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! :)
There we can find now Particles, Fields & deflectors, Soft Body and Fluids.
This also as preparation for more work on the particle side (becomes two
panels).
Also renamed panels, and made sure the name "Soft Body" is spelled every-
where the same!
It uses an icon as was designed long ago already. Needs some thinking...
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-
- Rename!
CTRL+leftmouse click on name, makes it a text button. Works for all items as
currently being displayed.
Most work was doing the Bones, which is a nightmare :) But it uses same
code as buttons in Armature-Editmode now, without even needing EditMode :)
When renaming a bone, the Outliner makes the Object active though.
- PageUp / PageDown keys
Do what you expect.
The outliner is a hierarchical diagram displaying a list of data in Blender
and its dependencies. The 'databrowse' doesn't really show it, and Oops is
too chaotic still. And most of all, the former two don't offer much tools.
After discussions on irc, Matt came with this design proposal;
http://mke3.net/blender/interface/layout/outliner/
Which is closely followed for the implementation.
The current version only shows all 'library data' in Blender (objects,
meshes, ipos, etc) and not the 'direct data' such as vertex groups or NLA.
I decided to make it inside the Oopw window, as an option. You can find the
option in the "View" pulldown, or directly invoke it with ALT+SHIFT+F9
Here's a quick overview of the Outliner GUI:
- Header pulldown has options what it can show (Visible = in current layers)
- click on triangle arrow to open/close
- press AKEY to open/close all
- Leftmouse click on an item activates; and does based on type a couple of
extra things:
- activates a scene
- selects/activates the Object
- enters editmode (if clicked on Mesh, Curve, etc)
- shows the appropriate Shading buttons (Lamp, Material, Texture)
- sets the IpoWindow to the current IPO
- activates the Ipo-channel in an Action
- Selected and Active objects are drawn in its Theme selection color
- SHIFT+click on Object does extend-select
- Press DOTkey to get the current active data in center of view
TODO;
- rightmouse selection; for indicating operations like delete or duplicate
- showing more data types
- icon (re)design...
- lotsof options as described in Matts paper still...
Plus: moved particle interaction and effect buttons back to a single
Object context. The proposed solution (sub context) has workflow issues,
(adds another click (no hotkey) to view settings)
whilst almost all Object buttons nicely fit in single view still.
This was on todo since first particle commit, actually the idea was to
move particle related issues to a special sub-context, but leave the
effects themselves in the Object main menu. Splitting off Particles from
the Effect system isn't in the scope of what is feasible now.
Also note; the current panel 'particle interaction' actually should be
a generic 'forces and collision' panel, since it's also relevant for
soft body feature (WIP)... that can be changed later.
New is that objects can have a force field, and Meshes can even deflect
(collide) particles. This is in a new sub-menu in Object buttons F7
The full instructions where on the web, Leon mailed it me and I will put
it in CMS tomorrow. For those who like to play with it now, here are demo
files:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/
Quite some changes where in the integration though... so previous created
particle deflectors will not work. Changes to mention now are:
- gravity is renamed to 'force field'
- force field and deflector options are in Object now, not in Mesh
- the options also have its own struct, doesnt add to Object by default
- force fields are possible for all object types, but only work on center.
So empty objects are typical for it.
Work to do:
- add draw method in 3d win to denote forcefield objects
- check on the UI (panel with different size?)
- add 'recalc' button in deflector panel
First, check on the new files, which are listed below.
The new butspace.h is a local include, only to be used for the buttons
drawn in the buttonswindow.
- editbuts, animbuts, gamebuts, displaybuts, paintbuts, work now
- i quite completely reorganized it, it's now nicely telling you what
context it is in
- sorting error in panel align fixed (tabs were flipping)
- align works correctly automatic when you click around in Blender
- editsca.c renamed to buttons_logic.h
- button names are truncated from the right for allmost all buttons
(except text buttons and number buttons)
- while dragging panels, you cannot move them outside window anymore
And of course fixed loads of little bugs I encountered while testing
it all. This is a version I really need good test & feedback for.
Next step: restoring material/lamp/texture/world
- removed src/buttons.c and include/BIF_buttons.h
- added src/buttons.txt, which is the old buttons.c for review and adding
code to new panels structure
- changed internal events to match new buttonspace structure
- added tabs for new shading group of buttons
- removed loads of little warnings, -Wall now compiles src/ almost without
error (hint: setenv NAN_QUIET to see it all better)
Now I'm ready to do actual buttons -> panels conversion. I will do the raw
versions first, others then can cleanup
this is part 1 of the UI makeover. It has:
- menu system from Matt integrated
- buttons drawing from Matt
- generic button panel system implemented
- converted displaybuttons (not the rest yet)
- cleaned up a lot in drawing spaces itself, to make it aligned and pixel exact.
- cleaned loads of little compiler warnings, protos...
still a lot of work needed, will all be in next week i hope!
(warn: 2 new c files! butspace.c and buttons_scene.c)
