Now it is possible to write a Python Expression using the variable names for driver targets (see mockup from initial commit) to substitute the appropriate values into the expression.
In the __global__ namespace for PyDriver evaluation, the following modules are available:
* __builtins__ - i.e. the builtin Python functions
* bpy - new Python API
* math or m - math module
For example:
Consider a driver with three targets, named: A, B, C
Now, you could write an expression like:
C if A < 5 else B
or even:
2*C if A < 5 or A > 20 else m.PI*B
Of course, you don't have to have three targets, the above was just an example.
TODO:
* Bring back way to load pydrivers.py
* Blender.Noise equivalent would be nice to have
P.S. I hope I haven't made any terrible Python API coding errors here (i.e. mem leaks, etc.)
Drivers now support multiple targets which act as 'variables'. The targets have a short 'name' (see later), and reference some property (in much the same way as F-Curves do, using RNA-Paths) which acts as the 'value'.
These named variables can then be used in a Python Expression which relates them to each other for more fine-grained control over the result of the driver. By using only the names of these variables in the expressions, we are able to define expressions/relationships in a much more readable way, as data access is separated from data use. This makes the underlying relationships easier to understand.
By default, if no Python Expression is given, the variables are simply averaged together, so old files won't break. :)
For example, check the following diagram (thanks Cessen/Nathan V from Peach team):
http://download.blender.org/ftp/incoming/250_drivers_mockup_cessen.png
TODO List:
* Depsgraph building for new driver relationships doesn't work yet. This needs to be recoded again, but this new system makes this much easier, since the targets are clearly defined (i.e. no need to parse py expressions to get list of objects)
* Graph Editor interface for editing these needs to be rewritten
* Python function for evaluating these expressions is needed (Campbell?)
this can be brought back as a new space if someone decides to
work on it.
This also fixes remaining issues with the outliner tree open
and close buttons not working sometimes.
- Added depsgraph tag for object-change in AnimData, so the
new animsys doesn't have to all objects anymore.
(Still WIP, depsgraph has to do this much better)
- Bugfix in notifiers; only 1 notifier was handled for
frame updates
Result: 2 windows, displaying 2 scenes, now can be edited
independently, and play independent. Not when they share
data, of course. :)
Joshua asked me to check depsgraph drivers; i've added the
very minimal case, but further I'm stuck, need help.
Also made region listeners for Graph Editor work for all.
This is work-in-progress patching support for converting animation saved in old system to work in the new one.
* Only IPOs/Actions directly attached to Objects + Shapekeys are converted for now. More types will follow...
* This is currently done as a step outside of do_versions() due to problems with various pointers not having been resolved yet, but which are necessary for correct resolution of issues such as drivers... However, the current code does illustrate how the data should be converted to give best results/compat between the two systems.
* Still need to get the converted data working with depsgraph correctly. Currently, some of my testfiles work, but the BBB files still don't.
Cleanup warnings from Joshua's commit (mostly unused variables,
but also used functions that were not prototyped).
Two bugfixes; passing on &ob->adt instead of ob->adt
But; the DNA system is now messed up, with two structs using
the same ID (nAction and bAction), that goes horrible wrong!
Finally, here is the basic (functional) prototype of the new animation system which will allow for the infamous "everything is animatable", and which also addresses several of the more serious shortcomings of the old system. Unfortunately, this will break old animation files (especially right now, as I haven't written the version patching code yet), however, this is for the future.
Highlights of the new system:
* Scrapped IPO-Curves/IPO/(Action+Constraint-Channels)/Action system, and replaced it with F-Curve/Action.
- F-Curves (animators from other packages will feel at home with this name) replace IPO-Curves.
- The 'new' Actions, act as the containers for F-Curves, so that they can be reused. They are therefore more akin to the old 'IPO' blocks, except they do not have the blocktype restriction, so you can store materials/texture/geometry F-Curves in the same Action as Object transforms, etc.
* F-Curves use RNA-paths for Data Access, hence allowing "every" (where sensible/editable that is) user-accessible setting from RNA to be animated.
* Drivers are no longer mixed with Animation Data, so rigs will not be that easily broken and several dependency problems can be eliminated. (NOTE: drivers haven't been hooked up yet, but the code is in place)
* F-Curve modifier system allows useful 'large-scale' manipulation of F-Curve values, including (I've only included implemented ones here): envelope deform (similar to lattices to allow broad-scale reshaping of curves), curve generator (polynomial or py-expression), cycles (replacing the old cyclic extrapolation modes, giving more control over this). (NOTE: currently this cannot be tested, as there's not access to them, but the code is all in place)
* NLA system with 'tracks' (i.e. layers), and multiple strips per track. (NOTE: NLA system is not yet functional, as it's only partially coded still)
There are more nice things that I will be preparing some nice docs for soon, but for now, check for more details:
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-taskforce25/2009-January/000260.html
So, what currently works:
* I've implemented two basic operators for the 3D-view only to Insert and Delete Keyframes. These are tempolary ones only that will be replaced in due course with 'proper' code.
* Object Loc/Rot/Scale can be keyframed. Also, the colour of the 'active' material (Note: this should really be for nth material instead, but that doesn't work yet in RNA) can also be keyframed into the same datablock.
* Standard animation refresh (i.e. animation resulting from NLA and Action evaluation) is now done completely separate from drivers before anything else is done after a frame change. Drivers are handled after this in a separate pass, as dictated by depsgraph flags, etc.
Notes:
* Drivers haven't been hooked up yet
* Only objects and data directly linked to objects can be animated.
* Depsgraph will need further tweaks. Currently, I've only made sure that it will update some things in the most basic cases (i.e. frame change).
* Animation Editors are currently broken (in terms of editing stuff). This will be my next target (priority to get Dopesheet working first, then F-Curve editor - i.e. old IPO Editor)
* I've had to put in large chunks of XXX sandboxing for old animation system code all around the place. This will be cleaned up in due course, as some places need special review.
In particular, the particles and sequencer code have far too many manual calls to calculate + flush animation info, which is really bad (this is a 'please explain yourselves' call to Physics coders!).
Think global, act local!
The old favorite G.scene gone! Man... that took almost 2 days.
Also removed G.curscreen and G.edbo.
Not everything could get solved; here's some notes.
- modifiers now store current scene in ModifierData. This is not
meant for permanent, but it can probably stick there until we
cleaned the anim system and depsgraph to cope better with
timing issues.
- Game engine G.scene should become an argument for staring it.
Didn't solve this yet.
- Texture nodes should get scene cfra, but the current implementation
is too tightly wrapped to do it easily.
From the anti-globalization department:
G.obedit terminated!
Wherever possible, use CTX_data_edit_object(C) to get this
now. It's stored in scene now, and the screen context has
it defined.
svn merge https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender -r12987:17416
Issues:
* GHOST/X11 had conflicting changes. Some code was added in 2.5, which was
later added in trunk also, but reverted partially, specifically revision
16683. I have left out this reversion in the 2.5 branch since I think it is
needed there.
http://projects.blender.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php?view=rev&root=bf-blender&revision=16683
* Scons had various conflicting changes, I decided to go with trunk version
for everything except priorities and some library renaming.
* In creator.c, there were various fixes and fixes for fixes related to the -w
-W and -p options. In 2.5 -w and -W is not coded yet, and -p is done
differently. Since this is changed so much, and I don't think those fixes
would be needed in 2.5, I've left them out.
* Also in creator.c: there was code for a python bugfix where the screen was not
initialized when running with -P. The code that initializes the screen there
I had to disable, that can't work in 2.5 anymore but left it commented as a
reminder.
Further I had to disable some new function calls. using src/ and python/, as
was done already in this branch, disabled function calls:
* bpath.c: error reporting
* BME_conversions.c: editmesh conversion functions.
* SHD_dynamic: disabled almost completely, there is no python/.
* KX_PythonInit.cpp and Ketsji/ build files: Mathutils is not there, disabled.
* text.c: clipboard copy call.
* object.c: OB_SUPPORT_MATERIAL.
* DerivedMesh.c and subsurf_ccg, stipple_quarttone.
Still to be done:
* Go over files and functions that were moved to a different location but could
still use changes that were done in trunk.
- The cause was indeed corrupted particle settings which should have caused a deletion of the whole particle system. However the particle modifier was still left and that led to the crash.
- A "fix" because there's really no way of knowing what caused the corruption of the particle settings. If anyone else gets this and can recreate I'd love to get a .blend. Now that there shouldn't be a crash anymore the symptom will be a missing particle system after file load in an object that had a particle system before.
=======================
Caching and Baking:
- The point cache is now cleared on DAG_object_flush_update(), and not cleared for time dependency graph updates.
- There is now a Bake button instead of Protect. Also cache start and end frames were added to softbody and particles.
- The cloth autoprotect feature was removed.
- The Ctrl+B menu now also bakes cloth and particles next to softbody and fluids. Additionally there are now frree bake and free cache menu entries.
- The point cache api has been changed. There is now a PTCacheID struct for each point cache type that can be filled and then used to call the point cache functions.
- PointCache struct was added to DNA and is automatically allocated for each physics type.
- Soft body now supports Bake Editing just like cloth.
- Tried to make the systems deal consistently with time ipo's and offsets. Still not sure it all works correct, but too complicated to solve completely now.
Library Linking:
- Added some more warnings to prevent editing settings on library linked objects.
- Linked objects now read from the cache located next to the original library file, and never write to it. This restores old behavior for softbodies. For local simulation the mesh and not the object should be linked.
- Dupligroups and proxies can't create local point caches at the moment, how to implement that I'm not sure. We probably need a proxy point cache for that to work (ugh).
Physics UI:
- Renamed deflection panel to collision for consistency and reorganized the buttons. Also removed some softbody collision buttons from the softbody panel that were duplicated in this panel for cloth.
- Tweaked field panel buttons to not jump around when changing options.
- Tabbing e.g. Soft Body Collision into the Soft Body panel, it now only shows Collision to make the panel names readable.
- I tried to make enabled/disabling physics more consistent, since all three system did things different. Now the two modifier buttons to enable the modifier for the viewport and rendering are also duplicated in the physics panels. Toggling the Soft Body and Cloth buttons now both remove their modifiers.
- Fixed modifier error drawing glitch.
Particles:
- Particles are now recalculated more often than before. Previously it did partial updates based on the changes, but that doesn't work well with DAG_object_flush_update() ..
- Fixed memory leak loading keyed particle system. Now keys are not written to file anymore but always created after loading.
- Make particle threads work with autothreads.
Continue Physics:
- The timeline play now has a Continue Physics option in the playback menu, which keeps the simulations going without writing them to the cache.
- This doesn't always work that well, some changes are not immediately updated, but this can be improved later. Still it's fun to get a feel for the physics.
Todo:
- Point cache can get out of sync with and undo and changing a file without saving it.
- Change the point cache file format to store a version (so old point cache files can be either converted or at least ignored), and to do correct endian conversion.
- Menu item and/or buttons for Ctrl+B.
- A system("rm ..") was changed to remove() since the former is very slow for clearing point caches. These system() calls were already giving trouble in a bug in the tracker, but really most use of this system("") should be changed and tested.
- The Soft Body Collision and Clot Collision panel titles don't mention there's point cache settings there too, doing that makes them unreadable with the default panel setup.. but may need to make the names longer anyway.
This appears to be a long-standing bug, and it only affected the Follow-Path constraint as it was the only one which was dependant on time-based changes. An oversight in the depsgraph code meant that Follow-Path constraints on armature bones were not evaluated, unless there was an Action or some NLA-Strips for that armature.
I've added a new flag to pose->flag (POSE_CONSTRAINTS_TIMEDEPEND) which only gets set/cleared by update_pose_constraint_flags. This flag indicates that the depsgraph needs to do an update for such cases, and will require going in/out of EditMode to set this for old files.
It's been implemented as such to avoid having costly searches when trying to run animations realtime (as is done for modifiers).
=========
- The render and realtime button for the particle system modifier
and the enabled button for particles now work seperate again,
made a bad design decision to tie them together. Now with only
the render button and not realtime enabled it renders.
- Fix for bug #7948: particle mode crash while constraining axis.
- Fix for bug #7945: crash loading effector groups from an old file.
- Fix for bug #7942: crash for reactor particles emitting from particles.
the depsgraph relations for constraints with a local ipo were being
skipped, but I have no idea why this code was added? Uncommenting
it seems to work fine.
-> Constraint Influence Ipo now can be local, linked to constraint itself
You enable this in the IpoWindow header, with the Action icon to the left
of the Ipo Type menu. The button tooltips give the clue as well.
Tech note: the Ipo now can get directly linked to a constraint, and is
being called during regular pose constraint solving.
Actions (and drivers in actions) are being calculated *before* pose
constraint solving. Result of actions then is written in bones, which
then solves the entire pose.
This means you can have a driver on both the constraint, as on the action
channel for the constraint! Not that I'm going to debug that easily :)
Additional fix: Joshua added a copy/paste IpoCurve feature, but he broke
the functionality to be able to paste in an empty ipo channel. That now
works again
=========
Merge of the famous particle patch by Janne Karhu, a full rewrite
of the Blender particle system. This includes:
- Emitter, Hair and Reactor particle types.
- Newtonian, Keyed and Boids physics.
- Various particle visualisation and rendering types.
- Vertex group and texture control for various properties.
- Interpolated child particles from parents.
- Hair editing with combing, growing, cutting, .. .
- Explode modifier.
- Harmonic, Magnetic fields, and multiple falloff types.
.. and lots of other things, some more info is here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewritehttp://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewrite_Doc
The new particle system cannot be backwards compatible. Old particle
systems are being converted to the new system, but will require
tweaking to get them looking the same as before.
Point Cache
===========
The new system to replace manual baking, based on automatic caching
on disk. This is currently used by softbodies and the particle system.
See the Cache API section on:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/PhysicsSprint
Documentation
=============
These new features still need good docs for the release logs, help
for this is appreciated.
Once again, I've recoded the constraints system. This time, the goals were:
* To make it more future-proof by 'modernising' the coding style. The long functions filled with switch statements, have given way to function-pointers with smaller functions for specific purposes.
* To make it support constraints which use multiple targets more readily that it did. In the past, it was assumed that constraints could only have at most one target.
As a result, a lot of code has been shuffled around, and modified. Also, the subversion number has been bumped up.
Known issues:
* PyConstraints, which were the main motivation for supporting multiple-targets, are currently broken. There are some bimport() error that keeps causing problems. I've also temporarily removed the doDriver support, although it may return in another form soon.
* Constraints BPy-API is currently has a few features which currently don't work yet
* Outliner currently only displays the names of the constraints instead of the fancy subtarget/target/constraint-name display it used to do. What gets displayed here needs further investigation, as the old way was certainly not that great (and is not compatible with the new system too)
Object constraints with a driven influence ipo were not being evaluated
properly. The code for adding the depsgraph relation and updating without
time changes was simply missing.
This crash only occurred when the RigidBody constraint was used, and the toObject field was set to an armature, as the RigidBody constraint doesn't use subtargets.
This commit features fixes/improvements for problems I didn't manage to fix in time for the commit yesterday.
* Now for Meshes, the normals of the vertices in the VertexGroup are averaged and used to find the 'rotation' that needs to be applied. Unfortunately, this does not work with Lattices as they do not have normals.
* Depsgraph should now play nicely with geometry targets. Before, the constrained object's location wasn't being updated after the target's geometry was modified.
Now when editing the curve that a Bone with a Clamp To Constraint uses as its target, the Bones's position will be updated in realtime to match to changes in the curve.
This should also work for the FollowPath constraint now too.
Now when editing the curve that an Object with a Clamp To Constraint uses as its target, the Object's position will be updated in realtime to match to changes in the curve.
I was going to have this working for bones too, but I haven't got that quite working yet.
