A full detailed description of this will be done later... is several days
of work. Here's a summary:
Render:
- Full cleanup of render code, removing *all* globals and bad level calls
all over blender. Render module is now not called abusive anymore
- API-fied calls to rendering
- Full recode of internal render pipeline. Is now rendering tiles by
default, prepared for much smarter 'bucket' render later.
- Each thread now can render a full part
- Renders were tested with 4 threads, goes fine, apart from some lookup
tables in softshadow and AO still
- Rendering is prepared to do multiple layers and passes
- No single 32 bits trick in render code anymore, all 100% floats now.
Writing images/movies
- moved writing images to blender kernel (bye bye 'schrijfplaatje'!)
- made a new Movie handle system, also in kernel. This will enable much
easier use of movies in Blender
PreviewRender:
- Using new render API, previewrender (in buttons) now uses regular render
code to generate images.
- new datafile 'preview.blend.c' has the preview scenes in it
- previews get rendered in exact displayed size (1 pixel = 1 pixel)
3D Preview render
- new; press Pkey in 3d window, for a panel that continuously renders
(pkey is for games, i know... but we dont do that in orange now!)
- this render works nearly identical to buttons-preview render, so it stops
rendering on any event (mouse, keyboard, etc)
- on moving/scaling the panel, the render code doesn't recreate all geometry
- same for shifting/panning view
- all other operations (now) regenerate the full render database still.
- this is WIP... but big fun, especially for simple scenes!
Compositor
- Using same node system as now in use for shaders, you can composit images
- works pretty straightforward... needs much more options/tools and integration
with rendering still
- is not threaded yet, nor is so smart to only recalculate changes... will be
done soon!
- the "Render Result" node will get all layers/passes as output sockets
- The "Output" node renders to a builtin image, which you can view in the Image
window. (yes, output nodes to render-result, and to files, is on the list!)
The Bad News
- "Unified Render" is removed. It might come back in some stage, but this
system should be built from scratch. I can't really understand this code...
I expect it is not much needed, especially with advanced layer/passes
control
- Panorama render, Field render, Motion blur, is not coded yet... (I had to
recode every single feature in render, so...!)
- Lens Flare is also not back... needs total revision, might become composit
effect though (using zbuffer for visibility)
- Part render is gone! (well, thats obvious, its default now).
- The render window is only restored with limited functionality... I am going
to check first the option to render to a Image window, so Blender can become
a true single-window application. :)
For example, the 'Spare render buffer' (jkey) doesnt work.
- Render with border, now default creates a smaller image
- No zbuffers are written yet... on the todo!
- Scons files and MSVC will need work to get compiling again
OK... thats what I can quickly recall. Now go compiling!
particle generator can be duplicated.
Note that the particles are only generated once, on the original, and just
get duplicated.
For static particles it worked already OK.
Added note for previous grouping commit; group-duplicators should support
fully all animation systems, including modifiers and particles.
Previous experiment (in 2000) didn't satisfy, it had even some primitive
NLA option in groups... so, cleaned up the old code (removed most) and
integrated it back in a more useful way.
Usage:
- CTRL+G gives menu to add group, add to existing group, or remove from
groups.
- In Object buttons, a new (should become first) Panel was added, showing
not only Object "ID button" and Parent, but also the Groups the Object
Belongs to. These buttons also allow rename, assigning or removing.
- To indicate Objects are grouped, they're drawn in a (not theme yet, so
temporal?) green wire color.
- Use ALT+SHIFT mouse-select to (de)select an entire group
But, the real power of groups is in the following features:
-> Particle Force field and Guide control
In the "Particle Motion" Panel, you can indicate a Group name, this then
limits force fields or guides to members of that Group. (Note that layers
still work on top of that... not sure about that).
-> Light Groups
In the Material "Shaders" Panel, you can indicate a Group name to limit
lighting for the Material to lamps in this group. The Lights in a Group do
need to be 'visible' for the Scene to be rendered (as usual).
-> Group Duplicator
In the Object "Anim" Panel, you can set any Object (use Empty!) to
duplicate an entire Group. It will make copies of all Objects in that Group.
Also works for animated Objects, but it will copy the current positions or
deforms. Control over 'local timing' (so we can do Massive anims!) will be
added later.
(Note; this commit won't render Group duplicators yet, a fix in bf-blender
will enable that, next commit will sync)
-> Library Appending
In the SHIFT-F1 or SHIFT+F4 browsers, you can also find the Groups listed.
By appending or linking the Group itself, and use the Group Duplicator, you
now can animate and position linked Objects. The nice thing is that the
local saved file itself will only store the Group name that was linked, so
on a next file read, the Group Objects will be re-read as stored (changed)
in the Library file.
(Note; current implementation also "gives a base" to linked Group Objects,
to show them as Objects in the current Scene. Need that now for testing
purposes, but probably will be removed later).
-> Outliner
Outliner now shows Groups as optio too, nice to organize your data a bit too!
In General, Groups have a very good potential... for example, it could
become default for MetaBall Objects too (jiri, I can help you later on how
this works). All current 'layer relationships' in Blender should be dropped
in time, I guess...
Once an Object Ipo position was inserted, the object couldn't be moved when
a particle system was tied to it. Needed code to copy object settings,
before the particle animation was done.
- bug: posemode, bones were drawing names and axes even when hidden
- bug: using softbody guides actually worked on themselves, causing
an infinite loop
- feature: when a pose/bone is completely locked for transform, a grab
will change into rotate by default.
I've been going over the zbuf.c code, which is indeed very ancient,
with a load of old optimizing and redundant code in use.
Added more 'modern' Span support, which fills per face two arrays
with the scanline information in it. That way you can zbuffer a quad in one
run as well. It was also exactly that code that's copied all over in zbuf.c
For now, to prevent issues for the release, the 'render a quad in 1 run' is
only in use for the strand render. Tests reveil a speedup of about 33%.
Will work on this recode later... which would also result in making zbuf.c
threadsafe.
And: bugfix #3398
When using the new 'render emitter' for particles, the orco array for
particles was accidentally used by mesh too.
doc;
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Hair_Strand_Rendering.722.0.html
- added width control for strands
- made tangent (anisotropic) render an option
(so you can render strands more solid, like metal/wood)
Also:
- ALT+A anim playback with static particles made cursor flashing
"Additive" Guides. See also:
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/New_Particle_options_a.721.0.html
This Guide type uses the falloff distance to also define how much the
particle (or hair strand) goes over the path, allowing to create local
extremes, or only local particle generating or hairgrowth. Nice for
spiky haircuts!
Note that the current default generates particles based on the original
amount of vertices and faces, this for vertex group support (which is not
subdivided with modifiers). That means that particles generated on
subsurfed faces still have minor approximation errors.
Note for DerivedMesh users; I've added a new API call:
float *mesh_get_mapped_verts_nors(Object *ob);
Which returns an array of 2 * 3 * float size, containing the vertices and
normals, deformed and subsurfered, but only the original me->mvert amount.
Works in all non-editmode cases.
Is in use now for vertex/weight paint and particles.
- "Disp" option allows to go back to zero, effectively disabling the entire
particle generating.
- When parenting guides to an emitter the depgraph sees a cyclic relation,
which caused not updating the particles correct on loading it.
- Moved creating guide Cache completely outside of the particle loop,
should make it faster to use with large amounts of particles and objects.
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/New_Particle_options_a.721.0.html
There's no doubt this patch had a lot of good ideas for features, and I
want to compliment Janne again for getting it all to work even!
A more careful review of the features and code did show however quite some
flaws and bugs... partially because the current particle code was very much
polluted already, but also because of the implementation lacked quality.
However, the patch was too good to reject, so I've fixed and recoded the
parts that needed it most. :)
Here's a list of of most evident changes in the patch;
- Guides support recoded. It was implemented as a true 'force field',
checking all Curve path points for each particle to find the closest. Was
just far too slow, and didn't support looping or bends well.
The new implementation is fast (real time) and treats the paths as actual
trajectory for the particle.
- Guides didn't integrate in the physics/speed system either, was added as
exception. Now it's integrated and can be combined with other velocities
or forces
- Use of Fields was slow code in general, made it use a Cache instead.
- The "even" distribution didn't work for Jittered sample patterns.
- The "even" or "vertexgroup" code in the main loops were badly constructed,
giving too much cpu for a simple task. Instead of going over all faces
many times, it now only does it once.
Same part of the code used a lot of temporal unneeded mallocs.
- Use of DerivedMesh or Mesh was confused, didn't work for Subsurfs in all
cases
- Support for vertex groups was slow, evaluating vertexgroups too often
- When a vertexgroup failed to read, it was wrongly handled (set to zero).
VertexGroup support now is with a name.
- Split up the too huge build_particle() call in some parts (moving new code)
- The "texture re-timing" option failed for moving Objects. The old code used
the convention that particles were added with increasing time steps.
Solved by creating a object Matrix Cache.
Also: the texture coordinates had to be corrected to become "OrCo".
- The "Disp" option only was used to draw less particles. Changed it to
actually calculate fewer particles for 3D viewing, but render all still.
So now it can be used to keep editing realtime.
Removed;
The "speed threshold" and "Tight" features were not copied over. This
resembled too much to feature overkill. Needs re-evaluation.
Also the "Deform" option was not added, I prefer to first check if the
current particle system really works for the Modifier system.
And:
- Added integration for particle force fields in the dependency graph
- Added TAB completion for vertexgroup names!
- Made the 'wait cursor' only appear when particles take more than 0.5 sec
- The particle jitter table order now is randomized too, giving much
nicer emitting of particles in large faces.
- Vortex field didn't correctly use speed/forces, so it didn't work for
collisions.
- Triangle distribution was wrong
- Removed ancient bug that applied in a *very* weird way speed and forces.
(location changes got the half force, speed the full...???)
So much... might have forgotten some notes! :)
He noted that static particles don't work with force fields yet, and
added a fix for it. This however didn't work for the depgraph yet, and
didn't correct the static particle's local space to world coordinates for
the fields. Nevertheless, while reviewing this small patch I thought it
would be fun to add now.
So: static particles now update realtime on forcefield relations. Warning
for potential slowdowns! Also note that work on the real particle patch
still has to be done... something I really will do, but in time. To get
particles correctly integrated in the animation system, quite some new
development has to be done still.
to finetune deform further as well.
Note that curve deform requires object buttons 'track' and 'up' axes set
properly. Curve deform can twist/flip a lot, making Vertex Group based
deform hard to set up.
to get rid of faces with MFace.v3==0
- change all Mesh's to have ->medge now. This is forced by make_edges
on readfile, and in the various exotic important routines, and on
conversion back in python.
- make python NMesh structure always have medges now (needs testing)
- with above two changes it is guarenteed that mf->v3 is never ==0
in main blender code (i.e., all MFace's are actually triangles
or quads) and so I went through and removed all the historic tests
to deal with MFace.v3==0. Equals lots of deleting, I am in heaven!
- removed MEdge edcode flag, no longer needed
- added experimental replacement for edge flag system
Still are some inconsistencies in FACESELECT mode edge drawing to
be ironed out.
NOTE: This commit adds an experimental edge flag calc system, based
on 10-seconds-of-thought algorithm by yours truly. Would appreciate
feedback on how this system works, esp compared to old one and esp
on complex or interesting models.
To Use: New system is enabled by setting G.rt to a value between
1 and 1000 (Value of 0 uses old system). Value 1000 is reserved for
"auto" edge, which is more or less identical to old system but also
makes sure that at least 10% of edges are drawn (solves errors for
super subdivided meshes). Values between 1 and 999 act as percent
(out of 1000) of edges that should be drawn, starting with "most
interesting" edges first. Please try it and comment!
make softbodies collide with objects patented to armatures (bones), lattices .. )
Softbody deflectors always use the new modifier stack. (thanks ZR)
Softbody deflector code checks for identity of colliding objects so,
there is no need to prohibit softbodies to be a deflector.
So now you can put some soft balls in a box and see them bounce.
see : http://wund.privat.t-online.de/bt/sb_sb_coll.blend
A deflector cube parented to SB lattice:
http://wund.privat.t-online.de/bt/sb_lattice.blend
BM
- Option is in EditButtons, Armature panel.
- Currently only local X-axis mirror (seems to be default anyway)
- Transform then applies changes to the mirrored-name bone as well.
- Extrude: also does the counterpart Bone
- New: SHIFT+E extrude: extrudes 2 mirrored Bones out of a normal Bone.
(creating names by appening _L and _R)
Or in short: you can now model a full rig without any manual naming!
Of course the names are not too nice... a couple of ideas to explore;
- rename a mirrored bone renames counterpart too
- allow in weightpaint mode to select Bones
- and of course mirrored edit in PoseMode (if that's useful...)
Important note: I tweaked the naming convention a bit; names like
Bone_L.005 and Bone_R.005 are considered counterparts. However, if
you use the "Flip names" option, the number extension is still
truncated.
BTW: Commits in Zr's code are fixes for gcc warnings. :)
with "loose" edges (edges without a face) and drawing in
solid mode. they would either not draw, or draw with a nasty
selection outline. Added a ME_LOOSEEDGE flag to mark such
edges in displists/mesh and editmode sets it.
- changed DerivedMesh drawEdges to take an argument whether
it should draw loose edges or not
I removed config.h code from the files that had them.
effect.c had nested /* so cleaned that up...
added a newline to vector.c to shut gcc up ;)
buttons_editing.c had a possible unintalized var (height) so I gave
it a default value.
removed an unused var i in interface_draw.c
removed an unused var mti in outliner.c
in BL_SkinDeformer.cpp
commented out a call to bDeformGroup->data which no longer exists so it
compiles again.
Kent
using bit in pd->flag to signal the use of deformed rather than wasting pd->pad
removing evil cast
replaced by using convertToDispListMesh() ZR: I hope that's OK that way
commented off the ( debug purpose ) recursion trap in SoftBodyDetectCollision()
replaced forbidden okee() with printf() in there
( not so nice, since it does not anounce crash on UI )
note: crashing example from previous commit
needs enabling 'UMS' on panel to crash again
UMS = uses modifier stack
DLM to share data from DerivedMesh (reduces some copying/memory allocation)
- added displistmesh_copyShared function to copy a DLM but not duplicate any
internal data
- changed crease drawing to use DerivedMesh functions... this means varying
edge width style of creases had to go, I replaced by using varying color to
show crease weight instead. Don't think this is a big loss since the subsurf
result gives you a much better indication of the crease weight anyway.
- bug fix in mirror modifier, didn't copy edge creases from editmesh correctly
works nice & smooth unless we encounter logical circles
well, because of function pointers re-hooking i could not debug that in detail
may be DAG or modifier stack is .. dunno
anyway
did abuse pd->pad bit 1 ( i hope this was 'real' padding till now )
to get SoftBodyDetectCollision(..) use mesh_get_derived_XXX [in effect.c] ..[*sigh* (the linetriangle() func is there)
..]
and put that to the deflection panel (blush .. i would have decapted anyone in my team doing stuff like that)
to defend this commit:
it makes you aware of problems ahead
having code that works/doesn't (on some conditions) is is usefull to look at
i think code is OK , so the problem is either
a. me not understanding
b. real
for locical circles see files -->
http://wund.privat.t-online.de/bt/WorkFine1.blendhttp://wund.privat.t-online.de/bt/WorkFine2.blendhttp://wund.privat.t-online.de/bt/WorkCrash.blend
- added decimate modifier & removed old decimate interface
(currently lacks warning about destroying data, and there needs
to be a way for modifiers to return errors back to the interface)
- allow applyModifier to return NULL to indicate error
- unfortunately new decimate modifier means it does not know exact
number of faces in mesh (other modifiers may come before) and so
instead interface uses a percentage. if people need exact face
count slider then I will have to think of some hack to fit this
in. note that it does display the output face count so its possible
to tweak the pct to get what you want regardless.
- removed python Wave object
If you are bored now how much easier it is to implement something
like decimate as a modifier. Very few changes to interface, very
few entry points.
- made particle system generation use its own RNG object,
keeps it safe against varying calculation order in the renderer
Still a funny bug where having a material on a particle object
changes the particle locations (in renderer, not in interface...
bizarro)
actually copy Object data and then store it back later. Of course this
means changes to object during the call are lost (and very hard to track
down). Eekadoodle!
Oh yeah, actual commit was to move call to fetch derived mesh above
pushdata, because this call can alloc cache's in the Object (which won't
get freed later if it is after pushdata)
based on time change. would be nice if dep graph could handle this.
- made dep check if modifiers need update on time change
- fix render crash (access null)
- added new Build Effect modifier type. compared to old one works as
a full member of modifier system, means can apply subsurf, etc on
it, reorder, what have you. and it is all nice and self contained.
- removed old Build effect, old files convert to new style on load
- couldn't help myself, added a randomize feature to build effect
- removed Python BuildEffect support
- changed mesh_modifier, sbObjectStep, object_deform to take vertexCo
argument instead of operating on mesh
- fixed bug where a derived mesh would not be returned in editmode
- removed object_wave, replaced by init_wave_deform and calc_wave_deform
- moved cached DerivedMesh to Object, not Mesh... fixes heisenbugs
with linked objects
- convert object_apply_deform to use mesh_get_derived_deform
- convert build_particle_system to use mesh_get_derived_deform
- remove apply option from mesh_modifier
What do you know, this leaves only one callsite for mesh_modifier
and one "user" site for DL_VERTS...
Aim was to get a total refresh of the animation system. This
is needed because;
- we need to upgrade it with 21st century features
- current code is spaghetti/hack combo, and hides good design
- it should become lag-free with using dependency graphs
A full log, with complete code API/structure/design explanation
will follow, that's a load of work... so here below the list with
hot changes;
- The entire object update system (matrices, geometry) is now
centralized. Calls to where_is_object and makeDispList are
forbidden, instead we tag objects 'changed' and let the
depgraph code sort it out
- Removed all old "Ika" code
- Depgraph is aware of all relationships, including meta balls,
constraints, bevelcurve, and so on.
- Made depgraph aware of relation types and layers, to do smart
flushing of 'changed' events. Nothing gets calculated too often!
- Transform uses depgraph to detect changes
- On frame-advance, depgraph flushes animated changes
Armatures;
Almost all armature related code has been fully built from scratch.
It now reveils the original design much better, with a very clean
implementation, lag free without even calculating each Bone more than
once. Result is quite a speedup yes!
Important to note is;
1) Armature is data containing the 'rest position'
2) Pose is the changes of rest position, and always on object level.
That way more Objects can use same Pose. Also constraints are in Pose
3) Actions only contain the Ipos to change values in Poses.
- Bones draw unrotated now
- Drawing bones speedup enormously (10-20 times)
- Bone selecting in EditMode, selection state is saved for PoseMode,
and vice-versa
- Undo in editmode
- Bone renaming does vertexgroups, constraints, posechannels, actions,
for all users of Armature in entire file
- Added Bone renaming in NKey panel
- Nkey PoseMode shows eulers now
- EditMode and PoseMode now have 'active' bone too (last clicked)
- Parenting in EditMode' CTRL+P, ALT+P, with nice options!
- Pose is added in Outliner now, with showing that constraints are in
the Pose, not Armature
- Disconnected IK solving from constraints. It's a separate phase now,
on top of the full Pose calculations
- Pose itself has a dependency graph too, so evaluation order is lag free.
TODO NOW;
- Rotating in Posemode has incorrect inverse transform (Martin will fix)
- Python Bone/Armature/Pose API disabled... needs full recode too
(wait for my doc!)
- Game engine will need upgrade too
- Depgraph code needs revision, cleanup, can be much faster!
(But, compliments for Jean-Luc, it works like a charm!)
- IK changed, it now doesnt use previous position to advance to next
position anymore. That system looks nice (no flips) but is not well
suited for NLA and background render.
TODO LATER;
We now can do loadsa new nifty features as well; like:
- Kill PoseMode (can be option for armatures itself)
- Make B-Bones (Bezier, Bspline, like for spines)
- Move all silly button level edit to 3d window (like CTRL+I = add
IK)
- Much better & informative drawing
- Fix action/nla editors
- Put all ipos in Actions (object, mesh key, lamp color)
- Add hooks
- Null bones
- Much more advanced constraints...
Bugfixes;
- OGL render (view3d header) had wrong first frame on anim render
- Ipo 'recording' mode had wrong playback speed
- Vertex-key mode now sticks to show 'active key', until frame change
-Ton-
Now triangles and quads of _any_ shape collide nicly with softbodies.
Some tricks don't work in a non euclidian geometry !
Had to brush up that dusty knowlege a bit :)
thanks efbie & ton
Works as follows;
- press the 'show bake settings' button (no space left... :)
- define start/end frame for bake, and an interval step.
The baked result interpolates nicely (Bspline, 4 keys) so in general a
step size of 2 or 3 still gives OK results.
- Press "BAKE". This will do a full animation + playback. Press ESC if it
you don't want it.
Once Baked, the BAKE button becomes a FREE BAKE. As reminder the softbody
buttons get blocked with error() menu.
This saves OK in a file. Renders any frame, including fields and moblur.
You can also set a "Timeoffs" for the softbody. And yes, this should be
in the NLA once... :)
NOTE! With this commit, files saved with the old (first commit) version by
Jens Ole won't read the settings back... he stored all sofbody variables in
Object, which was moved to a new struct when I did my first commit on SB
(over a month ago)
Also note that I moved particle deflecting & softbody to a new include.
SoftBodyDetectCollision() is handeling the case
'user wants to prevent self intersection by declaring SB object a deflection target'
ahh .. yeah .. i can see the bug reports on that
(me shrugs .. never promised that to work)
in the particle interaction panel
"D"= "Amount of damping during softbody collision/intrusion"
"I"= "Inner face thickness" good value for unit cube == 0.2
"O"= "Outer face thickness" good value for unit cube == 0.02
still we can easily hide that before releasing
(which still can't really handle moving targets)
leaving 2 bug fixes
1. multiple objects need a reset on cache variable
2. quads always need to be handled as 2 triangles
(since they don't need to share a plane)
added a collision detecting function in effect.c for SB
( no need to be there, but i did not find a better place )
but should handle 'moving targets' up to 0.2 blender units/frame
well .. important info in this case:
collision
uses 'face normal' to decide if *intrusion* happend
uses 'damping' of collision target to slow down movement
when *intrusion* happend
+some more removing unneeded code in softbody.c
