Here are some notes written by Ton:
There's several areas I still have to work on, so don't immediately
report bugs!
- Preview renders in buttons window only supports materials now (no
lamp, texture or world)
- Yafray code has to be checked, it might not work
- unified render doesn't work, might not come back even
- lens flares dont work yet
- motion blur and field render doesnt work yet
- exr libraries are static linked still, we look at making it dynamic
loadable
- the compositor is fully in development still
I really advise people to check on the orange cvs logs too (in case you
ignored it), this has most of the information in it.
At this moment I still have to code for Orange deadlines, that defines
my priority listing mostly. And since we don't use Windows there, doing
testing and bugfixing for that platform would be of great help!
Best features of this commit to checkout:
- Grouping
- full fixed library linking system
- custom bone drawing
- bone layers
- Material/Shading nodes
- recode of render engine
- preview renders
- Compositing options
When the work pressure is a bit lower, I'll make nice docs for all of
this!
-Ton-
Here are my notes on things to look out for as potential problem
spots:
source/blender/blenkernel/intern/displist.c:
+ is initfastshade(void) supposed to be empty? I had
to make it empty to get the merged tree to compile.
source/blender/python/api2_2x/Armature.c:
+ went with the version that had Armature_getLayers()
source/blender/python/api2_2x/Object.c
+ went with the version of Object_getPose() from bf-blender.
(#ifdef 0-ed the other version)
source/blender/python/api2_2x/Pose.[ch]
+ had problems linking due to no Pose_Init() ... copied these
two files straight from bf-blender.
source/blender/src/drawview.c:
+ view3d_panel_properties() had things shifted a few things shifted
a few pixels, otherwise, things were painless
source/blender/src/splash.jpg.c:
+ went with bf-blender version (orange is dead)
source/gameengine:
+ went with bf-blender version -- does not compile due to IMB_rect* stuff,
Ton should look into this.
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
threads didn't seem to free allocated memory... while rendering an long
sequence, the 'virtual memory' size grew with about 20 meg per frame.
This appeared to be not related to using malloc in threads (works
properly), but just because threads were not closed properly.
I assumed that the call to SDL_CreateThread() also closes the thread
when finished... but that seems to be not the case. By using a call to
SDL_WaitThread() after the thread was finished the memory heap is stable
again.
This is something I've seen not documented anywhere... the SDL man
pages are horrible sparse; Take for example the official page:
http://manuals.thexdershome.com/SDL-1.2.5/html/sdlcreatethread.html
Edits the current image in an external application, esp usefull when dealing with projects that have lots of images.
Basicaly-- a quck way to have the image in the gimp (using gimp-remote) without rooting around in your project tree.
Added registry variable to save the external application... and some OS context for what app to run- could somebody test on macosx+win32.
How about a python slot in the Image Menu?
-> 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!
NOTE to Ton and Hos
PLEASE do not try to merge any ot the MSVC6 project files (*.dsw ,*dsp)
I have a plan to get it done with a minimum of pain
thanks
ole
data to renderdata. However, if a camera has a lens-ipo, this has to be
calculated correctly each time.
Actually, render system suffers like Blender itself from a weak time
system... which still is polluted by confusing globals. Should all work
now, but definitely needs attention later.
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.
Access to G.vd without an active 3D window from sequences during Alt-A
playback caused segfault; check and return if it's NULL, and print an error
to stderr. (Someone should check why viewmove() is being called).
The further you drag the bigger the number gets (like gimp/photoshop brush size slider)
Works for ranges: float buttons bigger then 11 and int buttons bigger then 129.
- New Node "Composite" is output node that puts composited result back
in render pipeline.
- This then also displays in the render window while editing
- But, only with Scene buttons option "Do Compositor" set
- Then, just press F12 or render anims to see the magic!
For clarity, the former 'Output" node is renamed to "Viewer".
- Curves in Image window didn't copy alpha (when no 32 bits rect for
display was made already).
- Code was missing to validate grouped nodes in Compositor, didnt work
at all yet
- Loading new Images in a Node (using filewindow) didn't assign the image
Image window now displays Alpha for float images too
- Image curves are only applied now when curves panel is in use. Closing
the panel will disable curves, reopen Panel enable curves.
You can minimize the Curves panel to keep it active. That latter then
works as visualization curves are being applied.
- Compositor output now also uses Image window curves, if active.
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!
Added features.
- Triangulate
- Export Object is OBJ objects
- Objects as Groups
- Group by Materials
- Updated blender website from www.blender.org to www.blender3d.org and write blender version number too.
