Other collision objects are obstacles and boids collide with them.
- Boid behavior rules are now added to a dynamic list.
* Many new rules and many still not implemented.
* Different rule evaluation modes (fuzzy, random, average).
- Only particle systems defined by per system "boid relations" are considered for simulation of that system.
* This is in addition to the boids own system of course.
* Relations define other systems as "neutral", "friend" or "enemy".
- All effectors now effect boid physics, not boid brains.
* This allows forcing boids somewhere.
* Exception to this is new "boid" effector, which defines boid predators (positive strength) and goals (negative strength).
Known issue:
- Boid health isn't yet stored in pointcache so simulations with "fight" rule are not be read from cache properly.
- Object/Group visualization object's animation is not played in "particle time". This is definately the wanted behavior, but isn't possible with the current state of dupliobject code.
Other new features:
- Particle systems can now be named separately from particle settings.
* Default name for particle settings is now "ParticleSettings" instead of "PSys"
- Per particle system list of particle effector weights.
* Enables different effection strengths for particles from different particle systems with without messing around with effector group setting.
Other code changes:
- KDTree now supports range search as it's needed for new boids.
- "Keyed particle targets" renamed as general "particle targets", as they're needed for boids too. (this might break some files saved with new keyed particles)
Bug fixes:
- Object & group visualizations didn't work.
- Interpolating pointcache didn't do rotation.
- Keyed targets in one list instead of "chaining", this opens up many more possibilities than before and is much less obscure.
- Better keyed timing possibilities (time & duration in frames).
- Looping over keyed targets list.
Other changes:
- New child setting "length" with threshold (great for guard & underfur with a single particle system)
- Modularization of path interpolation code.
- Cleared "animateable" flags from many particle settings that shouldn't be animateable.
Fixes:
- Keyed particles weren't copied properly (ancient bug).
- Hair rotations depended on global z-axis for root rotation so downward facing strands could flip rotation randomly. Now initial hair rotation is derived from face dependent hair matrix. (This caused for example ugly flipping of child strands on some cases).
- Children from faces weren't calculated straight after activating them.
- Multiple disk cache fixes:
* Disk cache didn't work correctly with frame steps.
* Conversion from memory cache to disk cache didn't work with cloth.
* Disk cache crashed on some frames trying to close an already closed cache file.
* Trails didn't work with disk cached particles.
- Child rough effects were effected by emitter object loc/rot making them next to useless with animation, why didn't anybody tell me this!!
- Lots of random code cleanup.
* Baked normal particles can now use the "Path" visualization.
* Path "max length" & "abs length" are now history:
- New option to set path start & end times + random variation to length.
- Much more flexible (and calculated better) than previous options.
- This works with parents, children, hair & normal particles unlike old length option.
- Only known issue for now is that children from faces don't get calculated correctly when using path start time.
* New option "trails" for "halo", "line" and "billboard" visualizations:
- Draws user controllable number of particle instances along particles path backwards from current position.
- Works with children too for cool/weird visualizations that weren't possible before.
* Normal particle children's velocities are now approximated better when needed so that "line" visualization trails will look nice.
* New particle instance modifier options:
- "path"-option works better and has controllable (max)position along path (with random variation possible).
- "keep shape"-option for hair, keyed, or baked particles allows to place the instances to a single point (with random variation possible) along particle path.
- "axis" option to make rotation handling better (still not perfect, but will have to do for now).
Some fixes & cleanup done along the way:
* Random path length didn't work for non-child particles.
* Cached & unborn particles weren't reset to emit locations.
* Particle numbers weren't drawn in the correct place.
* Setting proper render & draw visualizations was lost somewhere when initializing new particle settings.
* Changing child mode wasn't working correctly.
* Some cleanup & modularization of particle child effector code and particle drawing & rendering code.
* Object & group visualizations didn't work.
* Child simplification didn't work.
* Adding/removing particle systems to an object.
* Changing of particle settings.
* Currently showing an object's particle systems in a list (like materials).
* Particles support larger than 1 frame changes, bigger frame changes can result in inaccurate results, but it's super fast and you get a nice feeling of how the particles behave!
* "Cache to current frame" button calculates the exact result of particles at current frame.
* Current state of cache can be protected by making it a bake.
* Cache is now in memory by default, disk cache is an option.
* Only "viewport %" number of particles are calculated and cached in viewport, baking and rendering calculate all particles.
* Info on cached frames and memory usage given in ui.
* Support for exact "autocaching" of changes and large frame changes(disabled for now until exact place in event system is decided)
* "Continue physics" is probably deprecated after this and should be removed once sb & cloth use the new cache code.
Todo:
* Make softbody & cloth use the new cache things.
Other changes:
* Some cleanup of particle buttons.
* Optimized RNA property lookups and path resolving, still can be
much better, but now the 1000 IPO example on bf-taskforce25
runs at reasonable speed.
* Also an optimization in the depsgraph when dealing with many
objects, this was actually also a bottleneck here.
1) Remove WITH_FREETYPE2 from code, so now blender always need freetype2
2) Remove the old bmfont
3) Remove ftfont and bFTGL library
4) Implement a new BLF_draw_default function for place that still need/use
the old BMF api.
I try to update both, scons and cmake, but I only can test with make, so
hope all work fine.
MSVC is broken, but I don't have Windows, things to search and fix are
any reference to WITH_FREETYPE2, FTGL and BMFONT (take in care that
blenkernel also have a BKE_bmfont.h, this don't have anything to do with bmfont).
Always have to link/include the freetype2 library
Remove any reference to libbmfont
Remove any reference to libftfont
Remove any reference to libbftgl (or libbFTGL)
Now it is possible to write a Python Expression using the variable names for driver targets (see mockup from initial commit) to substitute the appropriate values into the expression.
In the __global__ namespace for PyDriver evaluation, the following modules are available:
* __builtins__ - i.e. the builtin Python functions
* bpy - new Python API
* math or m - math module
For example:
Consider a driver with three targets, named: A, B, C
Now, you could write an expression like:
C if A < 5 else B
or even:
2*C if A < 5 or A > 20 else m.PI*B
Of course, you don't have to have three targets, the above was just an example.
TODO:
* Bring back way to load pydrivers.py
* Blender.Noise equivalent would be nice to have
P.S. I hope I haven't made any terrible Python API coding errors here (i.e. mem leaks, etc.)
Drivers now support multiple targets which act as 'variables'. The targets have a short 'name' (see later), and reference some property (in much the same way as F-Curves do, using RNA-Paths) which acts as the 'value'.
These named variables can then be used in a Python Expression which relates them to each other for more fine-grained control over the result of the driver. By using only the names of these variables in the expressions, we are able to define expressions/relationships in a much more readable way, as data access is separated from data use. This makes the underlying relationships easier to understand.
By default, if no Python Expression is given, the variables are simply averaged together, so old files won't break. :)
For example, check the following diagram (thanks Cessen/Nathan V from Peach team):
http://download.blender.org/ftp/incoming/250_drivers_mockup_cessen.png
TODO List:
* Depsgraph building for new driver relationships doesn't work yet. This needs to be recoded again, but this new system makes this much easier, since the targets are clearly defined (i.e. no need to parse py expressions to get list of objects)
* Graph Editor interface for editing these needs to be rewritten
* Python function for evaluating these expressions is needed (Campbell?)
this can be brought back as a new space if someone decides to
work on it.
This also fixes remaining issues with the outliner tree open
and close buttons not working sometimes.
- Added depsgraph tag for object-change in AnimData, so the
new animsys doesn't have to all objects anymore.
(Still WIP, depsgraph has to do this much better)
- Bugfix in notifiers; only 1 notifier was handled for
frame updates
Result: 2 windows, displaying 2 scenes, now can be edited
independently, and play independent. Not when they share
data, of course. :)
Joshua asked me to check depsgraph drivers; i've added the
very minimal case, but further I'm stuck, need help.
Also made region listeners for Graph Editor work for all.
This is work-in-progress patching support for converting animation saved in old system to work in the new one.
* Only IPOs/Actions directly attached to Objects + Shapekeys are converted for now. More types will follow...
* This is currently done as a step outside of do_versions() due to problems with various pointers not having been resolved yet, but which are necessary for correct resolution of issues such as drivers... However, the current code does illustrate how the data should be converted to give best results/compat between the two systems.
* Still need to get the converted data working with depsgraph correctly. Currently, some of my testfiles work, but the BBB files still don't.
Cleanup warnings from Joshua's commit (mostly unused variables,
but also used functions that were not prototyped).
Two bugfixes; passing on &ob->adt instead of ob->adt
But; the DNA system is now messed up, with two structs using
the same ID (nAction and bAction), that goes horrible wrong!
Finally, here is the basic (functional) prototype of the new animation system which will allow for the infamous "everything is animatable", and which also addresses several of the more serious shortcomings of the old system. Unfortunately, this will break old animation files (especially right now, as I haven't written the version patching code yet), however, this is for the future.
Highlights of the new system:
* Scrapped IPO-Curves/IPO/(Action+Constraint-Channels)/Action system, and replaced it with F-Curve/Action.
- F-Curves (animators from other packages will feel at home with this name) replace IPO-Curves.
- The 'new' Actions, act as the containers for F-Curves, so that they can be reused. They are therefore more akin to the old 'IPO' blocks, except they do not have the blocktype restriction, so you can store materials/texture/geometry F-Curves in the same Action as Object transforms, etc.
* F-Curves use RNA-paths for Data Access, hence allowing "every" (where sensible/editable that is) user-accessible setting from RNA to be animated.
* Drivers are no longer mixed with Animation Data, so rigs will not be that easily broken and several dependency problems can be eliminated. (NOTE: drivers haven't been hooked up yet, but the code is in place)
* F-Curve modifier system allows useful 'large-scale' manipulation of F-Curve values, including (I've only included implemented ones here): envelope deform (similar to lattices to allow broad-scale reshaping of curves), curve generator (polynomial or py-expression), cycles (replacing the old cyclic extrapolation modes, giving more control over this). (NOTE: currently this cannot be tested, as there's not access to them, but the code is all in place)
* NLA system with 'tracks' (i.e. layers), and multiple strips per track. (NOTE: NLA system is not yet functional, as it's only partially coded still)
There are more nice things that I will be preparing some nice docs for soon, but for now, check for more details:
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-taskforce25/2009-January/000260.html
So, what currently works:
* I've implemented two basic operators for the 3D-view only to Insert and Delete Keyframes. These are tempolary ones only that will be replaced in due course with 'proper' code.
* Object Loc/Rot/Scale can be keyframed. Also, the colour of the 'active' material (Note: this should really be for nth material instead, but that doesn't work yet in RNA) can also be keyframed into the same datablock.
* Standard animation refresh (i.e. animation resulting from NLA and Action evaluation) is now done completely separate from drivers before anything else is done after a frame change. Drivers are handled after this in a separate pass, as dictated by depsgraph flags, etc.
Notes:
* Drivers haven't been hooked up yet
* Only objects and data directly linked to objects can be animated.
* Depsgraph will need further tweaks. Currently, I've only made sure that it will update some things in the most basic cases (i.e. frame change).
* Animation Editors are currently broken (in terms of editing stuff). This will be my next target (priority to get Dopesheet working first, then F-Curve editor - i.e. old IPO Editor)
* I've had to put in large chunks of XXX sandboxing for old animation system code all around the place. This will be cleaned up in due course, as some places need special review.
In particular, the particles and sequencer code have far too many manual calls to calculate + flush animation info, which is really bad (this is a 'please explain yourselves' call to Physics coders!).
Think global, act local!
The old favorite G.scene gone! Man... that took almost 2 days.
Also removed G.curscreen and G.edbo.
Not everything could get solved; here's some notes.
- modifiers now store current scene in ModifierData. This is not
meant for permanent, but it can probably stick there until we
cleaned the anim system and depsgraph to cope better with
timing issues.
- Game engine G.scene should become an argument for staring it.
Didn't solve this yet.
- Texture nodes should get scene cfra, but the current implementation
is too tightly wrapped to do it easily.
From the anti-globalization department:
G.obedit terminated!
Wherever possible, use CTX_data_edit_object(C) to get this
now. It's stored in scene now, and the screen context has
it defined.
svn merge https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender -r12987:17416
Issues:
* GHOST/X11 had conflicting changes. Some code was added in 2.5, which was
later added in trunk also, but reverted partially, specifically revision
16683. I have left out this reversion in the 2.5 branch since I think it is
needed there.
http://projects.blender.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php?view=rev&root=bf-blender&revision=16683
* Scons had various conflicting changes, I decided to go with trunk version
for everything except priorities and some library renaming.
* In creator.c, there were various fixes and fixes for fixes related to the -w
-W and -p options. In 2.5 -w and -W is not coded yet, and -p is done
differently. Since this is changed so much, and I don't think those fixes
would be needed in 2.5, I've left them out.
* Also in creator.c: there was code for a python bugfix where the screen was not
initialized when running with -P. The code that initializes the screen there
I had to disable, that can't work in 2.5 anymore but left it commented as a
reminder.
Further I had to disable some new function calls. using src/ and python/, as
was done already in this branch, disabled function calls:
* bpath.c: error reporting
* BME_conversions.c: editmesh conversion functions.
* SHD_dynamic: disabled almost completely, there is no python/.
* KX_PythonInit.cpp and Ketsji/ build files: Mathutils is not there, disabled.
* text.c: clipboard copy call.
* object.c: OB_SUPPORT_MATERIAL.
* DerivedMesh.c and subsurf_ccg, stipple_quarttone.
Still to be done:
* Go over files and functions that were moved to a different location but could
still use changes that were done in trunk.
- The cause was indeed corrupted particle settings which should have caused a deletion of the whole particle system. However the particle modifier was still left and that led to the crash.
- A "fix" because there's really no way of knowing what caused the corruption of the particle settings. If anyone else gets this and can recreate I'd love to get a .blend. Now that there shouldn't be a crash anymore the symptom will be a missing particle system after file load in an object that had a particle system before.
=======================
Caching and Baking:
- The point cache is now cleared on DAG_object_flush_update(), and not cleared for time dependency graph updates.
- There is now a Bake button instead of Protect. Also cache start and end frames were added to softbody and particles.
- The cloth autoprotect feature was removed.
- The Ctrl+B menu now also bakes cloth and particles next to softbody and fluids. Additionally there are now frree bake and free cache menu entries.
- The point cache api has been changed. There is now a PTCacheID struct for each point cache type that can be filled and then used to call the point cache functions.
- PointCache struct was added to DNA and is automatically allocated for each physics type.
- Soft body now supports Bake Editing just like cloth.
- Tried to make the systems deal consistently with time ipo's and offsets. Still not sure it all works correct, but too complicated to solve completely now.
Library Linking:
- Added some more warnings to prevent editing settings on library linked objects.
- Linked objects now read from the cache located next to the original library file, and never write to it. This restores old behavior for softbodies. For local simulation the mesh and not the object should be linked.
- Dupligroups and proxies can't create local point caches at the moment, how to implement that I'm not sure. We probably need a proxy point cache for that to work (ugh).
Physics UI:
- Renamed deflection panel to collision for consistency and reorganized the buttons. Also removed some softbody collision buttons from the softbody panel that were duplicated in this panel for cloth.
- Tweaked field panel buttons to not jump around when changing options.
- Tabbing e.g. Soft Body Collision into the Soft Body panel, it now only shows Collision to make the panel names readable.
- I tried to make enabled/disabling physics more consistent, since all three system did things different. Now the two modifier buttons to enable the modifier for the viewport and rendering are also duplicated in the physics panels. Toggling the Soft Body and Cloth buttons now both remove their modifiers.
- Fixed modifier error drawing glitch.
Particles:
- Particles are now recalculated more often than before. Previously it did partial updates based on the changes, but that doesn't work well with DAG_object_flush_update() ..
- Fixed memory leak loading keyed particle system. Now keys are not written to file anymore but always created after loading.
- Make particle threads work with autothreads.
Continue Physics:
- The timeline play now has a Continue Physics option in the playback menu, which keeps the simulations going without writing them to the cache.
- This doesn't always work that well, some changes are not immediately updated, but this can be improved later. Still it's fun to get a feel for the physics.
Todo:
- Point cache can get out of sync with and undo and changing a file without saving it.
- Change the point cache file format to store a version (so old point cache files can be either converted or at least ignored), and to do correct endian conversion.
- Menu item and/or buttons for Ctrl+B.
- A system("rm ..") was changed to remove() since the former is very slow for clearing point caches. These system() calls were already giving trouble in a bug in the tracker, but really most use of this system("") should be changed and tested.
- The Soft Body Collision and Clot Collision panel titles don't mention there's point cache settings there too, doing that makes them unreadable with the default panel setup.. but may need to make the names longer anyway.
This appears to be a long-standing bug, and it only affected the Follow-Path constraint as it was the only one which was dependant on time-based changes. An oversight in the depsgraph code meant that Follow-Path constraints on armature bones were not evaluated, unless there was an Action or some NLA-Strips for that armature.
I've added a new flag to pose->flag (POSE_CONSTRAINTS_TIMEDEPEND) which only gets set/cleared by update_pose_constraint_flags. This flag indicates that the depsgraph needs to do an update for such cases, and will require going in/out of EditMode to set this for old files.
It's been implemented as such to avoid having costly searches when trying to run animations realtime (as is done for modifiers).
=========
- The render and realtime button for the particle system modifier
and the enabled button for particles now work seperate again,
made a bad design decision to tie them together. Now with only
the render button and not realtime enabled it renders.
- Fix for bug #7948: particle mode crash while constraining axis.
- Fix for bug #7945: crash loading effector groups from an old file.
- Fix for bug #7942: crash for reactor particles emitting from particles.
the depsgraph relations for constraints with a local ipo were being
skipped, but I have no idea why this code was added? Uncommenting
it seems to work fine.
-> Constraint Influence Ipo now can be local, linked to constraint itself
You enable this in the IpoWindow header, with the Action icon to the left
of the Ipo Type menu. The button tooltips give the clue as well.
Tech note: the Ipo now can get directly linked to a constraint, and is
being called during regular pose constraint solving.
Actions (and drivers in actions) are being calculated *before* pose
constraint solving. Result of actions then is written in bones, which
then solves the entire pose.
This means you can have a driver on both the constraint, as on the action
channel for the constraint! Not that I'm going to debug that easily :)
Additional fix: Joshua added a copy/paste IpoCurve feature, but he broke
the functionality to be able to paste in an empty ipo channel. That now
works again
=========
Merge of the famous particle patch by Janne Karhu, a full rewrite
of the Blender particle system. This includes:
- Emitter, Hair and Reactor particle types.
- Newtonian, Keyed and Boids physics.
- Various particle visualisation and rendering types.
- Vertex group and texture control for various properties.
- Interpolated child particles from parents.
- Hair editing with combing, growing, cutting, .. .
- Explode modifier.
- Harmonic, Magnetic fields, and multiple falloff types.
.. and lots of other things, some more info is here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewritehttp://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewrite_Doc
The new particle system cannot be backwards compatible. Old particle
systems are being converted to the new system, but will require
tweaking to get them looking the same as before.
Point Cache
===========
The new system to replace manual baking, based on automatic caching
on disk. This is currently used by softbodies and the particle system.
See the Cache API section on:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/PhysicsSprint
Documentation
=============
These new features still need good docs for the release logs, help
for this is appreciated.