When using the button in a RenderLayer node to render a single node, the
new 'render to fullscreen' crashed in end. Reason; the node editor was
still handling events after a render, as if the node editor was still open.
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.
Made the frame boost from short to int (30000 -> 300000 frames) complete
by walking through the source and finally changing all frame-variables
to ints.
This should finally fix the framecounter warp around seen in some buttons.
If you step on any further problems that may arise starting from frame
32768 please just give me a hint and I'll fix it.
(Sorry about that, didn't know enough about Blender, when I did it the first
time...)
- 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.
1) Accumulation buffer alpha handling
Accumulating colors in an accumulation is simple; a weighting factor can
make sure colors don't over- or undersaturate.
For alpha this is a bit more complex... especially because the masks for
vectorblur are anti-aliased themselves with alpha values. Up to now I just
premultiplied the mask-alpha with the actual color alpha, which worked OK
for solid masks, but not for transparent ones. I thought that would be an
acceptable situation, since 'ztra' faces only get blurred with alpha==1.
However, it gives bad results when using 'mist' in Blender, which just
gives pixels an alpha value based on camera distance. In these cases the
alpha became oversaturated, accumulating into too high values.
The solution is to store the mask-alpha separately, only premultiply this
alpha with the weighting factor to define the accumulation amount.
This is the math:
blendfactor: the accumulation factor for a vectorblur pass
passRGBA: color and alpha value of the current to be accumulated pass
accRGBA: color and alpha value of accumulation buffer (initialized
with original picture values)
maskA: the mask's alpha itself
accRGBA = (1 - maskA*blendfactor)*accRGBA + (maskA*blendfactor)*passRGBA
This formula accumulates alpha values equally to colors, only using the
mask-alpha as 'alpha-over' operation.
It all sounds very logical, I just write this extensive log because I
couldn't find any technical doc about this case. :)
2) Creating efficient masks with camera-shake
Vector blur can only work well when there's a clear distinction between
what moves, and what doesn't move. This you can solve for example by
rendering complex scenes in multiple layers. This isn't always easy, or
just a lot of work. Especially when the camera itself moves, the mask
created by the vectorblur code becomes the entire image.
A very simple solution is to introduce a small threshold for
moving pixels, which can efficiently separate the hardly-moving pixels
from the moving ones, and thus create nice looking masks.
You can find this new option in the VectorBlur node, as 'min speed'.
This mimimum speed is in pixel units. A value of just 3 will already
clearly separate the background from foreground.
Note; to make this work OK, all vectors in an image are scaled 3 pixels
smaller, to ensure everything keeps looking coherent.
Test renders; 'Elephants Dream' scene with lotsof moving parts; rendered
without OSA, image textures, shadow or color correction.
No vectorblur:
http://www.blender.org/bf/vblur.jpg
With vectorblur, showing the alpha-saturation for mist:
http://www.blender.org/bf/vblur1.jpg
New accumulation formula:
http://www.blender.org/bf/vblur2.jpg
Same image, but now with a 3 pixel minimum speed threshold:
http://www.blender.org/bf/vblur3.jpg
Next frame, without minimum speed
http://www.blender.org/bf/vblur4.jpg
Same frame with speed threshold:
http://www.blender.org/bf/vblur5.jpg
(Only 20 steps of vectorblur were applied for clarity).
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! :)
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.
- Scene support in RenderLayers
You now can indicate in Compositor to use RenderLayer(s) from other scenes.
Use the new dropdown menu in the "Render Result" node. It will change the
title of the node to indicate that.
The other Scenes are rendered fully separate, creating own databases (and
octrees) after the current scene was finished. They use their own render
settings, with as exception the render output size (and optional border).
This makes the option an interesting memory saver and speedup.
Also note that the render-results of other scenes are kept in memory while
you work. So, after a render, you can tweak all composit effects.
- Render Stats
Added an 'info string' to stats, printed in renderwindow header. It gives
info now on steps "creating database", "shadow buffers", and "octree".
- Bug fixes
Added redraw event for Image window, when using compositor render.
Text objects were not rendered using background render (probably a bug
since depsgraph was added)
Dropdown buttons in Node editor were not refreshed after usage
Sometimes render window did not open, this due to wrong check for 'esc'.
Removed option that renders view-layers on F12, with mouse in 3d window.
Not only was it confusing, it's now more efficient with the Preview Panel,
which does this nicely.
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!
This commit removes old preview-image signals for Compositor, this was
obsolete when event-based updates were added, and was still causing
recalculations for example on loading files.
- 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.
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!
Image Node now supports animations as well. Press the 'Sequence' Icon in
the node to see the options:
- Frs: the amount of images involved in the sequence
- SFra: start frame, the Blender frame number
- First: the number in the name of the first image in the sequence
- Cycl: make the sequence go cyclic
The images are refreshed on each call to execute the node tree, but not
on advancing frames in Blender... I suspect that might make it to slow now,
will first have to code nice threaded/optimized updates in compositor.
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!
- New UI element: the "Curve Button".
For mapping ranges (like 0 - 1) to another range, the curve button can be
used for proportional falloff, bone influences, painting density, etc.
Most evident use is of course to map RGB color with curves.
To be able to use it, you have to allocate a CurveMapping struct and pass
this on to the button. The CurveMapping API is in the new C file
blenkernel/intern/colortools.c
It's as simple as calling:
curvemap= curvemapping_add(3, 0, 0, 1, 1)
Which will create 3 curves, and sets a default 0-1 range. The current code
only supports up to 4 curves maximum per mapping struct.
The CurveMap button in Blender than handles allmost all editing.
Evaluating a single channel:
float newvalue= curvemapping_evaluateF(curvemap, 0, oldval);
Where the second argument is the channel index, here 0-1-2 are possible.
Or mapping a vector:
curvemapping_evaluate3F(curvemap, newvec, oldvec);
Optimized versions for byte or short mapping is possible too, not done yet.
In butspace.c I've added a template wrapper for buttons around the curve, to
reveil settings or show tools; check this screenie:
http://www.blender.org/bf/curves.jpg
- Buttons R, G, B: select channel
- icons + and -: zoom in, out
- icon 'wrench': menu with tools, like clear curve, set handle type
- icon 'clipping': menu with clip values, and to dis/enable clipping
- icon 'x': delete selection
In the curve button itself, only LMB clicks are handled (like all UI elements
in Blender).
- click on point: select
- shift+click on point: swap select
- click on point + drag: select point (if not selected) and move it
- click outside point + drag: translate view
- CTRL+click: add new point
- hold SHIFT while dragging to snap to grid
(Yes I know... either one of these can be Blender compliant, not both!)
- if you drag a point exactly on top of another, it merges them
Other fixes:
- Icons now draw using "Safe RasterPos", so they align with pixel boundary.
the old code made ints from the raster pos coordinate, which doesn't work
well for zoom in/out situations
- bug in Node editing: buttons could not get freed, causing in memory error
prints at end of a Blender session. That one was a very simple, but nasty
error causing me all evening last night to find!
(Hint; check diff of editnode.c, where uiDoButtons is called)
Last note: this adds 3 new files in our tree, I did scons, but not MSVC!
- Moved all 'render pipeline control' options out of the Material panels
into the (now renamed) "Links and Pipeline" Panel. These are the options
that are not per material-node, but global for the entire Material tree.
It includes ZTransp, Zinvert, Strands, Halo, Wire, etc.
- To further make Node editing clear, when you enable Nodes for the first
time, the link button to the first Material node is drawn red, to note
that here needs something linked or added.
- Protected Node editing for Library data
- Fixed header buttons to work OK for Node Window
- New Node: "Mapping". Allows input vector to be translated, rotated and
scaled. And optional be clipped to a range. Works for colors too!
- The button "Normal" now allows incremental input, so a click in the
button won't change the normal anymore
- Connecting wires now show selection state for Nodes, with nice blended
colors. Both colors were added in Themes, but default to black and white
- Previews inside groups now get updated too
- Activating nodes inside of groups updates UI and preview render correctly
- Entering/leaving groups updates UI and previewrender
- Material Node: now draws socket name next to colorpicker for inputs
Material Nodes now have input sockets, to override the actual Material
settings. If socket has no input, you can also edit Material settings here.
(Color picker, number slider).
Of course a load of options will become available here, first bugfixing!
(Oh, and enable fix thread render)
**** NEW: Group Nodes
Node trees usually become messy and confusing quickly, so we need
not only a way to collapse Nodes into single 'groups', but also a
way to re-use that data to create libraries of effects.
This has been done by making a new Library data type, the NodeTree.
Everything that has been grouped is stored here, and available for
re-use, appending or linking. These NodeTrees are fully generic,
i.e. can store shader trees, composit trees, and so on. The 'type'
value as stored in the NodeTree will keep track of internal type
definitions and execute/drawing callbacks. Needless to say, re-using
shader trees in a composit tree is a bit useless, and will be
prevented in the browsing code. :)
So; any NodeTree can become a "Goup Node" inside in a NodeTree. This
Group Node then works just like any Node.
To prevent the current code to become too complex, I've disabled
the possibility to insert Groups inside of Groups. That might be
enabled later, but is a real nasty piece of code to get OK.
Since Group Nodes are a dynamic Node type, a lot of work has been
done to ensure Node definitions can be dynamic too, but still allow
to be stored in files, and allow to be verified for type-definition
changes on reloading. This system needs a little bit maturing still,
so the Python gurus should better wait a little bit! (Also for me to
write the definite API docs for it).
What works now:
- Press CTRL+G to create a new Group. The grouping code checks for
impossible selections (like an unselected node between selected nodes).
Everthing that's selected then gets removed from the current tree, and
inserted in a new NodeTree library data block. A Group Node then is
added which links to this new NodeTree.
- Press ALT+G to ungroup. This will not delete the NodeTree library
data, but just duplicate the Group into the current tree.
- Press TAB, or click on the NodeTree icon to edit Groups. Note that
NodeTrees are instances, so editing one Group will also change the
other users.
This also means that when removing nodes in a Group (or hiding sockets
or changing internal links) this is immediately corrected for all users
of this Group, also in other Materials.
- While editing Groups, only the internal Nodes can be edited. A single
click outside of the Group boundary will close this 'edit mode'.
What needs to be done:
- SHIFT+A menu in toolbox style, also including a list of Groups
- Enable the single-user button in the Group Node
- Displaying all (visible) internal group UI elements in the Node Panel
- Enable Library linking and prevent editing of Groups then.
**** NEW: Socket Visibility control
Node types will be generated with a lot of possible inputs or outputs,
and drawing all sockets all the time isn't very useful then.
A new option in the Node header ('plus' icon) allows to either hide all
unused sockets (first keypress) or to reveil them (when there are hidden
sockets, the icon displays black, otherwise it's blended).
Hidden sockets in Nodes also are not exported to a Group, so this way
you can control what options (in/outputs) exactly are available.
To be done:
- a way to hide individual sockets, like with a RMB click on it.
**** NEW: Nodes now render!
This is still quite primitive, more on a level to replace the (now
obsolete and disabled) Material Layers.
What needs to be done:
- make the "Geometry" node work properly, also for AA textures
- make the Texture Node work (does very little at the moment)
- give Material Nodes all inputs as needed (like Map-to Panel)
- find a way to export more data from a Material Node, like the
shadow value, or light intensity only, etc
Very important also to separate from the Material Buttons the
"global" options, like "Ztransp" or "Wire" or "Halo". These can not
be set for each Material-Node individually.
Also note that the Preview Render (Buttons window) now renders a bit
differently. This was a horrid piece of antique code, using a totally
incompatible way of rendering. Target is to fully re-use internal
render code for previews.
OK... that's it mostly. Now test!
- theme colors now are different... the specific colors are only drawn in
the headers of nodes, making the backdrop color constant. Allows for much
more outstanding colors this way, without distracting from previews.
- soft shadow now is drawn pixel-sized, so doesn't scale up or down.
- Deleting bone in editmode did not check for pose layers when
clearing pose channels or constraint targets....
- Button 'use nodes' in header of Node editor could only be pressed once
- New 'normal' button messed with default material in blender
- Theme options for Node window available now in Info window
- Texture Node: now displays 'intensity values' in node too, and has input,
and shows in buttons when activated in Node editor. (no browsing buttons
yet...)
- New: "Normal Node". This uses a new UI button, which allows to quickly
input a normal vector, based on spherical coordinates.
The Normal Node has optional vector input, and delivers a dot product
then. This can be used as a blending factor between nodes, or for fake
extra light in a certain direction.
- New: "Geometry Node". This actually replaces the Input node. It offers
all coordinates (vectors) as being the starting point for shading and
for textures. Note: for preview render this doesn't give much different
results yet... this is the start for real render support!
- http://www.blender.org/bf/rt5.jpg
The two new nodes in action
- Bugfix: the "Block" button (which delivers popups) did not return a
correct event when nothing happened (mouse moved out), which could
cause mouse clicks to be passed on to the queue.
when you turn a Material into NodeTree.
It now doesn't link own Material to the first added Material Node, but
allows you to do it, or create a new one.
First note; this is a WIP project, some commits might change things that
make formerly saved situations not to work identically... like now!
------ New Material integration ------
Until now, the Node system worked on top of the 'current' Material, just
like how the Material Layers worked. That's quite confusing in practice,
especially to see what Material is a Node, or what is the "base material"
Best solution is to completely separate the two. This has been implemented
as follows now;
- The confusing "Input" node has been removed.
- When choosing a Material in Blender, you can define this Material to be
either 'normal' (default) or be the root of a Node tree.
- If a Material is a Node tree, you have to add Nodes in the tree to see
something happen. An empty Node tree doesn't do anything (black).
- If a Material is a Node Tree, the 'data browse' menus show it with an
'N' mark before the name. The 'data block' buttons display it with the
suffix 'NT' (instead of 'MA').
- In a Node Tree, any Material can be inserted, including itself. Only in
that case the Material is being used itself for shading.
UI changes:
Added a new Panel "Links", which shows:
- where the Material is linked to (Object, Mesh, etc)
- if the Material is a NodeTree or not
- the actual active Material in the Tree
The "Node" Panel itself now only shows buttons from the other nodes, when
they are active.
Further the Material Nodes themselves allow browsing and renaming or adding
new Materials now too.
Second half of today's work was cleaning up selection when the Nodes
overlap... it was possible to drag links from invisible sockets, or click
headers for invisible nodes, etc. This because the mouse input code was
not checking for visibility yet.
Works now even for buttons. :)
********* Node editor work:
- To enable Nodes for Materials, you have to set the "Use Nodes"
button, in the new Material buttons "Nodes" Panel or in header
of the Node editor. Doing this will disable Material-Layers.
- Nodes now execute materials ("shaders"), but still only using the
previewrender code.
- Nodes have (optional) previews for rendered images.
- Node headers allow to hide buttons and/or preview image
- Nodes can be dragged larger/smaller (right-bottom corner)
- Nodes can be hidden (minimized) with hotkey H
- CTRL+click on an Input Socket gives a popup with default values.
- Changing Material/Texture or Mix node will adjust Node title.
- Click-drag outside of a Node changes cursor to "Knife' and allows to
draw a rect where to cut Links.
- Added new node types RGBtoBW, Texture, In/Output, ColorRamp
- Material Nodes have options to ouput diffuse or specular, or to use
a negative normal. The input socket 'Normal' will force the material
to use that normal, otherwise it uses the normal from the Material
that has the node tree.
- When drawing a link between two not-matching sockets, Blender inserts
a converting node (now only for value/rgb combos)
- When drawing a link to an input socket that's already in use, the
old link will either disappear or flip to another unused socket.
- A click on a Material Node will activate it, and show all its settings
in the Material Buttons. Active Material Nodes draw the material icon
in red.
- A click on any node will show its options in the Node Panel in the
Material buttons.
- Multiple Output Nodes can be used, to sample contents of a tree, but
only one Output is the real one, which is indicated in a different
color and red material icon.
- Added ThemeColors for node types
- ALT+C will convert existing Material-Layers to Node... this currently
only adds the material/mix nodes and connects them. Dunno if this is
worth a lot of coding work to make perfect?
- Press C to call another "Solve order", which will show all possible
cyclic conflicts (if there are).
- Technical: nodes now use "Type" structs which define the
structure of nodes and in/output sockets. The Type structs store all
fixed info, callbacks, and allow to reconstruct saved Nodes to match
what is required by Blender.
- Defining (new) nodes now is as simple as filling in a fixed
Type struct, plus code some callbacks. A doc will be made!
- Node preview images are by default float
********* Icon drawing:
- Cleanup of how old icons were implemented in new system, making
them 16x16 too, correctly centered *and* scaled.
- Made drawing Icons use float coordinates
- Moved BIF_calcpreview_image() into interface_icons.c, renamed it
icon_from_image(). Removed a lot of unneeded Imbuf magic here! :)
- Skipped scaling and imbuf copying when icons are OK size
********* Preview render:
- Huge cleanup of code....
- renaming BIF_xxx calls that only were used internally
- BIF_previewrender() now accepts an argument for rendering method,
so it supports icons, buttonwindow previewrender and node editor
- Only a single BIF_preview_changed() call now exists, supporting all
signals as needed for buttos and node editor
********* More stuff:
- glutil.c, glaDrawPixelsSafe() and glaDrawPixelsTex() now accept format
argument for GL_FLOAT rects
- Made the ColorBand become a built-in button for interface.c
Was a load of cleanup work in buttons_shading.c...
- removed a load of unneeded glBlendFunc() calls
- Fixed bug in calculating text length for buttons (ancient!)
- Adding execution code for Node trees. Was a bit a puzzle, since I want
it to be multithreading by design. This now is solved by defining a
stack per tree for all data that's being written into. This stack, which
resides now in the NodeTree itself, then can be allocated per thread.
- For testing pleasure, I've added a 'mix node' and a 'show node', so
you can already see it do something. :)
- reshuffled structure, to put things nice together, and have easier node
adding. Current state is still WIP though, structure might change.
For the record; new file node_shaders.c will contain all shader node
definitions, apart from the drawing callbacks.
Next: I'm going to check on Andrea's work on icons now, since this is very
much needed for true shader/composit work.
Now back to release work...
- delete/duplicate with connection links
- type awareness for sockets
- make connections checks for max amount of possible connections
- added dependency sorting of node list
- cyclic connections are drawn red now, press Ckey to see the other bad
cycles.
- added UI toolkit support in nodes (try shift+a)
So, almost ready for execution code. :)
