As described in T91186, this commit moves mesh vertex normals into a
contiguous array of float vectors in a custom data layer, how face
normals are currently stored.
The main interface is documented in `BKE_mesh.h`. Vertex and face
normals are now calculated on-demand and cached, retrieved with an
"ensure" function. Since the logical state of a mesh is now "has
normals when necessary", they can be retrieved from a `const` mesh.
The goal is to use on-demand calculation for all derived data, but
leave room for eager calculation for performance purposes (modifier
evaluation is threaded, but viewport data generation is not).
**Benefits**
This moves us closer to a SoA approach rather than the current AoS
paradigm. Accessing a contiguous `float3` is much more efficient than
retrieving data from a larger struct. The memory requirements for
accessing only normals or vertex locations are smaller, and at the
cost of more memory usage for just normals, they now don't have to
be converted between float and short, which also simplifies code
In the future, the remaining items can be removed from `MVert`,
leaving only `float3`, which has similar benefits (see T93602).
Removing the combination of derived and original data makes it
conceptually simpler to only calculate normals when necessary.
This is especially important now that we have more opportunities
for temporary meshes in geometry nodes.
**Performance**
In addition to the theoretical future performance improvements by
making `MVert == float3`, I've done some basic performance testing
on this patch directly. The data is fairly rough, but it gives an idea
about where things stand generally.
- Mesh line primitive 4m Verts: 1.16x faster (36 -> 31 ms),
showing that accessing just `MVert` is now more efficient.
- Spring Splash Screen: 1.03-1.06 -> 1.06-1.11 FPS, a very slight
change that at least shows there is no regression.
- Sprite Fright Snail Smoosh: 3.30-3.40 -> 3.42-3.50 FPS, a small
but observable speedup.
- Set Position Node with Scaled Normal: 1.36x faster (53 -> 39 ms),
shows that using normals in geometry nodes is faster.
- Normal Calculation 1.6m Vert Cube: 1.19x faster (25 -> 21 ms),
shows that calculating normals is slightly faster now.
- File Size of 1.6m Vert Cube: 1.03x smaller (214.7 -> 208.4 MB),
Normals are not saved in files, which can help with large meshes.
As for memory usage, it may be slightly more in some cases, but
I didn't observe any difference in the production files I tested.
**Tests**
Some modifiers and cycles test results need to be updated with this
commit, for two reasons:
- The subdivision surface modifier is not responsible for calculating
normals anymore. In master, the modifier creates different normals
than the result of the `Mesh` normal calculation, so this is a bug
fix.
- There are small differences in the results of some modifiers that
use normals because they are not converted to and from `short`
anymore.
**Future improvements**
- Remove `ModifierTypeInfo::dependsOnNormals`. Code in each modifier
already retrieves normals if they are needed anyway.
- Copy normals as part of a better CoW system for attributes.
- Make more areas use lazy instead of eager normal calculation.
- Remove `BKE_mesh_normals_tag_dirty` in more places since that is
now the default state of a new mesh.
- Possibly apply a similar change to derived face corner normals.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D12770
Remove `const` from pass-by-value parameters in function declarations.
The variables passed as parameters can never be modified by the function
anyway, so declaring them as `const` is meaningless. Having the
declaration there could confuse, especially as it suggests it does have
a meaning, training people to write meaningless code.
This will help detecting missing API changes. Those keywords were added
on classes which did not already use them. Also added missing
`accepts_object_type()` on NURBS reader.
Previously fluid simulation and Alembic modifiers had a dedicated function
to query the velocity for motion blur. Now use a more generic system where
those modifiers output a velocity attribute.
Advantages:
* Geometry and particle nodes can output velocity through the same mechanism,
or read the attribute coming from earlier modifiers.
* The velocity can be preserved through modifiers like subdivision surface or
auto smooth.
* USD and Alembic previously only output velocity from fluid simulation, now
they work with velocity from other sources too.
* Simplifies the code for renderers like Cycles and exporters like
Alembic and USD.
This breaks compatibility:
* External renderers and exporters accessing these velocities through the
Python API now need to use the attribute instead.
* Existing modifier node setups that create an attribute named "velocity"
will render differently with motion blur.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D12305
Add an option to disable Alembic vertex interpolation.
Bump subversion from 5 to 6.
Alembic stores mesh samples at specific time keys; when a frame in
Blender maps to a timecode between two samples, Blender will interpolate
the mesh vertex positions. This interpolation only happens when the mesh
has a constant topology, but sometimes this was not detected properly
when the vertices change order, but the number of mesh elements remains
the same. This would result in a mesh with jumbled up vertices (T71981).
With this patch, users have the ability to disable vertex interpolation.
An alternative would be to have better detection of topology changes,
but that that'll cause a considerable slowdown.
Maniphest Tasks: T71981
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D9041
This commit only moves code into the `blender::io::alembic` namespace,
it does not move `static` functions into an anonymous namespace.
No functional changes.
This moves the `alembic`, `avi`, `collada`, and `usd` modules into a common
`io` directory.
This also cleans up some `#include "../../{somedir}/{somefile}.h"` by
adding `../../io/{somedir}` to `CMakeLists.txt` and then just using
`#include "{somefile}.h"`.
No functional changes.
