Full log is here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.66/Usability#Matcap_in_3D_viewport
Implementation notes:
- Matcaps are an extension of Solid draw mode, and don't show in other drawmodes.
(It's mostly intended to aid modeling/sculpt)
- By design, Matcaps are a UI feature, and only stored locally for the UI itself, and
won't affect rendering or materials.
- Currently a set of 16 (GPL licensed) Matcaps have been compiled into Blender.
It doesn't take memory or cpu time, until you use it.
- Brush Icons and Matcaps use same code now, and only get generated/allocated on
actually using it (instead of on startup).
- The current set might get new or different images still, based on user feedback.
- Matcap images are 512x512 pixels, so each image takes 1 Mb memory. Unused matcaps get
freed immediately. The Matcap icon previews (128x128 pixels) stay in memory.
- Loading own matcap image files will be added later. That needs design and code work
to get it stable and memory-friendly.
- The GLSL code uses the ID PreviewImage for matcaps. I tested it using the existing
Material previews, which has its limits... especially for textured previews the
normal-mapped matcap won't look good.
It introduces a new (py-extendable and registrable) RNA type, UIList (roughly similar to Panel one), which currently contains only "standard" list's scroll pos and size (but may be expended to include e.g. some filtering data, etc.). This now makes lists completely independent from Panels!
This UIList has a draw_item callback which allows to customize items' drawing from python, that all addons can now use. Incidentally, this also greatly simplifies the C code of this widget, as we do not code any "special case" here anymore!
To make all this work, other changes were also necessary:
* Now all buttons (uiBut struct) have a 'custom_data' void pointer, used currently to store the uiList struct associated with a given uiLayoutListBox.
* DynamicPaintSurface now exposes a new bool, use_color_preview (readonly), saying whether that surface has some 3D view preview data or not.
* UILayout class has now four new (static) functions, to get the actual icon of any RNA object (important e.g. with materials or textures), and to get an enum item's UI name, description and icon.
* UILayout's label() func now takes an optional 'icon_value' integer parameter, which if not zero will override the 'icon' one (mandatory to use "custom" icons as generated for material/texture/... previews).
Note: not sure whether we should add that one to all UILayout's prop funcs?
Note: will update addons using template list asap.
This changes how textures are accessed from Brushes, with the intention of simplifying
the workflow, and reducing the amount of clicking. Rather than the previous texture slots
(which didn't work as a stack anyway), brushes now have a single texture linked. Rather
than taking time having to set up your slots in advance, you can now select and change
textures directly as you sculpt/paint on the fly. For complex brushes, node textures can
be used, or for fast access, it's easy to make a duplicate of your brush with the texture
you like and assign a hotkey.
Brush textures can now be chosen from a new Textures panel in the brush tool
properties - click on the thumbnail to open a texture selector. This is done using a new
variation on the ID template - the number of rows and columns to display in the popup
can be customised in the UI scripts.
Editors Modules
* render/ module added in editors, moved the preview render code there and
also shading related operators.
* physics/ module made more consistent with other modules. renaming files,
making a single physics_ops.c for operators and keymaps. Also move all
particle related operators here now.
* space_buttons/ now should have only operators relevant to the buttons
specificially.
Updates & Notifiers
* Material/Texture/World/Lamp can now be passed to DAG_id_flush_update,
which will go back to a callback in editors. Eventually these should
be in the depsgraph itself, but for now this gives a unified call for
doing updates.
* GLSL materials are now refreshed on changes. There's still various
cases missing,
* Preview icons now hook into this system, solving various update cases
that were missed before.
* Also fixes issue in my last commit, where some preview would not render,
problem is avoided in the new system.
Icon Rendering
* On systems with support for non-power of two textures, an OpenGL texture
is now used instead of glDrawPixels. This avoids problems with icons get
clipped on region borders. On my Linux desktop, this gives an 1.1x speedup,
and on my Mac laptop a 2.3x speedup overall in redrawing the full window,
with the default setup. The glDrawPixels implementation on Mac seems to
have a lot of overhread.
* Preview icons are now drawn using proper premul alpha, and never faded so
you can see them clearly.
* Also tried to fix issue with texture node preview rendering, globals can't
be used with threads reliably.
- basic drawing of list and thumbnail view (switchable through 'favourits' icon in header)
- selection of files and directories (bookmarks) works with the RMB (right mouse button)
- load operator for files still unstable (no check for correct file type) and incomplete. (WM_operator_free missing)
immediate TODOS:
- fix load file operator
- finish drawing of buttons in header
- drawing of detailed list with all file info.
- finish selection and execute operators (LMB and MMB execute)
later todos:
- parent dir
- keymap for all the shortcuts
- append/link and databrowse
- ...
Part 3/3: new icons
- Icon set done by jendrzych! Great job!
- cleaned up unnecessary includes and removed commented out code
- preview icons (for materials, textures,..) don't work yet, have to be ported to new event system
