For an detailed user-level description of new features see the following blogpost:
http://code.blender.org/index.php/2012/05/node-editing-tweaks/
TL;DR:
* Frame node gets more usable bounding-box behavior
* Node resizing has helpful mouse cursor indicators and works on all borders
* Node selection/active colors are themeable independently
* Customizable background colors for nodes (useful for frames visual
distinction).
`````|````` | | | ..''''
| | | |______ .''
| | | | ..'
| | |_______ |___________ ....''
merge to TRUNK!
* The old compositor is still available (Debug Menu: 200)
This commit was brought to you by:
Developers:
* Monique Dewanchand
* Jeroen Bakker
* Dalai Felinto
* Lukas Tönne
Review:
* Brecht van Lommel
Testers:
* Nate Wiebe
* Wolfgang Faehnle
* Carlo Andreacchio
* Daniel Salazar
* Artur Mag
* Christian Krupa
* Francesco Siddi
* Dan McGrath
* Bassam Kurdali
But mostly by the community:
Gold:
Joshua Faulkner
Michael Tiemann
Francesco Paglia
Blender Guru
Blender Developers Fund
Silver:
Pablo Vazquez
Joel Heethaar
Amrein Olivier
Ilias Karasavvidis
Thomas Kumlehn
Sebastian Koenig
Hannu Hoffrén
Benjamin Dansie
Fred M'ule
Michel Vilain
Bradley Cathey
Gianmichele Mariani
Gottfried Hofmann
Bjørnar Frøyse
Valentijn Bruning
Paul Holmes
Clemens Rudolph
Juris Graphix
David Strebel
Ronan Zeegers
François Tarlier
Felipe Andres Esquivel Reed
Olaf Beckman
Jesus Alberto Olmos Linares
Kajimba
Maria Figueiredo
Alexandr Galperin
Francesco Siddi
Julio Iglesias Lopez
Kjartan Tysdal
Thomas Torfs
Film Works
Teruyuki Nakamura
Roger Luethi
Benoit Bolsee
Stefan Abrahamsen
Andreas Mattijat
Xavier Bouchoux
Blender 3D Graphics and Animation
Henk Vostermans
Daniel Blanco Delgado
BlenderDay/2011
Bradley Cathey
Matthieu Dupont de Dinechin
Gianmichele Mariani
Jérôme Scaillet
Bronze (Ivo Grigull, Dylan Urquidi, Philippe Derungs, Phil Beauchamp, Bruce Parrott, Mathieu Quiblier, Daniel Martinez, Leandro Inocencio, Lluc Romaní Brasó,
Jonathan Williamson, Michael Ehlen, Karlis Stigis, Dreamsteep, Martin Lindelöf, Filippo Saracino, Douwe van der Veen, Olli Äkräs, Bruno D'Arcangeli,
Francisco Sedrez Warmling, Watchmike.ca, peter lener, Matteo Novellino, Martin Kirsch, Austars Schnore, KC Elliott, Massimiliano Puliero, Karl Stein,
Wood Design Studios, Omer Khan, Jyrki Kanto, Michał Krupa, Lars Brubaker, Neil Richmond, Adam Kalisz, Robert Garlington, Ian Wilson, Carlo Andreacchio,
Jeremias Boos, Robert Holcomb, Gabriel Zöller, Robert Cude, Natibel de Leon, Nathan Turnage, Nicolas Vergnes, Philipp Kleinhenz, Norman Hartig, Louis Kreusel,
Christopher Taylor, Giovanni Remondini, Daniel Rentzsch, Nico Partipilo, Thomas Ventresco, Johannes Schwarz, Александр Коротеев, Brendon Harvey,
Marcelo G. Malheiros, Marius Giurgi, Richard Burns, Perttu Iso-Metsälä, Steve Bazin, Radoslav Borisov, Yoshiyuki Shida, Julien Guigner, Andrew Hunter,
Philipp Oeser, Daniel Thul, Thobias Johansson, Mauro Bonecchi, Georg Piorczynski, Sebastian Michailidis, L M Weedy, Gen X, Stefan Hinze, Nicolò Zubbini,
Erik Pusch, Rob Scott, Florian Koch, Charles Razack, Adrian Baker, Oliver Villar Diz, David Revoy, Julio Iglesias Lopez, Coen Spoor, Carlos Folch,
Joseph Christie, Victor Hernández García, David Mcsween, James Finnerty, Cory Kruckenberg, Giacomo Graziosi, Olivier Saraja, Lars Brubaker, Eric Hudson,
Johannes Schwarz, David Elguea, Marcus Schulderinsky, Karel De Bruijn, Lucas van Wijngaarden, Stefano Ciarrocchi, Mehmet Eribol, Thomas Berglund, Zuofei Song,
Dylan Urquidi )
This operator still had some built-in assumptions about the connectivity of input/output sockets (1-to-n in all current node systems). For future node systems (e.g. flow-based particles) and for general customizable nodes the operator is now fully symmetric and supports all kinds of connectivity limits (1:1, 1:n, m:1, m:n).
The operator data can also store a list of node links as opposed to a single link now, so that multiple links can be redirected at once. Holding the CTRL key when clicking a socket, all links from/to that socket are detached and can be moved to a different socket. This is useful for quickly appending a node without moving every individual link.
This was originally reimplemented as part of the socket selection feature, but since selecting a socket necessarily also selected the owning node, it messes with the manual user selection of nodes too much (and doesn't add any additional usability).
* Removed the struct_type identifier from sockets completely. Any specialization of socket types can be done by using separate collections in RNA and customized socket draw callbacks in node type. Sockets themselves are pure data inputs/outputs now. Possibly the sock->storage data could also be removed, but this will change anyway with id properties in custom nodes.
* Replaced the direct socket button draw calls by extra callbacks in node types. This allows nodes to draw sockets in specialized ways without referring to the additional struct_type identifier. Default is simply drawing the socket default_value button, only file output node overrides this atm.
* File output node slots now use a separate file sub-path in their storage data, instead of using the socket name. That way the path is an actual PROP_FILEPATH property and it works better with the UI list template (name property is local to the data struct).
* Node draw contexts for options on the node itself and detail buttons in the sidebar now have an extra context pointer "node" (uiLayoutSetContextPointer). This can be used to bind operator buttons to a specific node, instead of having to rely on the active/selected node(s) or making weak links via node name. Compare to modifiers and logic bricks, they use the same feature.
* Added another operator for reordering custom input slots in the file output node.
This feature did have a number of flaws and caused some controversy, so removal is the better option. Hiding nodes without prior connections would just hide all the sockets, leaving an unusable node. Better way is to use the ctrl+h shortcut to explicitly hide unused sockets when necessary.
--debug
--debug-ffmpeg
--debug-python
--debug-events
--debug-wm
This makes debug output easier to read - event debug prints would flood output too much before.
For convenience:
--debug-all turns all debug flags on (works as --debug did before).
also removed some redundant whitespace in debug prints and prefix some prints with __func__ to give some context.
Socket selection is indicated by a simple white highlight circle.
Multiple inputs can be selected by holding SHIFTKEY (just like regular node select). Only one output socket can be selected at a time for each node, but several outputs in different nodes are allowed.
The auto-connect operator will prefer selected sockets on nodes for creating links. If either the output or input side have no selected sockets it will fall back to the previous behavior of chosing 'best' sockets first (colors, then vectors, then values). This could be improved in the future, but is out of scope here.
1) Old CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_FILE and CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_MULTI_FILE have been merged,
only CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_FILE remains. All functions renamed accordingly.
2) do_versions code for converting single-file output nodes into multi-file
output nodes. If a Z buffer input is used, the node is made into a multilayer
exr with two inputs. (see below). Also re-identifies multi-file output nodes
with the CMP_NODE_OUTPUT_FILE type.
3) "Global" format is stored in node now. By default this overrides any
per-socket settings.
4) Multilayer EXR output implemented. When M.EXR format is selected for node
format, all socket format details are ignored. Socket names are used for layer
names.
5) Input buffer types are used as-is when possible, i.e. stored as B/W, RGB or
RGBA. In regular file output the format dictates the number of actual channels,
so the CompBuf is typechecked to the right type first. For multilayer EXR the
number of channels is more flexible, so an input buffer will store only the
channels it actually uses.
6) The editor socket type is updated from linked sockets as an indicator of the
actual data written to files. This may not be totally accurate for regular file
output though, due to restrictions of format setting.
There are a number of features that use a kind of "internal linking" in nodes:
1. muting
2. delete + reconnect (restore link to/from node after delete)
3. the new detach operator (same as 2, but don't delete the node)
The desired behavior in all cases is the same: find a sensible mapping of inputs-to-outputs of a node. In the case of muting these links are displayed in red on the node itself. For the other operators they are used to relink connections, such that one gets the best possible ongoing link between previous up- and downstream nodes.
Muting previously used a complicated callback system to ensure consistent behavior in the editor as well as execution in compositor, shader cpu/gpu and texture nodes. This has been greatly simplified by moving the muting step into the node tree localization functions. Any muted node is now bypassed using the generalized nodeInternalRelink function and then removed from the local tree. This way the internal execution system doesn't have to deal with muted nodes at all, as if they are non-existent.
The same function is also used by the delete_reconnect and the new links_detach operators (which work directly in the editor node tree). Detaching nodes is currently keymapped as a translation variant (macro operator): pressing ALTKEY + moving node first detaches and then continues with regular transform operator. The default key is ALT+DKEY though, instead ALT+GKEY, since the latter is already used for the ungroup operator.
Unlike the existing file output node this node has an arbitrary number of
possible input slots. It has a base path string that can be set to a general
base folder. Every input socket then uses its name as an extension of the base
path for file organization. This can include further subfolders on top of the
base path. Example:
Base path: '/home/user/myproject'
Input 1: 'Compo'
Input 2: 'Diffuse/'
Input 3: 'details/Normals'
would create output files
in /home/user/myproject: Compo0001.png, Compo0002.png, ...
in /home/user/myproject/Diffuse: 0001.png, 0002.png, ... (no filename base
given)
in /home/user/myproject/details: Normals0001.png, Normals0002.png, ...
Most settings for the node can be found in the sidebar (NKEY). New input sockets
can be added with the "Add Input" button. There is a list of input sockets and
below that the details for each socket can be changed, including the sub-path
and filename. Sockets can be removed here as well. By default each socket uses
the render settings file output format, but each can use its own format if
necessary.
To my knowledge this is the first node making use of such dynamic sockets in
trunk. So this is also a design test, other nodes might use this in the future.
Adding operator buttons on top of a node is a bit unwieldy atm, because all node
operators generally work on selected and/or active node(s). The operator button
would therefore either have to make sure the node is activated before the
operator is called (block callback maybe?) OR it has to store the node name
(risky, weak reference). For now it is only used in the sidebar, where only the
active node's buttons are displayed.
Also adds a new struct_type value to bNodeSocket, in order to distinguish
different socket types with the same data type (file inputs are SOCK_RGBA color
sockets). Would be nicer to use data type only for actual data evaluation, but
used in too many places, this works ok for now.
Added option display_type to WM_operator_properties_filesel which defines which file
display type (short/list/icons/default) should be used for file browser.
All current operators are using FILE_DEFAULTDISPLAY display type which means display
type will still be calculated based on type of opening file and user preferences
settings. Recover Auto Save operator is now using long display type so file date can
easily be checked now.
Reviewed by Andrea, thanks!
This commit extends limit of ID and objects to 64 (it means 63 meaning
characters and 1 for zero-terminator). CustomData layers names are also
extended.
Changed DNA structures and all places where length constants were hardcoded.
All names which are "generating" from ID block should be limited by MAX_ID_NAME-2,
all non-id names now has got own define called MAX_NAME which should be used all
over for non-id names to make further name migration stuff easier.
All name fields in DNA now have comment with constant which corresponds to
hardcoded numeric value which should make it easier to further update this
limits or even switch to non-hardcoded values in DNA.
Special thanks to Campbell who helped figuring out some issues and helped a lot
in finding all cases where hardcoded valued were still used in code.
Both of forwards and backwards compatibility is stored with blender versions newer
than January 5, 2011. Older versions had issue with placing null-terminator to
DNA strings on file load which will lead to some unpredictable behavior or even
crashes.
Instead of generally hiding all unused sockets in collapsed mode, the sockets now have a new explicit flag SOCK_AUTO_HIDDEN, which is only toggled when the hide_toggle operator is called. This way the auto-hidden sockets stay as they are when nodes are duplicated etc. The new flag is necessary to distinguish between manually hidden sockets (via hide_sockets_toggle operator) and automatically hidden sockets and restore the node state when unhiding a node.