Each value is now out of the global namespace, so they can be shorter
and easier to read. Most of this commit just adds the necessary casting
and namespace specification. `enum class` can be forward declared since
it has a specified size. We will make use of that in the next commit.
Use the standard "elements_num" naming, and use the "corner" name rather
than the old "loop" name: `verts_num`, `edges_num`, and `corners_num`.
This matches the existing `faces_num` field which was already renamed.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/116350
"mesh" reads much better than "me" since "me" is a different word.
There's no reason to avoid using two more characters here. Replacing
all of these at once is better than encountering it repeatedly and
doing the same change bit by bit.
Design task: #93551
This PR replaces the auto smooth option with a geometry nodes modifier
that sets the sharp edge attribute. This solves a fair number of long-
standing problems related to auto smooth, simplifies the process of
normal computation, and allows Blender to automatically choose between
face, vertex, and face corner normals based on the sharp edge and face
attributes.
Versioning adds a geometry node group to objects with meshes that had
auto-smooth enabled. The modifier can be applied, which also improves
performance.
Auto smooth is now unnecessary to get a combination of sharp and smooth
edges. In general workflows are changed a bit. Separate procedural and
destructive workflows are available. Custom normals can be used
immediately without turning on the removed auto smooth option.
**Procedural**
The node group asset "Smooth by Angle" is the main way to set sharp
normals based on the edge angle. It can be accessed directly in the add
modifier menu. Of course the modifier can be reordered, muted, or
applied like any other, or changed internally like any geometry nodes
modifier.
**Destructive**
Often the sharp edges don't need to be dynamic. This can give better
performance since edge angles don't need to be recalculated. In edit
mode the two operators "Select Sharp Edges" and "Mark Sharp" can be
used. In other modes, the "Shade Smooth by Angle" controls the edge
sharpness directly.
### Breaking API Changes
- `use_auto_smooth` is removed. Face corner normals are now used
automatically if there are mixed smooth vs. not smooth tags. Meshes
now always use custom normals if they exist.
- In Cycles, the lack of the separate auto smooth state makes normals look
triangulated when all faces are shaded smooth.
- `auto_smooth_angle` is removed. Replaced by a modifier (or operator)
controlling the sharp edge attribute. This means the mesh itself
(without an object) doesn't know anything about automatically smoothing
by angle anymore.
- `create_normals_split`, `calc_normals_split`, and `free_normals_split`
are removed, and are replaced by the simpler `Mesh.corner_normals`
collection property. Since it gives access to the normals cache, it
is automatically updated when relevant data changes.
Addons are updated here: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender-addons/pulls/104609
### Tests
- `geo_node_curves_test_deform_curves_on_surface` has slightly different
results because face corner normals are used instead of interpolated
vertex normals.
- `bf_wavefront_obj_tests` has different export results for one file
which mixed sharp and smooth faces without turning on auto smooth.
- `cycles_mesh_cpu` has one object which is completely flat shaded.
Previously every edge was split before rendering, now it looks triangulated.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/108014
Listing the "Blender Foundation" as copyright holder implied the Blender
Foundation holds copyright to files which may include work from many
developers.
While keeping copyright on headers makes sense for isolated libraries,
Blender's own code may be refactored or moved between files in a way
that makes the per file copyright holders less meaningful.
Copyright references to the "Blender Foundation" have been replaced with
"Blender Authors", with the exception of `./extern/` since these this
contains libraries which are more isolated, any changed to license
headers there can be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Some directories in `./intern/` have also been excluded:
- `./intern/cycles/` it's own `AUTHORS` file is planned.
- `./intern/opensubdiv/`.
An "AUTHORS" file has been added, using the chromium projects authors
file as a template.
Design task: #110784
Ref !110783.
Implements the rest of #101689, after 5e9ea9243b.
- `vdata` -> `vert_data`
- `edata` -> `edge_data`
- `pdata` -> `face_data`
- `ldata` -> `loop_data`
A deeper rename of `loop` to `corner` will be proposed as a next
step, and renaming `totvert` and `totedge` can be done separately.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/110432
Implements part of #101689.
The "poly" name was chosen to distinguish the `MLoop` + `MPoly`
combination from the `MFace` struct it replaced. Those two structures
persisted together for a long time, but nowadays `MPoly` is gone, and
`MFace` is only used in some legacy code like the particle system.
To avoid unnecessarily using a different term, increase consistency
with the UI and with BMesh, and generally make code a bit easier to
read, this commit replaces the `poly` term with `poly`. Most variables
that use the term are renamed too. `Mesh.totface` and `Mesh.fdata` now
have a `_legacy` suffix to reduce confusion. In a next step, `pdata`
can be renamed to `face_data` as well.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/109819
Add the ability to retrieve implicit sharing info directly from the
C++ attribute API, which simplifies memory usage and performance
optimizations making use of it. This commit uses the additions to
the API to avoid copies in a few places:
- The "rest_position" attribute in the mesh modifier stack
- Instance on Points node
- Instances to points node
- Mesh to points node
- Points to vertices node
Many files are affected because in order to include the new information
in the API's returned data, I had to switch a bunch of types from
`VArray` to `AttributeReader`. This generally makes sense anyway, since
it allows retrieving the domain, which wasn't possible before in some
cases. I overloaded the `*` deference operator for some syntactic sugar
to avoid the (very ugly) `.varray` that would be necessary otherwise.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/107059
Implements #95966, as the final step of #95965.
This commit changes the storage of mesh edge vertex indices from the
`MEdge` type to the generic `int2` attribute type. This follows the
general design for geometry and the attribute system, where the data
storage type and the usage semantics are separated.
The main benefit of the change is reduced memory usage-- the
requirements of storing mesh edges is reduced by 1/3. For example,
this saves 8MB on a 1 million vertex grid. This also gives performance
benefits to any memory-bound mesh processing algorithm that uses edges.
Another benefit is that all of the edge's vertex indices are
contiguous. In a few cases, it's helpful to process all of them as
`Span<int>` rather than `Span<int2>`. Similarly, the type is more
likely to match a generic format used by a library, or code that
shouldn't know about specific Blender `Mesh` types.
Various Notes:
- The `.edge_verts` name is used to reflect a mapping between domains,
similar to `.corner_verts`, etc. The period means that it the data
shouldn't change arbitrarily by the user or procedural operations.
- `edge[0]` is now used instead of `edge.v1`
- Signed integers are used instead of unsigned to reduce the mixing
of signed-ness, which can be error prone.
- All of the previously used core mesh data types (`MVert`, `MEdge`,
`MLoop`, `MPoly` are now deprecated. Only generic types are used).
- The `vec2i` DNA type is used in the few C files where necessary.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/106638
Implements #95967.
Currently the `MPoly` struct is 12 bytes, and stores the index of a
face's first corner and the number of corners/verts/edges. Polygons
and corners are always created in order by Blender, meaning each
face's corners will be after the previous face's corners. We can take
advantage of this fact and eliminate the redundancy in mesh face
storage by only storing a single integer corner offset for each face.
The size of the face is then encoded by the offset of the next face.
The size of a single integer is 4 bytes, so this reduces memory
usage by 3 times.
The same method is used for `CurvesGeometry`, so Blender already has
an abstraction to simplify using these offsets called `OffsetIndices`.
This class is used to easily retrieve a range of corner indices for
each face. This also gives the opportunity for sharing some logic with
curves.
Another benefit of the change is that the offsets and sizes stored in
`MPoly` can no longer disagree with each other. Storing faces in the
order of their corners can simplify some code too.
Face/polygon variables now use the `IndexRange` type, which comes with
quite a few utilities that can simplify code.
Some:
- The offset integer array has to be one longer than the face count to
avoid a branch for every face, which means the data is no longer part
of the mesh's `CustomData`.
- We lose the ability to "reference" an original mesh's offset array
until more reusable CoW from #104478 is committed. That will be added
in a separate commit.
- Since they aren't part of `CustomData`, poly offsets often have to be
copied manually.
- To simplify using `OffsetIndices` in many places, some functions and
structs in headers were moved to only compile in C++.
- All meshes created by Blender use the same order for faces and face
corners, but just in case, meshes with mismatched order are fixed by
versioning code.
- `MeshPolygon.totloop` is no longer editable in RNA. This API break is
necessary here unfortunately. It should be worth it in 3.6, since
that's the best way to allow loading meshes from 4.0, which is
important for an LTS version.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/105938
Implements #102359.
Split the `MLoop` struct into two separate integer arrays called
`corner_verts` and `corner_edges`, referring to the vertex each corner
is attached to and the next edge around the face at each corner. These
arrays can be sliced to give access to the edges or vertices in a face.
Then they are often referred to as "poly_verts" or "poly_edges".
The main benefits are halving the necessary memory bandwidth when only
one array is used and simplifications from using regular integer indices
instead of a special-purpose struct.
The commit also starts a renaming from "loop" to "corner" in mesh code.
Like the other mesh struct of array refactors, forward compatibility is
kept by writing files with the older format. This will be done until 4.0
to ease the transition process.
Looking at a small portion of the patch should give a good impression
for the rest of the changes. I tried to make the changes as small as
possible so it's easy to tell the correctness from the diff. Though I
found Blender developers have been very inventive over the last decade
when finding different ways to loop over the corners in a face.
For performance, nearly every piece of code that deals with `Mesh` is
slightly impacted. Any algorithm that is memory bottle-necked should
see an improvement. For example, here is a comparison of interpolating
a vertex float attribute to face corners (Ryzen 3700x):
**Before** (Average: 3.7 ms, Min: 3.4 ms)
```
threading::parallel_for(loops.index_range(), 4096, [&](IndexRange range) {
for (const int64_t i : range) {
dst[i] = src[loops[i].v];
}
});
```
**After** (Average: 2.9 ms, Min: 2.6 ms)
```
array_utils::gather(src, corner_verts, dst);
```
That's an improvement of 28% to the average timings, and it's also a
simplification, since an index-based routine can be used instead.
For more examples using the new arrays, see the design task.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/104424
Refactoring mesh code, it has become clear that local cleanups and
simplifications are limited by the need to keep a C public API for
mesh functions. This change makes code more obvious and makes further
refactoring much easier.
- Add a new `BKE_mesh.hh` header for a C++ only mesh API
- Introduce a new `blender::bke::mesh` namespace, documented here:
https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Source/Objects/Mesh#Namespaces
- Move some functions to the new namespace, cleaning up their arguments
- Move code to `Array` and `float3` where necessary to use the new API
- Define existing inline mesh data access functions to the new header
- Keep some C API functions where necessary because of RNA
- Move all C++ files to use the new header, which includes the old one
In the future it may make sense to split up `BKE_mesh.hh` more, but for
now keeping the same name as the existing header keeps things simple.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/105416
Currently the shade smooth status for mesh faces is stored as part of
`MPoly::flag`. As described in #95967, this moves that information
to a separate boolean attribute. It also flips its status, so the
attribute is now called `sharp_face`, which mirrors the existing
`sharp_edge` attribute. The attribute doesn't need to be allocated
when all faces are smooth. Forward compatibility is kept until
4.0 like the other mesh refactors.
This will reduce memory bandwidth requirements for some operations,
since the array of booleans uses 12 times less memory than `MPoly`.
It also allows faces to be stored more efficiently in the future, since
the flag is now unused. It's also possible to use generic functions to
process the values. For example, finding whether there is a sharp face
is just `sharp_faces.contains(true)`.
The `shade_smooth` attribute is no longer accessible with geometry nodes.
Since there were dedicated accessor nodes for that data, that shouldn't
be a problem. That's difficult to version automatically since the named
attribute nodes could be used in arbitrary combinations.
**Implementation notes:**
- The attribute and array variables in the code use the `sharp_faces`
term, to be consistent with the user-facing "sharp faces" wording,
and to avoid requiring many renames when #101689 is implemented.
- Cycles now accesses smooth face status with the generic attribute,
to avoid overhead.
- Changing the zero-value from "smooth" to "flat" takes some care to
make sure defaults are the same.
- Versioning for the edge mode extrude node is particularly complex.
New nodes are added by versioning to propagate the attribute in its
old inverted state.
- A lot of access is still done through the `CustomData` API rather
than the attribute API because of a few functions. That can be
cleaned up easily in the future.
- In the future we would benefit from a way to store attributes as a
single value for when all faces are sharp.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/104422
With the goal of clearly differentiating between arrays and single
elements, improving consistency across Blender, and using wording
that's easier to read and say, change variable names for Mesh edges
and polygons/faces.
Common renames are the following, with some extra prefixes, etc.
- `mpoly` -> `polys`
- `mpoly`/`mp`/`p` -> `poly`
- `medge` -> `edges`
- `med`/`ed`/`e` -> `edge`
`MLoop` variables aren't affected because they will be replaced
when they're split up into to arrays in #104424.
CustomData layer names should not be written except via the CusomData
api. Therefore use const char * instead of char * when referencing the
layer name.
Pull Request #104585
Currently the `MLoopUV` struct stores UV coordinates and flags related
to editing UV maps in the UV editor. This patch changes the coordinates
to use the generic 2D vector type, and moves the flags into three
separate boolean attributes. This follows the design in T95965, with
the ultimate intention of simplifying code and improving performance.
Importantly, the change allows exporters and renderers to use UVs
"touched" by geometry nodes, which only creates generic attributes.
It also allows geometry nodes to create "proper" UV maps from scratch,
though only with the Store Named Attribute node for now.
The new design considers any 2D vector attribute on the corner domain
to be a UV map. In the future, they might be distinguished from regular
2D vectors with attribute metadata, which may be helpful because they
are often interpolated differently.
Most of the code changes deal with passing around UV BMesh custom data
offsets and tracking the boolean "sublayers". The boolean layers are
use the following prefixes for attribute names: vert selection: `.vs.`,
edge selection: `.es.`, pinning: `.pn.`. Currently these are short to
avoid using up the maximum length of attribute names. To accommodate
for these 4 extra characters, the name length limit is enlarged to 68
bytes, while the maximum user settable name length is still 64 bytes.
Unfortunately Python/RNA API access to the UV flag data becomes slower.
Accessing the boolean layers directly is be better for performance in
general.
Like the other mesh SoA refactors, backward and forward compatibility
aren't affected, and won't be changed until 4.0. We pay for that by
making mesh reading and writing more expensive with conversions.
Resolves T85962
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14365
**Changes**
As described in T93602, this patch removes all use of the `MVert`
struct, replacing it with a generic named attribute with the name
`"position"`, consistent with other geometry types.
Variable names have been changed from `verts` to `positions`, to align
with the attribute name and the more generic design (positions are not
vertices, they are just an attribute stored on the point domain).
This change is made possible by previous commits that moved all other
data out of `MVert` to runtime data or other generic attributes. What
remains is mostly a simple type change. Though, the type still shows up
859 times, so the patch is quite large.
One compromise is that now `CD_MASK_BAREMESH` now contains
`CD_PROP_FLOAT3`. With the general move towards generic attributes
over custom data types, we are removing use of these type masks anyway.
**Benefits**
The most obvious benefit is reduced memory usage and the benefits
that brings in memory-bound situations. `float3` is only 3 bytes, in
comparison to `MVert` which was 4. When there are millions of vertices
this starts to matter more.
The other benefits come from using a more generic type. Instead of
writing algorithms specifically for `MVert`, code can just use arrays
of vectors. This will allow eliminating many temporary arrays or
wrappers used to extract positions.
Many possible improvements aren't implemented in this patch, though
I did switch simplify or remove the process of creating temporary
position arrays in a few places.
The design clarity that "positions are just another attribute" brings
allows removing explicit copying of vertices in some procedural
operations-- they are just processed like most other attributes.
**Performance**
This touches so many areas that it's hard to benchmark exhaustively,
but I observed some areas as examples.
* The mesh line node with 4 million count was 1.5x (8ms to 12ms) faster.
* The Spring splash screen went from ~4.3 to ~4.5 fps.
* The subdivision surface modifier/node was slightly faster
RNA access through Python may be slightly slower, since now we need
a name lookup instead of just a custom data type lookup for each index.
**Future Improvements**
* Remove uses of "vert_coords" functions:
* `BKE_mesh_vert_coords_alloc`
* `BKE_mesh_vert_coords_get`
* `BKE_mesh_vert_coords_apply{_with_mat4}`
* Remove more hidden copying of positions
* General simplification now possible in many areas
* Convert more code to C++ to use `float3` instead of `float[3]`
* Currently `reinterpret_cast` is used for those C-API functions
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15982
As part of T95966, this patch moves loose edge information out of the
flag on each edge and into a new lazily calculated cache in mesh
runtime data. The number of loose edges is also cached, so further
processing can be skipped completely when there are no loose edges.
Previously the `ME_LOOSEEDGE` flag was updated on a "best effort"
basis. In order to be sure that it was correct, you had to be sure
to call `BKE_mesh_calc_edges_loose` first. Now the loose edge tag
is always correct. It also doesn't have to be calculated eagerly
in various places like the screw modifier where the complexity
wasn't worth the theoretical performance benefit.
The patch also adds a function to eagerly set the number of loose
edges to zero to avoid building the cache. This is used by various
primitive nodes, with the goal of improving drawing performance.
This results in a few ms shaved off extracting draw data for some
large meshes in my tests.
In the Python API, `MeshEdge.is_loose` is no longer editable.
No built-in addons set the value anyway. The upside is that
addons can be sure the data is correct based on the mesh.
**Tests**
There is one test failure in the Python OBJ exporter: `export_obj_cube`
that happens because of existing incorrect versioning. Opening the
file in master, all the edges were set to "loose", which is fixed
by this patch.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16504
The new Xcode 14.1 brings the new Apple Clang compiler which
considers sprintf unsafe and geenrates deprecation warnings
suggesting to sue snprintf instead. This only happens for C++
code by default, and C code can still use sprintf without any
warning.
This changes does the following:
- Whenever is trivial replace sprintf() with BLI_snprintf.
- For all other cases use the newly introduced BLI_sprintf
which is a wrapper around sprintf() but without warning.
There is a discouragement note in the BLI_sprintf comment to
suggest use of BLI_snprintf when the size is known.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16410
Replace `mesh_attributes`, `mesh_attributes_for_write` and the point
cloud versions with methods on the `Mesh` and `PointCloud` types.
This makes them friendlier to use and improves readability.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15907
Use `verts` instead of `vertices` and `polys` instead of `polygons`
in the API added in 05952aa94d. This aligns better with
existing naming where the shorter names are much more common.
For copy-on-write, we want to share attribute arrays between meshes
where possible. Mutable pointers like `Mesh.mvert` make that difficult
by making ownership vague. They also make code more complex by adding
redundancy.
The simplest solution is just removing them and retrieving layers from
`CustomData` as needed. Similar changes have already been applied to
curves and point clouds (e9f82d3dc7, 410a6efb74). Removing use of
the pointers generally makes code more obvious and more reusable.
Mesh data is now accessed with a C++ API (`Mesh::edges()` or
`Mesh::edges_for_write()`), and a C API (`BKE_mesh_edges(mesh)`).
The CoW changes this commit makes possible are described in T95845
and T95842, and started in D14139 and D14140. The change also simplifies
the ongoing mesh struct-of-array refactors from T95965.
**RNA/Python Access Performance**
Theoretically, accessing mesh elements with the RNA API may become
slower, since the layer needs to be found on every random access.
However, overhead is already high enough that this doesn't make a
noticible differenc, and performance is actually improved in some
cases. Random access can be up to 10% faster, but other situations
might be a bit slower. Generally using `foreach_get/set` are the best
way to improve performance. See the differential revision for more
discussion about Python performance.
Cycles has been updated to use raw pointers and the internal Blender
mesh types, mostly because there is no sense in having this overhead
when it's already compiled with Blender. In my tests this roughly
halves the Cycles mesh creation time (0.19s to 0.10s for a 1 million
face grid).
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15488
This patch moves material indices from the mesh `MPoly` struct to a
generic integer attribute. The builtin material index was already
exposed in geometry nodes, but this makes it a "proper" attribute
accessible with Python and visible in the "Attributes" panel.
The goals of the refactor are code simplification and memory and
performance improvements, mainly because the attribute doesn't have
to be stored and processed if there are no materials. However, until
4.0, material indices will still be read and written in the old
format, meaning there may be a temporary increase in memory usage.
Further notes:
* Completely removing the `MPoly.mat_nr` after 4.0 may require
changes to DNA or introducing a new `MPoly` type.
* Geometry nodes regression tests didn't look at material indices,
so the change reveals a bug in the realize instances node that I fixed.
* Access to material indices from the RNA `MeshPolygon` type is slower
with this patch. The `material_index` attribute can be used instead.
* Cycles is changed to read from the attribute instead.
* BMesh isn't changed in this patch. Theoretically it could be though,
to save 2 bytes per face when less than two materials are used.
* Eventually we could use a 16 bit integer attribute type instead.
Ref T95967
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15675
Knowing when layers are retrieved for write access will be essential
when adding proper copy-on-write support. This commit makes that
clearer by adding `const` where the retrieved data is not modified.
Ref T95842
The "PROP" in the name reflects its generic status, and removing
"LOOP" makes sense because it is no longer associated with just
mesh face corners. In general the goal is to remove extra semantic
meaning from the custom data types.
A mistake in the mesh normal refactor caused the wrong mesh to
be used when calculating normals with a shape key's deformation.
This commit fixes the normal calculation by using the correct mesh,
with just adjusted vertex positions, and calculating the results
directly into the result arrays when possible. This completely avoids
the need to make a local copy of the mesh, which makes sense,
since the only thing that changes is the vertex positions.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14317
Use a shorter/simpler license convention, stops the header taking so
much space.
Follow the SPDX license specification: https://spdx.org/licenses
- C/C++/objc/objc++
- Python
- Shell Scripts
- CMake, GNUmakefile
While most of the source tree has been included
- `./extern/` was left out.
- `./intern/cycles` & `./intern/atomic` are also excluded because they
use different header conventions.
doc/license/SPDX-license-identifiers.txt has been added to list SPDX all
used identifiers.
See P2788 for the script that automated these edits.
Reviewed By: brecht, mont29, sergey
Ref D14069
As described in T91186, this commit moves mesh vertex normals into a
contiguous array of float vectors in a custom data layer, how face
normals are currently stored.
The main interface is documented in `BKE_mesh.h`. Vertex and face
normals are now calculated on-demand and cached, retrieved with an
"ensure" function. Since the logical state of a mesh is now "has
normals when necessary", they can be retrieved from a `const` mesh.
The goal is to use on-demand calculation for all derived data, but
leave room for eager calculation for performance purposes (modifier
evaluation is threaded, but viewport data generation is not).
**Benefits**
This moves us closer to a SoA approach rather than the current AoS
paradigm. Accessing a contiguous `float3` is much more efficient than
retrieving data from a larger struct. The memory requirements for
accessing only normals or vertex locations are smaller, and at the
cost of more memory usage for just normals, they now don't have to
be converted between float and short, which also simplifies code
In the future, the remaining items can be removed from `MVert`,
leaving only `float3`, which has similar benefits (see T93602).
Removing the combination of derived and original data makes it
conceptually simpler to only calculate normals when necessary.
This is especially important now that we have more opportunities
for temporary meshes in geometry nodes.
**Performance**
In addition to the theoretical future performance improvements by
making `MVert == float3`, I've done some basic performance testing
on this patch directly. The data is fairly rough, but it gives an idea
about where things stand generally.
- Mesh line primitive 4m Verts: 1.16x faster (36 -> 31 ms),
showing that accessing just `MVert` is now more efficient.
- Spring Splash Screen: 1.03-1.06 -> 1.06-1.11 FPS, a very slight
change that at least shows there is no regression.
- Sprite Fright Snail Smoosh: 3.30-3.40 -> 3.42-3.50 FPS, a small
but observable speedup.
- Set Position Node with Scaled Normal: 1.36x faster (53 -> 39 ms),
shows that using normals in geometry nodes is faster.
- Normal Calculation 1.6m Vert Cube: 1.19x faster (25 -> 21 ms),
shows that calculating normals is slightly faster now.
- File Size of 1.6m Vert Cube: 1.03x smaller (214.7 -> 208.4 MB),
Normals are not saved in files, which can help with large meshes.
As for memory usage, it may be slightly more in some cases, but
I didn't observe any difference in the production files I tested.
**Tests**
Some modifiers and cycles test results need to be updated with this
commit, for two reasons:
- The subdivision surface modifier is not responsible for calculating
normals anymore. In master, the modifier creates different normals
than the result of the `Mesh` normal calculation, so this is a bug
fix.
- There are small differences in the results of some modifiers that
use normals because they are not converted to and from `short`
anymore.
**Future improvements**
- Remove `ModifierTypeInfo::dependsOnNormals`. Code in each modifier
already retrieves normals if they are needed anyway.
- Copy normals as part of a better CoW system for attributes.
- Make more areas use lazy instead of eager normal calculation.
- Remove `BKE_mesh_normals_tag_dirty` in more places since that is
now the default state of a new mesh.
- Possibly apply a similar change to derived face corner normals.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D12770
