- Image Node: after loading new file it didn't update the header name
- File-out Node: header color suggested there was only 1 'active', which
it isn't.
Apparently being so scroogish for cpu cycles makes crashes in Linux. I'll
add it on todo for later checks, but I need a windows or linux coder for
it!
For users: it might fix crashes when you have NodeTrees in Libraries.
- Icon previews for Images were created always for old files, which made
browsing (menus) incredible slow. Added a minor change in the flow, so
icons only get created when the user invokes loading images.
Andrea; you might check this, probably not al cases are covered yet?
- Compositor: the 'File Output' node now has a min/max frame for which it
writes files
- Compositor: fixed a very bad bug (even in 2.42a release) that made the
depsgraph for nodes not work... while editing, only the nodes that change
should be recalculated, but accidentally all of them were done each time.
Reports came in that Elephants Dream files crash on quit or loading other
files. Was caused by freeing Material Nodes, which was accessing memory
that potentially was just freed before (node->id). Apparently only Windows
really gives issues then, which is actually a good thing :)
- It saves a file with indicated type on each change, with number
appended denoting the current frame (like ANIM saving).
- Output filename button supports relative paths ("//")
- Shows optional preview image too
- For now, added a print on each file save as feedback
To make this option work nicely, changed the BKE_makepicstring() function
to have less globals inside, so it is more generic. Todo: allow amount of
digits in filenames to be set (to support files like tmp_123456.jpg)
* Combine RGBA
Basically the opposite of separate RGBA, brings 4 value channels into a single
RGBA image). Has interesting possibilities for reordering channels, when used
with separate RGBA!
* Dilate/Erode
Originally written by Brecht van Lommel, with some minor modifications and
tweaking by myself. Positive distances dilate, negative distances erode.
* I also added the 'value' field to the hue/saturation node. Minimal extra cost,
and can be handy.
The raytracer wasn't calling node shaders yet, so results showed only
shading for the base material.
This now works, but there's a conflict in the internal Blender shader that
makes recursive raytracing with nodes unpredictable. Basicaly the conflict
is that when a ray wants to shade a point, it should be able to check the
material for mirror properties, but this is undefined for node trees...
Probably we need to separate raytrace entirely from material shading. Is
a good topic for NodeShader 2.0, when we really split up materials in
shading components.
I'll add a note in the release log about this. Best results you get now
when you don't include mirror/ray-transp insde a node tree, in that case
a regular material mirror can render that material perfectly.
- Ztransp looked weird in Node previews, only showing the backfacing pixels
- previous change in preview.blend accidentally set camera clipping too low
for correct display of lamp preview
- refresh issue solved in preview when using Node shaders with ray-mirror
naming convention for Compositing:
- Render Result node -> Render Layers node (name only appears in Add menu)
- Compositor image -> Viewer Node image
I've also added a version patch (2.41 saved files only) to rename existing
"Compositor" Images.
The buttons uiBlock was stored in a Node, for retrieval of node buttons,
however that won't work when multiple windows show same Nodes.
Now implemented more correct unique Block names (as all over in UI), and
use that name to retrieve buttons with API call uiGetBlock().
Compositor:
Viewer Nodes inside of Groups now work too. To not frustrate interactive
speed, the following rules apply:
- Making a Group editable (or closing) doesn't signal recalculation of
composite
- clicking on an Input socket always checks changes and calulcates
- When there are Viewers inside an edited Group, Viewers in the main tree
are not executed.
Also added: a "hide unused sockets" icon in the header of Viewer nodes.
This allows cleanup of Groups, to prevent these sockets get reveiled.
This will free all Node output buffers, while compositing, when not needed
anymore. Saves a whole lotta memory, and will enable to use many many more
nodes (or high resolution images).
When multiple output nodes exist (Material), the active Output flag could
get copied and wasn't reset properly. Now the depenendency sorting code
ensures only 1 output node is the active output for execution.
This prevents eternal loops. It prints error message in console.
Note that the Shader nodes dont need this, since they're just executed in
presorted order. The compositing nodes use threading, with a call asking
for the next job... if this includes cyclic nodes, the 'next job' will
always return NULL.
For some reason I thought SDL thread handling would be much simpler... but
the migration to posix pthread went very smooth and painless. Less code
even, and I even notice a slight performance increase!
All threading code is still wrapped in blenlib/intern/threads.c
Only real change was making the callback functions to return void pointer,
instead of an int.
The mutex handling is also different... there's no test anymore if a
mutex was initialized, which is a bit confusing. But it appears to run
all fine still. :)
Nathan Letwory has been signalled already to provide the Windows pthread
library and make/scons linking. For MSVC we might need help from someone
else later though.
- Links now can be made between any socket type. The nodes recognize amount
of channels, and will convert types if needed.
Conversions from RGBA to 1 channel will use the 'RGB to BW' formula.
Also note that conversions only happen when required. So you can blur an
alpha channel, filter it, and put this in a 1-channel socket without any
conversion to happen, which saves memory & cpu time.
http://www.blender.org/bf/rt.jpg
The blur nodes don't accept Vector input yet... But filter does.
- RGB Curve Nodes now have the premultiply option resored, 2 x faster
- Fixed some confusing code in Node Group handling... much stabler now
- Texture Node
Allows to use any Blender Texture block as input for masks or color
blending. The texture node doesn't generate a real image, but adjusts to
the size as mapped with during an operation. So it won't work to use it
as Image input for Blur or Filter nodes.
Note; the Vector inputs for this node only work with manual input now!
- Translation Node
Give any image an offset in X or Y direction
For the Texture node to work, I needed to move the central 'pixel
processor' up one level... to allow differently sized images to merge
and allow 'procedural images' without size.
Temporal image of the day: http://www.blender.org/bf/rt.jpg
(NOTE: new include dependency in Render module, might need MSVC update!
It has to include the imbuf/intern/openexr/ directory in search path)
-> New Composite node: "Hue Saturation".
Works like the former 'post process' menu. There's no gamma, brightness or
multiply needed in this node, for that the Curves Node functions better.
-> Enabled Toolbox in Node editor
This now also replaces the SHIFT+A for adding nodes. The nodes are
automatically added to the menus, using the 'class' category from the
type definition.
Current classes are (compositor examples):
Inputs: RenderResult, Image
Outputs: Composite, Viewer
Color Ops: RGB Curves, Mix, Hue Saturation, AlphaOver
Vector Ops: Normal, Vector Curves, Map Value
Filters: Filter, Blur, VectorBlur
Convertors: ColorRamp, RGBtoBW, Separate RGBA, Separate HSVA, Set Alpha
Generators: RGB, Value, Time
Groups: the list of custom defined nodes
-> OpenEXR tile saving support
Created an API for for saving tile-based Images with an unlimited amount
of layers/channels. I've tested it for 'render result' now, with the idea
that this can (optionally) replace the current inserting of tiles in the
main result buffers. Especially with a lot of layers, the used memory for
these buffers can easily go into the 100s of megs.
Two other advantages:
- all 'render result' layers can be saved entirely in a single file, for
later use in compositing, also for animation output.
- on each render, per scene, a unique temp file can be stored, allowing
to re-use these temp files on starting Blender or loading files, showing
the last result of a render command.
The option is currently disabled, needs more work... but I had to commit
this because of the rest of the work I did!
-> Bug fix
The Image node didn't call an execute event when browsing another image.
using 1 line per part rendered. Might go back to 1 line again, but at this
moment I need the logs for debugging.
Same prints are active now for UI rendering. Just temporal :)
- a Group has Curve node inside
- this Group was re-used more times
- with threaded render activated
- and both groups executed on same time
Then the premultipy optimize table was created twice... causing memory
to confuse.
- Compositor now frees memory of buffers internally used in groups
immediately. This wasn't part of the event-based cache anyway
- New option: "Free Texture Images" (in render Output panel). This
frees after each render of each scene all images and mipmaps as
used by textures. As reference it prints total amount of MB freed.
- Render stage 'creating speed vectors' had no ESC checking yet
- Made drawing scanline updates during render draw 1 scanline less...
dunno, still hunting for weird opengl crashes.
- 3D preview render didn't properly skip sequence or composit render.
sockets were not used yet... now they're verified on read, and written
in socket stack data on adding new nodes.
Also the buttons in Nodes use these values now. Special request from
Nathan Vegdahl who seems to be messing around with my precious nodes! :)
You now can set a Preview panel in the Image window, to define a sub-rect
of an image to be processed. Works like the preview in 3D Window. Just
press SHIFT+P to get it activated. Very nice speedup!
This is how it works:
- The compositor still uses the scene image size (including % setting) for
Viewer or Composite output size
- If a preview exists, it calculates the cropped rect from its position
in the Image window, and stores that in the Scene render data
- On composite execute, it copies only this part from the 'generator nodes',
right now Images or Render Results. That makes the entire composite tree
only using small rects, so it will execute fast.
- Also the render window will only display the cropped rect, and on F12
only the cropped part is being executed
- On rendering in background mode, the cropping is ignored though.
Usability notes:
- translating or zooming view will automatically invoke a recalculation
- if you zoom in on details, the calculated rect will even become smaller
- only one Imagewindow can have this Preview Panel, to prevent conflicts of
what the cropped area should be. Compositing is on Scene level, not local
per image window. (Note; 3D Previews are local per window!)
- Closing the preview panel will invoke a full-size recalculation
- All passes/layers from rendering are nicely cropped, including Z and
vectors.
The work to make the compositor do cropping was simple, but getting the
Image window displaying correctly and get all events OK was a lot of work...
indeed, we need to refactor Image Window usage once. Sorry for making the
mess even bigger now. :) I've tried not to interfere with UV edit or Paint
though... only when you're in compositing mode the panel will work.
BUG fix:
3D Preview render didn't work when multiple layers were set in the current
scene.
- Composit cache now gets fully freed on a render. Each output socket of a
node stores the entire image... and while render that's a waste of memory
- Sky 'paper' render was using wrong texture coordinates
- Found missing test_break() in ztransp rendering.
with SHIFT+G. This works as well for local groups as library-linked
groups.
Also fixed that group nodes were copying internal data to the outside,
which made it impossible to use the socket-buttons to set individual
values for each group-instance.
Library-linked groups are prevented from editing. But, try to open a
group and it will give a request for 'make local'. The make local rule
is identical to other library data in blender, meaning:
- if all users of the library data are local -> the library data is
flagged 'local', and if needed a unique name is made
- if there's mixed users (local and from other library data) it makes
a full copy, and assigns this copy to all local users.
vectors. It's actually shutter speed, but in this case works identical to
the old motionblur 'blur fac' button.
Note; the "Max Speed" button only clips speed, use this to prevent
extreme speed values. Max speed applied before the scaling happens.
After a couple of experiments with variable blur filters, I tried
a more interesting, and who knows... original approach. :)
First watch results here:
http://www.blender.org/bf/rt0001_0030.avihttp://www.blender.org/bf/hand0001_0060.avi
These are the steps in producing such results:
- In preprocess, the speed vectors to previous and next frame are
calculated. Speed vectors are screen-aligned and in pixel size.
- while rendering, these vectors get calculated per sample, and
accumulated in the vector buffer checking for "minimum speed".
(on start the vector buffer is initialized on max speed).
- After render:
- The entire image, all pixels, then is converted to quad polygons.
- Also the z value of the pixels is assigned to the polygons
- The vertices for the quads use averaged speed vectors (of the 4
corner faces), using a 'minimum but non-zero' speed rule.
This minimal speed trick works very well to prevent 'tearing' apart
when multiple faces move in different directions in a pixel, or to
be able to separate moving pixels clearly from non-moving ones
- So, now we have a sort of 'mask' of quad polygons. The previous steps
guaranteed that this mask doesn't have antialias color info, and has
speed vectors that ensure individual parts to move nicely without
tearing effects. The Z allows multiple layers of moving masks.
- Then, in temporal buffer, faces get tagged if they move or not
- These tags then go to an anti-alias routine, which assigns alpha
values to edge faces, based on the method we used in past to antialias
bitmaps (still in our code, check the antialias.c in imbuf!)
- finally, the tag buffer is used to tag which z values of the original
image have to be included (to allow blur go behind stuff).
- OK, now we're ready for accumulating! In a loop, all faces then get
drawn (with zbuffer) with increasing influence of their speed vectors.
The resulting image then is accumulated on top of the original with a
decreasing weighting value.
It sounds all quite complex... but the speed is still encouraging. Above
images have 64 mblur steps, which takes about 1-3 seconds per frame.
Usage notes:
- Make sure the render-layer has passes 'Vector' and 'Z' on.
- add in Compositor the VectorBlur node, and connect the image, Z and
speed to the inputs.
- The node allows to set amount of steps (10 steps = 10 forward, 10 back).
and to set a maximum speed in pixels... to prevent extreme moving things
to blur too wide.
http://www.blender.org/bf/filters/
I found out current blur actually doesn't do gauss, but more did regular
quadratic. Now you can choose common filter types, but more specifically;
- set gamma on, to emphasize bright parts in blur more than darker parts
- use the bokeh option for (current circlular only) blur based on true
area filters (meaning, for each pixel it samples the entire surrounding).
This enables more effects, but is also much slower. Have to check on
optimization for this still... use with care!
- Enabled Groups to execute in Compositor. They were ignored still.
Note; inside of groups nothing is cached, so a change of a group input
will recalculate it fully. This is needed because groups are linked
data (instances use same internal nodes).
- Made Composit node "Viewer" display correctly input for images with
1/2/3/4 channels.
- Added pass rendering, tested now with only regular Materials. For
Material nodes this is quite more complex... since they cannot be
easily separated in passes (each Material does a full shade)
In this commit all pass render is disabled though, will continue work on
that later.
Sneak preview: http://www.blender.org/bf/rt.jpg (temporal image)
- What did remain is the 'Normal' pass output. Normal works very nice for
relighting effects. Use the "Normal Node" to define where more or less
light should be. (Use "Value Map" node to tweak influence of the
Normal node 'dot' output.)
- EVIL bug fix: I've spend almost a day finding it... when combining AO and
mirror render, the event queue was totally screwing up... two things not
related at all!
Found out error was in ray-mirror code, which was using partially
uninitialized 'ShadeInput' data to pass on to render code.
- Another fix; made sure that while thread render, the threads don't get
events, only the main program will do. Might fix issues reported by
people on linux/windows.
- Compositor now is threaded
Enable it with the Scene buttons "Threads". This will handle over nodes to
individual threads to be calculated. However, if nodes depend on others
they have to wait. The current system only threads per entire node, not for
calculating results in parts.
I've reshuffled the node execution code to evaluate 'changed' events, and
prepare the entire tree to become simply parsed for open jobs with a call
to node = getExecutableNode()
By default, even without 'thread' option active, all node execution is
done within a separate thread.
Also fixed issues in yesterdays commit for 'event based' calculations, it
didn't do animated images, or execute (on rendering) the correct nodes
when you don't have Render-Result nodes included.
- Added generic Thread support in blenlib/ module
The renderer and the node system now both use same code for controlling the
threads. This has been moved to a new C file in blenlib/intern/threads.c.
Check this c file for an extensive doc and example how to use it.
The current implementation for Compositing allows unlimited amount of
threads. For rendering it is still tied to two threads, although it is
pretty easy to extend to 4 already. People with giant amounts of cpus can
poke me once for tests. :)
- Bugfix in creating group nodes
Group node definitions demand a clear separation of 'internal sockets' and
'external sockets'. The first are sockets being linked internally, the latter
are sockets exposed as sockets for the group itself.
When sockets were linked both internal and external, Blender crashed. It is
solved now by removing the external link(s).
system tracking changes in nodes, making sure only these nodes and
the ones that depend, are executed.
Further the 'time cursor' now counts down to indicate which node is being
done.
Also: you now can disable the "use nodes" button in the header, edit all
changes, and when you press that button again it nicely executes the
changes.
Still on the todo:
- make compositing threaded
- find a way to nicely exit compositing on input events... so the UI
keeps being responsive
- idea; a 'percentage' menu in header to enforce calculations on smaller
images temporally
-> Rendering in RenderLayers
It's important to distinguish a 'render layer' from a 'pass'. The first is
control over the main pipeline itself, to indicate what geometry is being
is rendered. The 'pass' (not in this commit!) is related to internal
shading code, like shadow/spec/AO/normals/etc.
Options for RenderLayers now are:
- Indicate which 3d 'view layers' have to be included (so you can render
front and back separately)
- "Solid", all solid faces, includes sky at the moment too
- "ZTransp", all transparent faces
- "Halo", the halos
- "Strand", the particle strands (not coded yet...)
Currently only 2 'passes' are exported for render, which is the "Combined"
buffer and the "Z. The latter now works, and can be turned on/off.
Note that all layers are still fully kept in memory now, saving the tiles
and layers to disk (in exr) is also todo.
-> New Blur options
The existing Blur Node (compositor) now has an optional input image. This
has to be a 'value buffer', which can be a Zbuffer, or any mask you can
think of. The input values have to be in the 0-1 range, so another new
node was added too "Map Value".
The value input can also be used to tweak blur size with the (todo)
Time Node.
Temporal screenies:
http://www.blender.org/bf/rt.jpghttp://www.blender.org/bf/rt1.jpghttp://www.blender.org/bf/rt2.jpg
BTW: The compositor is very slow still, it recalulates all nodes on each
change still. Persistant memory and dependency checks is coming!
- Curves in Image window didn't copy alpha (when no 32 bits rect for
display was made already).
- Code was missing to validate grouped nodes in Compositor, didnt work
at all yet
- Loading new Images in a Node (using filewindow) didn't assign the image
Image window now displays Alpha for float images too
