The extensions system allows to extend Blender with connectivity to the internet. Right now it means Blender can
discover and install add-ons and themes directly from the internet, and notify users about their updates.
By default this is disabled (opt-in), and users can enable it the first time they try to install an extension or visit
the Prefences > Extensions tab. If this is enabled, Blender will automatically check for updates for
extensions.blender.org upon startup.
When will Blender access the remote repositories:
* Every time you open the Preferences → Extensions: ALL the enabled repositories get checked for the latest info (json)
* Every time you try to install by dragging: ALL the enabled repositories get checked for the latest info (json).
* Every time you start Blender: selected repositories get checked for the latest info (json).
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From the Blender code point of view, this means that most of the add-ons and themes originally bundled with Blender
will now be available from the online platform, instead of bundled with Blender. The exception are add-ons which are
deemed core functionality which just happened to be written as Python add-ons.
Links:
* Original Extenesions Platform Announcement: https://code.blender.org/2022/10/blender-extensions-platform/
* Extensions website: https://extensions.blender.org/
* User Manual: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/4.2/extensions/index.html#extensions-index
* Technical specifications: https://developer.blender.org/docs/features/extensions/
* Changes on add-ons bundling: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/changes-to-add-on-bundling-4-2-onwards/34593
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This PR does the following:
* Move extensions out of experimental.
* No longer install `scripts/addons` & `scripts/addons_contrib`.
* Add `scripts/addons_core` to blender's repository.
These add-ons will still be bundled with Blender and will be always enabled in the future, with their preferences
moved to be more closely integrated with the rest of Blender. This will happen during the remaining bcon2 period.
For more details, see #121830
From scripts/addons:
* copy_global_transform.py
* hydra_storm
* io_anim_bvh
* io_curve_svg
* io_mesh_uv_layout
* io_scene_fbx
* io_scene_gltf2
* pose_library
* ui_translate
* viewport_vr_preview
Extra: bl_pkg (scripts/addons_contrib)
Note: The STL (legacy) add-on is going to be moved to the extensions platform. There is already a C++ version on core
which is enabled by default.
All the other add-ons are already available at extensions.blender.org. To use them you need to:
* Go to User Preferences > Extensions
* You will be greated with an "Online Extensions" message, click on "Enable Repository".
* Search the add-on you are looking for (e.g, Import Images as Planes).
* Click on Install
Over time their maintaince will be transferred over to the community so their development can carry on. If you used to
help maintain a bundled add-on please read: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/changes-to-add-on-bundling-4-2-onwards/34593
Ref: !121825
The algorithm to merge points based on distance thresholdhas been
implemented in 8b7d5f8587. This patch moves the function to
`blender::ed::greasepencil` namespace and use it to implement
merge by distance operator.
There are two parameters for the operator:
`threshold`: Distance threshold used for merging.
`use_unselected`: Use whole stroke or only selected points
Resolves: #113917
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/120385
Implementation of the GPv2 Fill tool in Grease Pencil 3.
This tool creates new strokes where the user clicks, by rendering
strokes into an image and then performing flood-fill and boundary
search operations.
This is a minimal first part, several features of the GPv2 tool are
still missing (gap filling methods, smoothing, dilate/erode).
Co-authored-by: Falk David <falk@blender.org>
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/120693
Sculpt: Add customizable increment for line tool snapping
This PR exposes the snap increments introduced in #118760 to the base
`WM_gesture_straightline` operators and exposes the increment menu to
allow users to change this value in both Sculpt and Weight Paint mode.
## Details
The full list of operators this affects:
* IMAGE_OT_sample_line
* PAINT_OT_weight_gradient
* MESH_OT_bisect
* PAINT_OT_mask_line_gesture
* SCULPT_OT_trim_line_gesture
* SCULPT_OT_project_line_gesture
* PAINT_OT_hide_show_line_gesture
## Compatibility
Previously, the hardcoded value for this snap increment was 15 degrees,
by using the toolsetting value, this changes the default to 5 degrees.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121547
Sun extraction convert part of light comming from the world to a
sun light which increases the quality of the rendering. The goal
of this feature is to workaround the limitation of the storage
techniques used for environment lighting inside EEVEE.
This first implementation works by clamping the world lighting and
summing the excess lighting and (and its incomming directions) to
deduce the sun position.
All the lighting is then transfered into this light power. The sun
angle is computed based on the directionnality of the excess lighting,
the more divergent the excess lighting is, the bigger the angle.
This has a few benefits:
- It's stable and behave well under animation. This is because we
average a lot of data.
- It's fast as it can be done inside the remap shader in one pass.
- It requires only one parameter, the clamp threshold.
However, it has some issue:
- It modifies the lighting as we change the incomming direction for
excess lighting away from the chosen sun direction. This could be fixed
by masking only lighting around the chosen sun direction (requires 2
passes, slower).
- Given that this only average the direction, it behaves poorly if there
two opposite bright light sources (it puts the sun in the middle). This
could be fixed by extracting more suns, but that becomes more complex
and requires even more passes.
- It looks bad if the summed lighting is not supposed to be a perfect
disk in specular reflections or if the sources are too divergent as the
disk is too big and the approximation fails short. This could be
mitigated by adding an upper bound to the sun radius. For now we
workaround this issue by exposing the sun angle parameter in the UI.
A more precise algorithm can be implemented in the future to avoid
having to deal with these limitations. A possibility is to use
importance sampling to randomize sun position. But that would be only
for final render.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121455
Effectively, make GPU compositor available without need to enable
an experimental feature set.
The compositor device is now exposed in the Performance panel of
Render Buttons. It is also still available in the compositor's
N-panel, together with some other options which are more about how
editing works, and not exactly related to render performance.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121398
This implements and exposes the `View`/`Scene` brush radius option.
* `View`: Brush units are in pixels. Zooming in and out in the viewport will make the brush stay the same size relative to the view, but grow/shrink relative to the scene.
* `Scene`: Brush units are in meters. Zooming in and out in the viewport will make the brush grow/shrink relative to the view, but stay the same size relative to the scene.
The default radius unit is `Scene`, which is what GPv2 did.
The "2D Animation Template" was updated to disable using the radius in the unified paint settings. This means that using the template by default will use the brush radius, which also mimics the behavior of GPv2.
The user can change the radius brush unit from the `Advanced` panel.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/120257
Reorganizes the "Select" menus in all 3D Viewport modes to create more
consistency and sort/group operators according to logic laid out in #121337
More details and images in the pull request.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121521
Reorganizes (and in some cases add missing operators to) all 'Select'
menus in all editors except 3D Viewport (done in a separate patch).
The goal of this change is to make menus as consistent as possible, and
to group & sort items according to a certain logic, which should be easy to
remember and users can always expect certain items to be always at same
place in every editor.
More details and images in the pull request.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121337
The new/experimental, layered `Animation` data-block is merged with the
existing `bAction` data-block.
The `Animation` data-block is considerably newer than `bAction`, so the
supporting code that was written for it is also more modern. When moving
that code into `bAction`, I chose to keep the modernity where possible,
and thus some of the old code has been updated as well. Things like
preferring references over pointers.
The `Animation` data-block is now gone from DNA, the main database, etc.
As this was still an experimental feature, there is no versioning code
to convert any of that to Actions.
The DNA struct `bAction` now has a C++ wrapper `animrig::Action`, that
can be obtained via `some_action->wrap()`.
`animrig::Action` has functions `is_empty()`, `is_action_legacy()`, and
`is_action_layered()`. They **all** return `true` when the Action is
empty, as in that case none of the data that makes an action either
'legacy' or 'layered' is there.
The 'animation filtering' code (for showing things in the dope sheet,
graph editor, etc) that I wrote for `Animation` is intentionally kept
around. These types now target 'layered actions' and the
already-existing ones 'legacy actions'. A future PR may merge these two
together, but given how much work it was to add something new there, I'd
rather wait until the dust has settled on this commit.
There are plenty of variables (and some comments) named `anim` or
`animation` that now are of type `animrig::Action`. I haven't renamed
them all, to keep the noise level low in this commit (it's already big
enough). This can be done in a followup, non-functional PR.
Related task: #121355
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121357
This adds a light parameter to avoid near camera pixels
allocating too much shadow resolution.
This is more intuitive than the scale shadow setting and
allows reducing the precision without changing the look
of distant shadows.
For sun lights, the property sets the minimum pixel
size the shadow can contains. This allows to
remove a lot tilemap close up.
For local lights, there is another additional property
to set the maximum resolution in shadow space (like
EEVEE-Legacy) instead of in world space (like sun
lights). This allows making older files lighter and
allow a more conservative approach to resolution.
This add versionning code to handle EEVEE-Legacy files
that had fixed resolution per light type.
The resolution setting is always in world space distance
as the maximum shadow resolution distribution might change
in the future or be dependent on other parameters
(like beam angle). This ensure that there is no
dependency on these parameters, but make the
setting use very small units. But this is more of
a UI problem.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121701
Rename the `_defs_paint_grease_pencil` toolsystem definition to
`_defs_grease_pencil_paint` for consistency with other definitions,
like `_defs_grease_pencil_sculpt`.
Follow the layout closer to the 3D Viewport overlays.
* Wider, to fit two-column layout and translations.
* Move general settings on top.
* Move strips-related overlays into their own subpanel.
* Move `Thumbnails` higher up so it's more easily reachable.
* Rename `F-Curves` to `Animation Curves`.
* Remove redundant labels.
* Gray out "Waveform Style" when set to Off.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121591
Blender already had the ability to sample the depth with an eyedropper
and fill the focus distance (see `"ui.eyedropper_depth"`). But this feature
was fairly hidden. You had to hover over the `focal_distance` property
in the camera data panel and then press `E` (then sample a distance
in the 3D viewport).
This patch adds a `prop_data_path` property to the `ui.eyedropper_depth`
operator to allow specifying the property that should be filled with the
depth value.
The idea for this is taken from `wm.radial_control`, which also uses this
approach to write to a property. This allows us to add the eyedropper
as a button.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121486
Copy modules before filtering `addon_modules` to avoid
change of dictionnary size during iterations. Otherwise errors
can be triggerd when running `python -m pytest test.py` since
it may modify the module dict.
Co-authored-by: Alexis-19 <alexis-19@noreply.localhost>
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121100
This implements removing of groups and adds an operator
`GREASE_PENCIL_OT_layer_group_remove`.
Groups can be removed in two ways:
* Remove the group and keep the children.
* Remove the group together with all its children.
Based on an earlier attempt by @PratikPB2123 here: !121611
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121663
This allows to expose these settings in the Performance panel in the
render buttons. Also moves compositor-specific options away from the
generic node tree structure.
For the backwards-compatibility the options are still present in the
DNA for the bNodeTree. This is to minimize the impact on the Studio
which has used the GPU compositor for a while now. They can be
removed in a future release.
There is no functional changes expected.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121583
When keying custom properties that are defined by an addon,
you can't use square brackets. The GUI buttons already reflect that.
The baking code and the keyframe insertion code didn't respect
that and so were able to key properties that are defined as non-keyable.
## Solutions
I've solved the issue on the C++ side by resolving
the path twice, once without and in case that didn't work the
second time with brackets. While that does solve the issue
this feels really dirty and I feel like I am misusing the system here.
**However it is absolutely needed**.
When resolving a path with brackets to a property defined
by an addon, you get an `IDProperty` disguised as a `PropertyRNA`
which will not have the correct flags set.
By checking if a property `is_animatable` in python, all that do not have that can be skipped.
Also making sure the path is passed without brackets in the correct cases.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121520
EEVEE-Next world volume are infinite like Cycles. EEVEE-Classic world volumes
end at the clip_end of the camera/viewport. This can lead to confusion as
it would render different then expected.
This PR adds an operator to convert a world volume into a mesh volume. The
operator can be found in the shader editor (world mode) and in the properties
panel/World/Volume.
**Why an operator?**
As this alters the content of the scene we want the artist to be in control of
the conversion. Doing it automatic lead to a lot of complexity and cases that
might not be expected by the user.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/119734
When exporters use layout panels, it was possible for their panel ids to
conflict if more than 1 of the same exporter was configured on the same
collection. The result would be that opening/closing a panel in one
exporter would open/close it for all other exporters of the same type.
This fix changes the layout to avoid the issue entirely by using a list
and only having only one exporter drawn at a time.
A few alternate designs were considered but they would either cause
intrusive changes to each location where a layout panel was used or
would result in tricky disambiguation code inside the UI system itself.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121555
This allows setting a color tag for node groups which affects the header
color of group nodes. With this, node groups can look even more similar
to built-in nodes. The only remaining difference is the node group icon in
the node header.
Blender has quite a few different built-in color tags. Most of those are
exposed with very few exceptions. For example, the layout, interface
and pattern categories are not exposed because they are only for built-in
nodes or are not used anymore.
It's generally agreed upon that the set of different color tags is likely too
large. Some differences between color make more sense in some contexts
than in others. In the interest of consistency, it was decided to expose all
these categories anyway. If we ever decide to consolidate them, the worst
that can happen is that a group looses it's category, which wouldn't be too bad.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121385
Based on the design in #120230.
* Replaces the `Shade Smooth by Angle` operator with `Shade Auto Smooth`
in the object context menu menu.
* The new operator automatically adds and removes the modifier instead
of being a destructive operation.
* The `Shade Smooth` and `Shade Flat` operators now remove the
`Smooth by Angle` modifier automatically.
* Add a pin option to modifiers, which limits dragging and keeps the
modifier after newly added modifiers in the list.
Co-authored-by: Hans Goudey <hans@blender.org>
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121494
The initial motivation for this came from #121334, because now there
are two description inputs which look very alike and not's not obvious
at a glance where they belong to. Additionally, I find myself sometimes
looking for node properties in the group properties panel because of the same panel name.
This patch does the following changes to improve the situation:
* Reorder the node group properties and socket interface panel.
* Rename `Properties` panel to `Group` (similar to `Node` in the corresponding tab).
* Rename the `Interface` panel to `Group Sockets`.
* Add a `Name` field for the node group. This makes it even more obvious that
one is looking at the group properties. Also it makes it possible to rename
the group without having to go up one level to change the name in the group node.
* New layout-panel for the different usages. This only exists for geometry nodes.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121564
It was meant to be included into the previous commit in the area,
but was forgotten due to some technicalities.
Also remove the DisplaceSimpleOperation, which is now not used.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121580
There are few issues with the logic and implementation of this option:
- While the first pass is faster in the terms of a wall-clock time, it
is often not giving usable results to artists, as the final look of
the result is so much different from what it is expected to be.
- It is not supported by the GPU compositor.
- It is based on some static rules based on the node type, rather than
on the apparent computational complexity.
The performance settings are planned to be moved to the RenderData, and
it is unideal to carry on such limited functionality to more places. There
are better approaches to quickly provide approximated results, which we can
look into later.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121558
This adds a new `Axes to Rotation` node which creates a new rotation.
In many cases, the primary and secondary axis inputs are a normal and
tangent of a mesh or curve. This provides a simpler and more direct way
to create this rotation compared to using two `Align Rotation to Vector` nodes.
This more direct way of computing the rotation also allows us to optimize
the case better.
The node rotates one axis (X, Y or Z) to the given primary axis direction. Then
it rotates around that primary direction to align the second axis to the given
secondary direction. Ideally, both input axes are orthogonal. However, the node
still creates the "best" rotation when they are not orthogonal. If one or the axes
is zero or both are (close to) parallel, the resulting rotation is unstable. There is
not too much the node can do to make it more stable.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/104416
This allows node groups to have a description that is shown in the add menu
or when hovering over the node header.
This new description is stored in `bNodeTree.description`. Unfortunately, it
conflicts a bit with `ID.asset_data.description`. The difference is that the latter
only exists for assets. However, it makes sense for node groups to have
descriptions even if they are not assets (just like `static` functions in C++ should
also be able to have comments). In some cases, node groups are also generated
by addons for a specific purpose. Those should still have a description without
being reusable to make it easier to understand for users.
The solution here is to use the asset description if the node group is an asset,
and to use `bNodeTree.description` otherwise. The description is synced
automatically when marking or clearing assets.
A side benefit of this solution is that appended node group assets can keep their
description, which is currently always lost.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121334
Text strips in VSE got:
- Configurable shadow angle and offset (previously shadow location relative to
text was fixed). Currently the shadow position is rounded to integer pixel
locations; sub-pixel positioning might come later.
- Optional shadow blur amount.
- Optional outline, with color and outline width controls. Outline is
implemented using jump flooding algorithm.
Images and more detail in pull request.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121478
