Remove the use of a separate contiguous positions array now that
they are stored that way in the first place. This allows removing the
complexity of tracking whether it is allocated and deformed in the
mesh modifier stack.
Instead of deferring the creation of the final mesh until after the
positions have been copied and deformed, create the final mesh
first and then deform its positions.
Since vertex and face normals are calculated lazily, we can rely on
individual modifiers to calculate them as necessary and simplify
the modifier stack. This was hard to change before because of the
separate array of deformed positions.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16971
The goal is to give technical artists the ability to optimize modifier usage
and/or geometry node groups for performance. In the long term, it
would be useful if Blender could provide its own UI to display profiling
information to users. However, right now, there are too many open
design questions making it infeasible to tackle this in the short term.
This commit uses a simpler approach: Instead of adding new ui for
profiling data, it exposes the execution-time of modifiers in the Python
API. This allows technical artists to access the information and to build
their own UI to display the relevant information. In the long term this
will hopefully also help us to integrate a native ui for this in Blender
by observing how users use this information.
Note: The execution time of a modifier highly depends on what other
things the CPU is doing at the same time. For example, in many more
complex files, many objects and therefore modifiers are evaluated at
the same time by multiple threads which makes the measurement
much less reliable. For best results, make sure that only one object
is evaluated at a time (e.g. by changing it in isolation) and that no
other process on the system keeps the CPU busy.
As shown below, the execution time has to be accessed on the
evaluated object, not the original object.
```lang=python
import bpy
depsgraph = bpy.context.view_layer.depsgraph
ob = bpy.context.active_object
ob_eval = ob.evaluated_get(depsgraph)
modifier_eval = ob_eval.modifiers[0]
print(modifier_eval.execution_time, "s")
```
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D17185
Currently you can retrieve a mutable array from a const CustomData.
That makes code unsafe since the compiler can't check for correctness
itself. Fix that by introducing a separate function to retrieve mutable
arrays from CustomData. The new functions have the `_for_write`
suffix that make the code's intention clearer.
Because it makes retrieving write access an explicit step, this change
also makes proper copy-on-write possible for attributes.
Notes:
- The previous "duplicate referenced layer" functions are redundant
with retrieving layers with write access
- The custom data functions that give a specific index only have
`for_write` to simplify the API
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14140
Currently the `MLoopUV` struct stores UV coordinates and flags related
to editing UV maps in the UV editor. This patch changes the coordinates
to use the generic 2D vector type, and moves the flags into three
separate boolean attributes. This follows the design in T95965, with
the ultimate intention of simplifying code and improving performance.
Importantly, the change allows exporters and renderers to use UVs
"touched" by geometry nodes, which only creates generic attributes.
It also allows geometry nodes to create "proper" UV maps from scratch,
though only with the Store Named Attribute node for now.
The new design considers any 2D vector attribute on the corner domain
to be a UV map. In the future, they might be distinguished from regular
2D vectors with attribute metadata, which may be helpful because they
are often interpolated differently.
Most of the code changes deal with passing around UV BMesh custom data
offsets and tracking the boolean "sublayers". The boolean layers are
use the following prefixes for attribute names: vert selection: `.vs.`,
edge selection: `.es.`, pinning: `.pn.`. Currently these are short to
avoid using up the maximum length of attribute names. To accommodate
for these 4 extra characters, the name length limit is enlarged to 68
bytes, while the maximum user settable name length is still 64 bytes.
Unfortunately Python/RNA API access to the UV flag data becomes slower.
Accessing the boolean layers directly is be better for performance in
general.
Like the other mesh SoA refactors, backward and forward compatibility
aren't affected, and won't be changed until 4.0. We pay for that by
making mesh reading and writing more expensive with conversions.
Resolves T85962
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14365
**Changes**
As described in T93602, this patch removes all use of the `MVert`
struct, replacing it with a generic named attribute with the name
`"position"`, consistent with other geometry types.
Variable names have been changed from `verts` to `positions`, to align
with the attribute name and the more generic design (positions are not
vertices, they are just an attribute stored on the point domain).
This change is made possible by previous commits that moved all other
data out of `MVert` to runtime data or other generic attributes. What
remains is mostly a simple type change. Though, the type still shows up
859 times, so the patch is quite large.
One compromise is that now `CD_MASK_BAREMESH` now contains
`CD_PROP_FLOAT3`. With the general move towards generic attributes
over custom data types, we are removing use of these type masks anyway.
**Benefits**
The most obvious benefit is reduced memory usage and the benefits
that brings in memory-bound situations. `float3` is only 3 bytes, in
comparison to `MVert` which was 4. When there are millions of vertices
this starts to matter more.
The other benefits come from using a more generic type. Instead of
writing algorithms specifically for `MVert`, code can just use arrays
of vectors. This will allow eliminating many temporary arrays or
wrappers used to extract positions.
Many possible improvements aren't implemented in this patch, though
I did switch simplify or remove the process of creating temporary
position arrays in a few places.
The design clarity that "positions are just another attribute" brings
allows removing explicit copying of vertices in some procedural
operations-- they are just processed like most other attributes.
**Performance**
This touches so many areas that it's hard to benchmark exhaustively,
but I observed some areas as examples.
* The mesh line node with 4 million count was 1.5x (8ms to 12ms) faster.
* The Spring splash screen went from ~4.3 to ~4.5 fps.
* The subdivision surface modifier/node was slightly faster
RNA access through Python may be slightly slower, since now we need
a name lookup instead of just a custom data type lookup for each index.
**Future Improvements**
* Remove uses of "vert_coords" functions:
* `BKE_mesh_vert_coords_alloc`
* `BKE_mesh_vert_coords_get`
* `BKE_mesh_vert_coords_apply{_with_mat4}`
* Remove more hidden copying of positions
* General simplification now possible in many areas
* Convert more code to C++ to use `float3` instead of `float[3]`
* Currently `reinterpret_cast` is used for those C-API functions
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15982
This assertion function came from when derived normal data was stored
as custom data layers, which made it harder to keep track of whether
it was allocated and propagated. Nowadays it's all relatively easy to
predict, so there's no point in keeping this function around-- it only
makes code longer and more complex looking.
The regression is caused by D13824 0f89bcdbeb.
This fix follows the code from Sybren (D7785) to make object-mode
drivers from shapekey value to work. This intuitively makes sense
since the D13824 made the edit mode evaluation and ownership follow
the object mode more closely.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16380
This commit replaces the `Mesh_Runtime` struct embedded in `Mesh`
with `blender::bke::MeshRuntime`. This has quite a few benefits:
- It's possible to use C++ types like `std::mutex`, `Array`,
`BitVector`, etc. more easily
- Meshes saved in files are slightly smaller
- Copying and writing meshes is a bit more obvious without
clearing of runtime data, etc.
The first is by far the most important. It will allows us to avoid a
bunch of manual memory management boilerplate that is error-prone and
annoying. It should also simplify future CoW improvements for runtime
data.
This patch doesn't change anything besides changing `mesh.runtime.data`
to `mesh.runtime->data`. The cleanups above will happen separately.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16180
This is very similar to D14077. There are two differences though.
First is that vertex creases are already stored in a separate layer,
and second is that we can now completely remove use of `Mesh.cd_flag`,
since that information is now inherent to whether the layers exist.
There are two functional differences here:
* Operators are used to add and remove layers instead of a property.
* The "crease" attribute can be created and removed by geometry nodes.
The second change should make various geometry nodes slightly faster,
since the "crease" attribute was always processed before. Creases are
now interpolated generically in the CustomData API too, which should
help maintain the values across edits better.
Meshes get an `edge_creases` RNA property like the existing vertex
property, to provide more efficient access to the data in Cycles.
One test failure is expected, where different rounding between float
the old char storage means that 5 additional points are scattered in
a geometry nodes test.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15927
When a change happens which invalidates view layers the syncing will be postponed until the first usage.
This will improve importing or adding many objects in a single operation/script.
`BKE_view_layer_need_resync_tag` is used to tag the view layer to be out of sync. Before accessing
`BKE_view_layer_active_base_get`, `BKE_view_layer_active_object_get`, `BKE_view_layer_active_collection`
or `BKE_view_layer_object_bases` the caller should call `BKE_view_layer_synced_ensure`.
Having two functions ensures that partial syncing could be added as smaller patches in the future. Tagging a
view layer out of sync could be replaced with a partial sync. Eventually the number of full resyncs could be
reduced. After all tagging has been replaced with partial syncs the ensure_sync could be phased out.
This patch has been added to discuss the details and consequences of the current approach. For clarity
the call to BKE_view_layer_ensure_sync is placed close to the getters.
In the future this could be placed in more strategical places to reduce the number of calls or improve
performance. Finding those strategical places isn't that clear. When multiple operations are grouped
in a single script you might want to always check for resync.
Some areas found that can be improved. This list isn't complete.
These areas aren't addressed by this patch as these changes would be hard to detect to the reviewer.
The idea is to add changes to these areas as a separate patch. It might be that the initial commit would reduce
performance compared to master, but will be fixed by the additional patches.
**Object duplication**
During object duplication the syncing is temporarily disabled. With this patch this isn't useful as when disabled
the view_layer is accessed to locate bases. This can be improved by first locating the source bases, then duplicate
and sync and locate the new bases. Will be solved in a separate patch for clarity reasons ({D15886}).
**Object add**
`BKE_object_add` not only adds a new object, but also selects and activates the new base. This requires the
view_layer to be resynced. Some callers reverse the selection and activation (See `get_new_constraint_target`).
We should make the selection and activation optional. This would make it possible to add multiple objects
without having to resync per object.
**Postpone Activate Base**
Setting the basact is done in many locations. They follow a rule as after an action find the base and set
the basact. Finding the base could require a resync. The idea is to store in the view_layer the object which
base will be set in the basact during the next sync, reducing the times resyncing needs to happen.
Reviewed By: mont29
Maniphest Tasks: T73411
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15885
corresponding data layers and using their values for computations.
Avoiding that should increase performance in many operations that
would otherwise have to read, write, or propagate these values.
It also means decreased memory usage-- not just for sculpt mode
but for any mesh that was in sculpt mode. Previously the mask, face set,
and hide status layers were *always* allocated by sculpt mode.
Here are a few basic tests when masking and face sets are not used:
| Test | Before | After |
| Subsurf Modifier | 148 ms | 126 ms |
| Sculpt Overlay Extraction | 24 ms every redraw | 0 ms |
| Memory usage | 252 MB | 236 MB |
I wouldn't expect any difference when they are used though.
The code changes are mostly just making sculpt features safe for when
the layers aren't stored, and some changes to the conversion to and
from the hide layers. Use of the ".hide_poly" attribute replaces testing
whether face sets are negative in many places.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15937
Replace `mesh_attributes`, `mesh_attributes_for_write` and the point
cloud versions with methods on the `Mesh` and `PointCloud` types.
This makes them friendlier to use and improves readability.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15907
Use `verts` instead of `vertices` and `polys` instead of `polygons`
in the API added in 05952aa94d. This aligns better with
existing naming where the shorter names are much more common.
For copy-on-write, we want to share attribute arrays between meshes
where possible. Mutable pointers like `Mesh.mvert` make that difficult
by making ownership vague. They also make code more complex by adding
redundancy.
The simplest solution is just removing them and retrieving layers from
`CustomData` as needed. Similar changes have already been applied to
curves and point clouds (e9f82d3dc7, 410a6efb74). Removing use of
the pointers generally makes code more obvious and more reusable.
Mesh data is now accessed with a C++ API (`Mesh::edges()` or
`Mesh::edges_for_write()`), and a C API (`BKE_mesh_edges(mesh)`).
The CoW changes this commit makes possible are described in T95845
and T95842, and started in D14139 and D14140. The change also simplifies
the ongoing mesh struct-of-array refactors from T95965.
**RNA/Python Access Performance**
Theoretically, accessing mesh elements with the RNA API may become
slower, since the layer needs to be found on every random access.
However, overhead is already high enough that this doesn't make a
noticible differenc, and performance is actually improved in some
cases. Random access can be up to 10% faster, but other situations
might be a bit slower. Generally using `foreach_get/set` are the best
way to improve performance. See the differential revision for more
discussion about Python performance.
Cycles has been updated to use raw pointers and the internal Blender
mesh types, mostly because there is no sense in having this overhead
when it's already compiled with Blender. In my tests this roughly
halves the Cycles mesh creation time (0.19s to 0.10s for a 1 million
face grid).
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15488
These few lines making a copy of the final mesh were confusing.
The goal (I'm fairly certain) is to make sure the cage mesh and final
mesh aren't shared when applying the vertex coordinates to the final
mesh. This can be done more simply though, in a way that avoids
duplicating the final mesh if it already isn't shared.
This works well in some basic tests with different modifiers. Though
I doubt it was really a bottleneck anywhere, simplifying the modifier
stack internals is always nice.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15814
In all these cases, it was clear that the layer values were set right
after the layer was created anyway. So there's no point in using
calloc or setting the values to zero first.
See 25237d2625 for more info.
If a "rest_position" attribute already existed, potentiall with another
type, the next name "rest_position.001" would be used, which might
even conflict with a name on another domain. Use the C++ attribute
API instead, which has more standard/predictable behavior.
When allocating new `CustomData` layers, often we do redundant
initialization of arrays. For example, it's common that values are
allocated, set to their default value, and then set to some other
value. This is wasteful, and it negates the benefits of optimizations
to the allocator like D15082. There are two reasons for this. The
first is array-of-structs storage that makes it annoying to initialize
values manually, and the second is confusing options in the Custom Data
API. This patch addresses the latter.
The `CustomData` "alloc type" options are rearranged. Now, besides
the options that use existing layers, there are two remaining:
* `CD_SET_DEFAULT` sets the default value.
* Usually zeroes, but for colors this is white (how it was before).
* Should be used when you add the layer but don't set all values.
* `CD_CONSTRUCT` refers to the "default construct" C++ term.
* Only necessary or defined for non-trivial types like vertex groups.
* Doesn't do anything for trivial types like `int` or `float3`.
* Should be used every other time, when all values will be set.
The attribute API's `AttributeInit` types are updated as well.
To update code, replace `CD_CALLOC` with `CD_SET_DEFAULT` and
`CD_DEFAULT` with `CD_CONSTRUCT`. This doesn't cause any functional
changes yet. Follow-up commits will change to avoid initializing
new layers where the correctness is clear.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15617
A mesh wrapper might be being accessed for read-only from one thread
while another thread converts the wrapper type to something else.
The proposes solution is to defer assignment of the mesh wrapper
type until the wrapper is fully converted. The good thing about this
approach is that it does not introduce extra synchronization (and,
potentially, evaluation pipeline stalls). The downside is that it
might not work with all possible wrapper types in the future. If a
wrapper type which does not clear data separation is ever added in
the future we will re-consider the threading safety then.
Unfortunately, some changes outside of the mesh wrapper file are
to be made to allow "incremental" construction of the mesh prior
changing its wrapper type.
Unfortunately, there is no simplified file which demonstrates the
issue. It was investigated using Heist production file checked at
the revision 1228: `pro/lib/char/einar/einar.shading.blend`. The
repro case is simple: tab into edit mode, possibly few times.
The gist is that there several surface deform and shrinkwrap
modifiers which uses the same target. While one of them is building
BVH tree (which changes wrapper type) the other one accesses it for
read-only via `BKE_mesh_wrapper_vert_coords_copy_with_mat4()`.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15424
Curves that are attached to a surface can now follow the surface when
it is modified using shape keys or modifiers (but not when the original
surface is deformed in edit or sculpt mode).
The surface is allowed to be changed in any way that keeps uv maps
intact. So deformation is allowed, but also some topology changes like
subdivision.
The following features are added:
* A new `Deform Curves on Surface` node, which deforms curves with
attachment information based on the surface object and uv map set
in the properties panel.
* A new `Add Rest Position` checkbox in the shape keys panel. When checked,
a new `rest_position` vector attribute is added to the mesh before shape
keys and modifiers are applied. This is necessary to support proper
deformation of the curves, but can also be used for other purposes.
* The `Add > Curve > Empty Hair` operator now sets up a simple geometry
nodes setup that deforms the hair. It also makes sure that the rest
position attribute is added to the surface.
* A new `Object (Attach Curves to Surface)` operator in the `Set Parent To`
(ctrl+P) menu, which attaches existing curves to the surface and sets the
surface object as parent.
Limitations:
* Sculpting the procedurally deformed curves will be implemented separately.
* The `Deform Curves on Surface` node is not generic and can only be used
for one specific purpose currently. We plan to generalize this more in the
future by adding support by exposing more inputs and/or by turning it into
a node group.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14864
Instancing with geometry nodes uses just the evaluated Mesh, and ignores the
Object that it came from. That meant that it would try to look up the subsurf
modifier on the instancer object which does not have the subsurf modifier.
Instead of storing a session UUID and looking up the modifier data, store a
point to the subsurf modifier runtime data. Unlike the modifier data, this
runtime data is preserved across depsgraph CoW. It must be for the subdiv
descriptor contained in it to stay valid along with the draw cache.
As a bonus, this moves various Mesh_Runtime variables into the subsurf runtime
data, reducing memory usage for meshes not using subdivision surfaces.
Also fixes T98693, issues with subdivision level >= 8 due to integer overflow.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15184
This makes changes to the opensubdiv module to support additional vertex data
besides the vertex position, that is smootly interpolated the same way. This is
different than varying data which is interpolated linearly.
Fixes T96596: wrong generated texture coordinates with GPU subdivision. In that
bug lazy subdivision would not interpolate orcos.
Later on, this implementation can also be used to remove the modifier stack
mechanism where modifiers are evaluated a second time for orcos, which is messy
and inefficient. But that's a more risky change, this is just the part to fix
the bug in 3.2.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14973
Headers should only include other headers when absolutely necessary,
to avoid unnecessary dependencies and increasing compile times.
To make this change simpler, three DerivedMesh functions with a single
use were removed.
The crash is caused as the subdivision wrapper does not have loop
normals, which are generally computed at the end of the modifier stack
evaluation via `mesh_calc_modifier_final_normals`. (Note that they are
initially computed, but deleted by the subdivision wrapper creation.)
This records in the mesh runtime whether loop normals should have been
computed and computes them alongside the subdivision wrapper.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14489
The "PROP" in the name reflects its generic status, and removing
"LOOP" makes sense because it is no longer associated with just
mesh face corners. In general the goal is to remove extra semantic
meaning from the custom data types.
This seems to serve no purpose anymore, I don't see anywhere that
CD_MFACE is requested for modifier evaluation, and it's confusing
to have this in this final normals computation function.
Found while looking into D14579.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14580
The mechanism to instance meshes when there are no modifiers did not take
into account that modifiers might get re-evaluated from an operator that
requests loop normals. Now check for that case and no longer use the
instance then.
In the future, a better solution may be to compute loop normals on demand
as is already done for poly and vertex normals, but that would be a big
change.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14579
The issue was uncovered by the 0f89bcdbeb, but the root cause goes
into a much earlier design violation happened in the code: the modifier
evaluation function is modifying input mesh, which is not something
what is ever expected.
Bring code closer to the older state where such modification is only
done for the object in edit mode.
---
From own tests works seems to work fine, but extra eyes and testing
is needed.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14191
New code from the vertex normal refactor cfa53e0fbe combined with older code
from 592759e3d6 that disabled instancing for custom normals and autosmooth
meant that instancing was always disabled.
However we do not need to disable instancing for custom normals and autosmooth
at all, this can be shared between instances just fine.