Appending and Linking
* Linking Operator, invokes filebrowser for Append/Link
* Separated the append/link function into three parts:
** BLO_library_append_begin finds main for appending
** BLO_library_append_named_part appends one Object,Group, Material, ...
** BLO_library_append_end actually reads and expands the libraries
NOTE 1:
I also changed the returned properties for the filebrowser operators to the following convention:
"path" - the full path to a file or directory, means what is in directory + filename buttons in filebrowser
"directory" - the content of the directory button in filebrowser
"filename" - the content of the filename button in filebrowser
Usually only path should be required, but in some cases it might be more convenient to retrieve the parts separately.
Ton, Brecht: If you have time to take a look, let me know if anything needs to be fixed.
* Split object_edit.c into multiple files:
object_add.c, object_edit.c, object_hook.c, object_relations.c,
object_select.c, object_transform.c.
* Rename files to have consistent object_ and mball_ prefix:
object_shapekey.c, object_lattice.c, object_vgroup.c, mball_edit.c.
* Added operators:
* vertex group menu and set active
* apply location, rotation, scale, visual transform (location is new)
* make local
* make vertex parent
* move to layer
* convert to curve/mesh (not finished yet)
* Many small fixes for marked issues, but still much code to be cleaned
up here...
* directory button enabled again, c code for now, can later become nicer operator
* filename button enabled (pattern match for selection)
* RNA completed (title, file and directory)
* some unused code removal.
* show only name of the last directory for the bookmark
* small fix of projectfile: header BLI_fileops.h was moved
Note: full path should appear in tool tip later, also for renaming bookmarks later on.
* start of filebrowser RNA
* system files, bookmarks, etc. now nicely inside panels to allow collapsing etc.
* filebrowser header now defined in space_filebrowser.py
TODO:
* button type for bookmarks etc. not final yet, at least should get centered still. Suggestions welcome here.
* enabled game engine in regular build
Note1: blenderplayer hasn't been looked at yet and is not linking
Note2: KX_blenderhook and KX_converter need windowmanager include, this dependency should probably be removed.
svn merge https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender -r19820:HEAD
Notes:
* Game and sequencer RNA, and sequencer header are now out of date
a bit after changes in trunk.
* I didn't know how to port these bugfixes, most likely they are
not needed anymore.
* Fix "duplicate strip" always increase the user count for ipo.
* IPO pinning on sequencer strips was lost during Undo.
- file editors/space_image/image_panels.c -> image_buttons.c (renamed)
- file editors/interface/interface_templates.c added
Also added small fix for crash in filebrowser.
- drawing code cleanup
- use of BLF_font in own string drawing, needs to be aligned with uiStyles still.
- thumbnail scaling now done on graphics card via new glaDrawPixelsTexScaled (slightly modified glaDrawPixelsTex)
This commit completes the support for modifiers in the BGE.
- The physic shape is generated according to the derived mesh.
This is true for all types of shapes and all types of
objects except soft body.
- Optimization for static derived mesh (mesh with modifiers
but no armature and no shape keys). Replicas will share
the derived mesh and the display list: less memory and
faster rendering. With this optimization, the static
derived mesh will render as fast as if the modifiers were
applied.
Known Limits:
- Sharing of mesh and display list is only possible between
in-game replicas or dupligroup. If you want to instantiate
multiple objects with modifiers, use dupligroup to ensure
best memory and GPU utilization.
- rayCast() will interact with the derived mesh as follow:
Hit position and hit normal are the real values according
to the derived mesh but the KX_PolyProxy object refers to
the original mesh. You should use it only to retrieve the
material.
- Dynamic derived mesh have very poor performance:
They use direct openGL calls for rendering (no support
for display list and vertex array) and they dont't share
the derived mesh memory. Always apply modifiers on dynamic
mesh for best performance.
- Time dependent modifiers are not supported.
- Modifiers are not supported for Bullet soft body.
This commit extends the technique of dynamic linked list to the logic
system to eliminate as much as possible temporaries, map lookup or
full scan. The logic engine is now free of memory allocation, which is
an important stability factor.
The overhead of the logic system is reduced by a factor between 3 and 6
depending on the logic setup. This is the speed-up you can expect on
a logic setup using simple bricks. Heavy bricks like python controllers
and ray sensors will still take about the same time to execute so the
speed up will be less important.
The core of the logic engine has been much reworked but the functionality
is still the same except for one thing: the priority system on the
execution of controllers. The exact same remark applies to actuators but
I'll explain for controllers only:
Previously, it was possible, with the "executePriority" attribute to set
a controller to run before any other controllers in the game. Other than
that, the sequential execution of controllers, as defined in Blender was
guaranteed by default.
With the new system, the sequential execution of controllers is still
guaranteed but only within the controllers of one object. the user can
no longer set a controller to run before any other controllers in the
game. The "executePriority" attribute controls the execution of controllers
within one object. The priority is a small number starting from 0 for the
first controller and incrementing for each controller.
If this missing feature is a must, a special method can be implemented
to set a controller to run before all other controllers.
Other improvements:
- Systematic use of reference in parameter passing to avoid unnecessary data copy
- Use pre increment in iterator instead of post increment to avoid temporary allocation
- Use const char* instead of STR_String whenever possible to avoid temporary allocation
- Fix reference counting bugs (memory leak)
- Fix a crash in certain cases of state switching and object deletion
- Minor speed up in property sensor
- Removal of objects during the game is a lot faster
This commit extend the technique of dynamic linked list to the mesh
slots so as to eliminate dumb scan or map lookup. It provides massive
performance improvement in the culling and in the rasterizer when
the majority of objects are static.
Other improvements:
- Compute the opengl matrix only for objects that are visible.
- Simplify hash function for GEN_HasedPtr
- Scan light list instead of general object list to render shadows
- Remove redundant opengl calls to set specularity, shinyness and diffuse
between each mesh slots.
- Cache GPU material to avoid frequent call to GPU_material_from_blender
- Only set once the fixed elements of mesh slot
- Use more inline function
The following table shows the performance increase between 2.48, 1st round
and this round of improvement. The test was done with a scene containing
40000 objects, of which 1000 are in the view frustrum approximately. The
object are simple textured cube to make sure the GPU is not the bottleneck.
As some of the rasterizer processing time has moved under culling, I present
the sum of scenegraph(includes culling)+rasterizer time
Scenegraph+rasterizer(ms) 2.48 1st round 3rd round
All objects static, 323.0 86.0 7.2
all visible, 1000 in
the view frustrum
All objects static, 219.0 49.7 N/A(*)
all invisible.
All objects moving, 323.0 105.6 34.7
all visible, 1000 in
the view frustrum
Scene destruction 40min 40min 4s
(*) : this time is not representative because the frame rate was at 60fps.
In that case, the GPU holds down the GE by frame sync. By design, the
overhead of the rasterizer is 0 when the the objects are invisible.
This table shows a global speed up between 9x and 45x compared to 2.48a
for scenegraph, culling and rasterizer overhead. The speed up goes much
higher when objects are invisible.
An additional 2-4x speed up is possible in the scenegraph by upgrading
the Moto library to use Eigen2 BLAS library instead of C++ classes but
the scenegraph is already so fast that it is not a priority right now.
Next speed up in logic: many things to do there...
Use dynamic linked list to handle scenegraph rather than dumb scan
of the whole tree. The performance improvement depends on the fraction
of moving objects. If most objects are static, the speed up is
considerable. The following table compares the time spent on
scenegraph before and after this commit on a scene with 10000 objects
in various configuratons:
Scenegraph time (ms) Before After
(includes culling)
All objects static, 8.8 1.7
all visible but small fraction
in the view frustrum
All objects static, 7,5 0.01
all invisible.
All objects moving, 14.1 8.4
all visible but small fraction
in the view frustrum
This tables shows that static and invisible objects take no CPU at all
for scenegraph and culling. In the general case, this commit will
speed up the scenegraph between 2x and 5x. Compared to 2.48a, it should
be between 4x and 10x faster. Further speed up is possible by making
the scenegraph cache-friendly.
Next round of performance improvement will be on the rasterizer: use
the same dynamic linked list technique for the mesh slots.
Realtime modifiers applied on mesh objects will be supported in
the game engine with the following limitations:
- Only real time modifiers are supported (basically all of them!)
- Virtual modifiers resulting from parenting are not supported:
armature, curve, lattice. You can still use these modifiers
(armature is really not recommended) but in non parent mode.
The BGE has it's own parenting capability for armature.
- Modifiers are computed on the host (using blender modifier
stack).
- Modifiers are statically evaluated: any possible time dependency
in the modifiers is not supported (don't know enough about
modifiers to be more specific).
- Modifiers are reevaluated if the underlying mesh is deformed
due to shape action or armature action. Beware that this is
very CPU intensive; modifiers should really be used for static
objects only.
- Physics is still based on the original mesh: if you have a
mirror modifier, the physic shape will be limited to one half
of the resulting object. Therefore, the modifiers should
preferably be used on graphic objects.
- Scripts have no access to the modified mesh.
- Modifiers that are based on objects interaction (boolean,..)
will not be dependent on the objects position in the GE.
What you see in the 3D view is what you get in the GE regardless
on the object position, velocity, etc.
Besides that, the feature is compatible with all the BGE features
that affect meshes: armature action, shape action, relace mesh,
VideoTexture, add object, dupligroup.
Known problems:
- This feature is a bit hacky: the BGE uses the derived mesh draw
functions to display the object. This drawing method is a
bit slow and is not 100% compatible with the BGE. There may
be some problems in multi-texture mode: the multi-texture
coordinates are not sent to the GPU.
Texface and GLSL on the other hand should be fully supported.
- Culling is still based on the extend of the original mesh.
If you have a modifer that extends the size of the mesh,
the object may disappear while still in the view frustrum.
- Derived mesh is not shared between replicas.
The derived mesh is allocated and computed for each object
with modifiers, regardless if they are static replicas.
- Display list are not created on objects with modifiers.
I should be able to fix the above problems before release.
However, the feature is already useful for game development.
Once you are ready to release the game, you can apply the modifiers
to get back display list support and mesh sharing capability.
MSVC, scons, Cmake, makefile updated.
Enjoy
/benoit
* long time due: copy the executables to the install/msvc9 or install/msvc9d dir instead of keeping them in the source tree in the bin folder!
* copy the new ui scripts to the install dir
Added occlusion culling capability in the BGE.
More info: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.49/Game_Engine#BGE_Scenegraph_improvement
MSVC, scons, cmake, Makefile updated.
Other minor performance improvements:
- The rasterizer was computing the openGL model matrix of the objects too many times
- DBVT view frustrum culling was not properly culling behind the near plane:
Large objects behind the camera were sent to the GPU
- Remove all references to mesh split/join feature as it is not yet functional
