* Moved the context handling stuff into gpencil_utils.c
* Moved the datablock and layer operators out into their own file too. Again,
these weren't related to the other stuff that much
* Split the GPencil to Curves operator out into its own file (gpencil_convert.c).
This was quite a massive blob of code (48kb) that was not that related to the
other operators still in that file (gpencil_edit.c)
This merge-commit brings in a number of new features and workflow/UI improvements for
working with Grease Pencil. While these were originally targetted at improving
the workflow for creating 3D storyboards in Blender using the Grease Pencil,
many of these changes should also prove useful in other workflows too.
The main highlights here are:
1) It is now possible to edit Grease Pencil strokes
- Use D Tab, or toggle the "Enable Editing" toggles in the Toolbar/Properties regions
to enter "Stroke Edit Mode". In this mode, many common editing tools will
operate on Grease Pencil stroke points instead.
- Tools implemented include Select, Select All/Border/Circle/Linked/More/Less,
Grab, Rotate, Scale, Bend, Shear, To Sphere, Mirror, Duplicate, Delete.
- Proportional Editing works when using the transform tools
2) Grease Pencil stroke settings can now be animated
NOTE: Currently drivers don't work, but if time allows, this may still be
added before the release.
3) Strokes can be drawn with "filled" interiors, using a separate set of
colour/opacity settings to the ones used for the lines themselves.
This makes use of OpenGL filled polys, which has the limitation of only
being able to fill convex shapes. Some artifacts may be visible on concave
shapes (e.g. pacman's mouth will be overdrawn)
4) "Volumetric Strokes" - An alternative drawing technique for stroke drawing
has been added which draws strokes as a series of screen-aligned discs.
While this was originally a partial experimental technique at getting better
quality 3D lines, the effects possible using this technique were interesting
enough to warrant making this a dedicated feature. Best results when partial
opacity and large stroke widths are used.
5) Improved Onion Skinning Support
- Different colours can be selected for the before/after ghosts. To do so,
enable the "colour wheel" toggle beside the Onion Skinning toggle, and set
the colours accordingly.
- Different numbers of ghosts can be shown before/after the current frame
6) Grease Pencil datablocks are now attached to the scene by default instead of
the active object.
- For a long time, the object-attachment has proved to be quite problematic
for users to keep track of. Now that this is done at scene level, it is
easier for most users to use.
- An exception for old files (and for any addons which may benefit from object
attachment instead), is that if the active object has a Grease Pencil datablock,
that will be used instead.
- It is not currently possible to choose object-attachment from the UI, but
it is simple to do this from the console instead, by doing:
context.active_object.grease_pencil = bpy.data.grease_pencil["blah"]
7) Various UI Cleanups
- The layers UI has been cleaned up to use a list instead of the nested-panels
design. Apart from saving space, this is also much nicer to look at now.
- The UI code is now all defined in Python. To support this, it has been necessary
to add some new context properties to make it easier to access these settings.
e.g. "gpencil_data" for the datablock
"active_gpencil_layer" and "active_gpencil_frame" for active data,
"editable_gpencil_strokes" for the strokes that can be edited
- The "stroke placement/alignment" settings (previously "Drawing Settings" at the
bottom of the Grease Pencil panel in the Properties Region) is now located in
the toolbar. These were more toolsettings than properties for how GPencil got drawn.
- "Use Sketching Sessions" has been renamed "Continuous Drawing", as per a
suggestion for an earlier discussion on developer.blender.org
- By default, the painting operator will wait for a mouse button to be pressed
before it starts creating the stroke. This is to make it easier to include
this operator in various toolbars/menus/etc. To get it immediately starting
(as when you hold down DKEy to draw), set "wait_for_input" to False.
- GPencil Layers can be rearranged in the "Grease Pencil" mode of the Action Editor
- Toolbar panels have been added to all the other editors which support these.
8) Pie menus for quick-access to tools
A set of experimental pie menus has been included for quick access to many
tools and settings. It is not necessary to use these to get things done,
but they have been designed to help make certain common tasks easier.
- Ctrl-D = The main pie menu. Reveals tools in a context sensitive and
spatially stable manner.
- D Q = "Quick Settings" pie. This allows quick access to the active
layer's settings. Notably, colours, thickness, and turning
onion skinning on/off.
- It's like sketch mode for lines, but you're specifying line knots
by clicking on position you want to add next knot.
- View can be navigated between knots creation.
- Holding LMB down and sliding mouse will lead to new segment preview
so it can be created more accurate.
Additional change: fixed GP->Bezier conversion. Last point used to
be ignored in this operator.
- Implement own undo stack for grease pencil, so now there'll be no keymaps conflicts.
- Supported redo's during sketch session.
- Get rid of flag stored in Globals -- use undo stack to check if grease pencil session is active.
Causing a flurry of refresh file prompts post-commit,
Confusing local diffs and causing merge conflicts,
Stating the obvious; redundant and useless...
We shall not miss thou, blasted expand $keywords$
* Convert operator - can currently be used to convert active Grease Pencil layer to curves. I had a look at making this part of a special "curve sketching" macro, though it seems that we cannot have modal operators coming first in a macro (and also cannot specify operator calling modes)
* Delete Active Frame operator - does what its name say it does. It deletes the active frame for the active layer of Grease Pencil sketches.
* Smooth strokes can now be drawn again, with normal (i.e. reasonably speedy feedback again).
Previously slow drawing was caused by a bad notifier being used - the full screen was redrawn each time instead of just the relevant region. Now, only the relevant region is redrawn while drawing, and a proper flush is done for the rest of the screen at the end.
* Made drawing straight lines a proper drawing 'mode' for Grease Pencil now. Use the Ctrl-D-LMB hotkey to draw straight lines in this way. The (buffer) line drawn now will accurately represent the final straight line instead of drawing the freehand path taken as before.
Restored the UI for access to the GP layers.
There are still a few minor bugs here:
* Wrong icons on the toggles - even when they're enabled, they only show a single state
* The ID-template doesn't seem to be showing up. Dunno what's going wrong there...
This commit is the start of the new Grease Pencil implementation. I've just ported the old code to make it work with operators, and to store its data in Grease-Pencil datablocks.
However, this is currently still really buggy, with only the barebones of the drawing/creation tools restored (no UI panels, no options). To use (not recommended), use D+S+move_mouse (and click when finished) for now. There are some rather serious event handling errors going on here...
Patch from Joshua, converting Grease Pencil to 2.5.
All GP data now is an ID block, allowing re-use, link and append.
For better contextual control within 2.5, these GP ID's will get
linked to actual data, like NodeTrees, Scenes, Images or Objects.
That will ensure Undo works, and opens up exciting new use cases
as well. :)
Patch note: on reading files, GPencils linked from editors will
get moved to the main library, using standard naming (indicating
where it was used), and with "Fake User" set. That way the user
can manually relink the pencils where appropriate.
We can check on just linking GP to some default, like 3d window
pencils to Scene? Nice to experiment with.
Notes for Joshua:
- for reading old GPencil, it has to use old code as well, meaning
to tread data as "indirect data, within another ID".
- Saving ID data means the chunk in file BHead needs the ID_GD code,
and not "DATA", which indicates 'indirect data'. That's the file
format spec.
- I've added do_versions_gpencil_2_50(), feel free to further tweak
things here, like linking things to scene or so.
- Formerly GPencil saved 2.50 files won't convert gpencil
GPencil code back!
Joshua will probably take this further. I've added XXX notes
where fixes are required. Also note that ED_gpencil.h has
all old exports, which is probably not needed, most can go
to gpencil_intern.h
Also added Makefile fixes for sculpt
