Brush Assets: Store assets outside Main #117730

Brecht Van Lommel · 2024-02-01T18:58:16+01:00

Brecht Van Lommel commented

2024-02-01 18:58:16 +01:00

This is an experiment, but we hope this can become stable
and in an acceptable state in the brush-assets-project branch.

One main database per asset blend file, so that there are no
conflicts between the regular main and different asset blend files.
Various code for avoiding conflicts and untangling databases can
be removed because of this.
Assets are appended to this, no linking and overrides. Highlighting
property changes is gone because of this. This change does not
necessarily need to be made along with the rest, but it does simplify
making renaming and editing textures work.
Some basic checks to avoid linking between regular main and
asset main, but much more would be needed.
Tool settings brush pointers were changed to do no user counting,
but really should not be part of ID management at all and handled
purely through some runtime lookup outside of it.
Basic texture editing works and gets saved and loaded. But will need
more work for all operators, RNA, editors to deal with different mains.

Includes other changes for brush/tool selection.

Remove "brush select" operator
Remove creating a new brush on Paint init when none is found
Remove unnecessary tool -> brush connection
Remove BRUSH_OT_add operator

This is an experiment, but we hope this can become stable and in an acceptable state in the brush-assets-project branch. * One main database per asset blend file, so that there are no conflicts between the regular main and different asset blend files. * Various code for avoiding conflicts and untangling databases can be removed because of this. * Assets are appended to this, no linking and overrides. Highlighting property changes is gone because of this. This change does not necessarily need to be made along with the rest, but it does simplify making renaming and editing textures work. * Some basic checks to avoid linking between regular main and asset main, but much more would be needed. * Tool settings brush pointers were changed to do no user counting, but really should not be part of ID management at all and handled purely through some runtime lookup outside of it. * Basic texture editing works and gets saved and loaded. But will need more work for all operators, RNA, editors to deal with different mains. Includes other changes for brush/tool selection. * Remove "brush select" operator * Remove creating a new brush on Paint init when none is found * Remove unnecessary tool -> brush connection * Remove BRUSH_OT_add operator

Brecht Van Lommel requested review from Bastien Montagne 2024-02-01 18:58:53 +01:00

Brecht Van Lommel requested review from Julian Eisel 2024-02-01 18:58:54 +01:00

Brecht Van Lommel requested review from Hans Goudey 2024-02-01 18:58:54 +01:00

Brecht Van Lommel changed title from ~~Brush Assets: experiment storing brush asset outside Main~~ to WIP: Brush Assets: experiment storing brush asset outside Main

2024-02-01 18:59:05 +01:00

Brecht Van Lommel force-pushed brush-separate-main from 5fb4dce947 to 44d253d0c4

2024-02-01 19:02:37 +01:00

Compare

Brecht Van Lommel added 3 commits 2024-02-01 22:42:00 +01:00

aefbdf8cee Fix: same asset getting loaded multiple times

ef90ec70ce Fix Revert to Asset not working

a93300fe20 Fix creating textures and images for brush not working

Bastien Montagne commented

2024-02-06 11:43:01 +01:00

TL;DR: I don't think we should go that way. While I can see the interest of supporting multiple Main in the UI, RNA, and whole Blender, I see implementing this idea as a massive amount of work, and a huge amounts of aftermath and maintenance burden in the future years. I think we already have way too many unfinished/in-need-of-improvements code in the Core area, to not add yet another monster to the list. Definitively not as part of another project that is supposed to be 'done' in a few months.

One main database per asset blend file, so that there are no
conflicts between the regular main and different asset blend files.

This will become an issue I think if we keep the idea of one asset blendfile per brush? Having to deal with hundreds of Main data-bases does not sounds great. I think this would work better if there is one blendfile per asset library.

Various code for avoiding conflicts and untangling databases can
be removed because of this.

Don't really see this as a benefit? The cost of properly supporting multiple Main databases will be orders of magnitude higher than this simplification improvement.

Assets are appended to this, no linking and overrides. Highlighting
property changes is gone because of this. This change does not
necessarily need to be made along with the rest, but it does simplify
making renaming and editing textures work.

I have no idea how much artists and brush designers would like to have this 'diff preview' feature that comes 'for free' with the liboverrides... This is indeed the only real remaining reason to use them, now that the whole 'draft' concept has been abandoned. The other main benefit (having link to original asset) becomes irrelevant with the idea of having one Main database per asset file.

Some basic checks to avoid linking between regular main and
asset main, but much more would be needed.

Tool settings brush pointers were changed to do no user counting,
but really should not be part of ID management at all and handled
purely through some runtime lookup outside of it.

Basic texture editing works and gets saved and loaded. But will need
more work for all operators, RNA, editors to deal with different mains.

These three points are likely only a subset of all the issues we'd have to tackle. And things like making RNA, tools and UI properly support data from multiple Main databases is already a giant amount of work imho.

TL;DR: I don't think we should go that way. While I can see the interest of supporting multiple Main in the UI, RNA, and whole Blender, I see implementing this idea as a massive amount of work, and a _huge_ amounts of aftermath and maintenance burden in the future years. I think we already have way too many unfinished/in-need-of-improvements code in the Core area, to not add yet another monster to the list. Definitively not as part of another project that is supposed to be 'done' in a few months. > * One main database per asset blend file, so that there are no > conflicts between the regular main and different asset blend files. This will become an issue I think if we keep the idea of one asset blendfile per brush? Having to deal with hundreds of Main data-bases does not sounds great. I think this would work better if there is one blendfile per asset library. > * Various code for avoiding conflicts and untangling databases can > be removed because of this. Don't really see this as a benefit? The cost of properly supporting multiple Main databases will be orders of magnitude higher than this simplification improvement. > * Assets are appended to this, no linking and overrides. Highlighting > property changes is gone because of this. This change does not > necessarily need to be made along with the rest, but it does simplify > making renaming and editing textures work. I have no idea how much artists and brush designers would like to have this 'diff preview' feature that comes 'for free' with the liboverrides... This is indeed the only real remaining reason to use them, now that the whole 'draft' concept has been abandoned. The other main benefit (having link to original asset) becomes irrelevant with the idea of having one Main database per asset file. > * Some basic checks to avoid linking between regular main and > asset main, but much more would be needed. > * Tool settings brush pointers were changed to do no user counting, > but really should not be part of ID management at all and handled > purely through some runtime lookup outside of it. > * Basic texture editing works and gets saved and loaded. But will need > more work for all operators, RNA, editors to deal with different mains. These three points are likely only a subset of all the issues we'd have to tackle. And things like making RNA, tools and UI properly support data from multiple Main databases is already a giant amount of work imho.

Hans Goudey added 11 commits 2024-02-21 21:11:08 +01:00

d0118a0eee Merge branch 'brush-assets-project' into brush-separate-main

ef391974ff Cleanup: Use construct after first use idiom

Removes the need to manually free the mains, since the static variable
will be destructed in the proper order. But still keep that for now, just in case.

a5b136bbd6 Only search for Main in ListBase of data-block type

64d07edd0c Cleanup: Avoid c strings

0475797e05 Make BKE_asset_weak_reference_ensure ID type agnostic

629d1c3c4b Cleanup: Remove some unnecessary temporary main variables

Maybe this makes it a bit harder to use the wrong main by mistake

45b5c20f20 Remove BRUSH_OT_add operator

This doesn't seem to be visible anywhere in the UI. New brushes
are more easily created by duplicating existing brushes anyway.

716a582583 Remove unnecessary tool -> brush connection

These were adding brushes and finding brushes in the active (non-asset)
main. This sort of thing should be handled differently now anyway

99e6409a2e Remove creating a new brush on Paint init when none is found

Now instead of creating a brush from scratch, the default asset
should be used instead. I'm pretty sure that is done elsewhere,
and if it isn't it should be fixed.

67bb4a80b9 Remove "brush select" operator

Selecting a brush based on the tool type isn't done anymore,
and this operator doesn't really make sense in the context of
prioritizing brush selection instead of tool selection / the asset
shelf. It would otherwise have to be fixed for storing brush
data-blocks in other mains.

38c0fd5579 Add comment

Hans Goudey added 1 commit 2024-02-21 23:10:16 +01:00

befe409e30 Merge branch 'brush-assets-project' into brush-separate-main

Hans Goudey added 2 commits 2024-02-22 19:05:22 +01:00

1678f831ff Merge branch 'brush-assets-project' into brush-separate-main

cf1b05802b Merge branch 'brush-assets-project' into brush-separate-main

Hans Goudey changed title from ~~WIP: Brush Assets: experiment storing brush asset outside Main~~ to Brush Assets: experiment storing brush asset outside Main

2024-02-23 22:47:53 +01:00

Hans Goudey commented

2024-02-23 22:49:12 +01:00

As an update, we talked about this more in chat and decided the benefits of using a separate main to store the runtime/local brush assets would be worth it. There is still more work to do, but having a separate branch isn't helpful anymore, so we decided to merge this into the brush assets branch.

Brecht Van Lommel changed title from ~~Brush Assets: experiment storing brush asset outside Main~~ to Brush Assets: Store assets outside Main

2024-02-27 14:41:47 +01:00

Brecht Van Lommel referenced this issue from a commit

2024-02-27 14:52:22 +01:00

Brush Assets: Store assets outside Main

Brecht Van Lommel manually merged commit b030911aa9 into brush-assets-project

2024-02-27 14:53:03 +01:00

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Brush Assets: Store assets outside Main #117730