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
There are a couple of functions that create rna pointers. For example
`RNA_main_pointer_create` and `RNA_pointer_create`. Currently, those
take an output parameter `r_ptr` as last argument. This patch changes
it so that the functions actually return a` PointerRNA` instead of using
the output parameters.
This has a few benefits:
* Output parameters should only be used when there is an actual benefit.
Otherwise, one should default to returning the value.
* It's simpler to use the API in the large majority of cases (note that this
patch reduces the number of lines of code).
* It allows the `PointerRNA` to be const on the call-site, if that is desired.
No performance regression has been measured in production files.
If one of these functions happened to be called in a hot loop where
there is a regression, the solution should be to use an inline function
there which allows the compiler to optimize it even better.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/111976
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.
Using ClangBuildAnalyzer on the whole Blender build, it was pointing
out that BLI_math.h is the heaviest "header hub" (i.e. non tiny file
that is included a lot).
However, there's very little (actually zero) source files in Blender
that need "all the math" (base, colors, vectors, matrices,
quaternions, intersection, interpolation, statistics, solvers and
time). A common use case is source files needing just vectors, or
just vectors & matrices, or just colors etc. Actually, 181 files
were including the whole math thing without needing it at all.
This change removes BLI_math.h completely, and instead in all the
places that need it, includes BLI_math_vector.h or BLI_math_color.h
and so on.
Change from that:
- BLI_math_color.h was included 1399 times -> now 408 (took 114.0sec
to parse -> now 36.3sec)
- BLI_simd.h 1403 -> 418 (109.7sec -> 34.9sec).
Full rebuild of Blender (Apple M1, Xcode, RelWithDebInfo) is not
affected much (342sec -> 334sec). Most of benefit would be when
someone's changing BLI_simd.h or BLI_math_color.h or similar files,
that now there's 3x fewer files result in a recompile.
Pull Request #110944
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
source/blender/freestyle wasn't fillowing Blender's own
conventions for integer types.
This had the down-side of making the code_clean.py utility attempt to
replace `unsigned int` types which always failed.
While this edit could have been manually ignored for all files in
freestyle, add the typedef's to `FreestyleConfig.h` and follow Blender's
convention instead.
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
Doing so avoids having duplicated logic for working with pixel
data which is being passed throughout the render pipeline.
Notable changes:
- ImBug can now store GPU texture.
This is not very finished part of the API, which will be
worked further to support tiling for very-high-res images.
- Implicit sharing is removed from the image buffer, as it is
no longer needed.
There should be no functional changes on user level with this
change.
Ref #108618
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/109788
A lot of files were missing copyright field in the header and
the Blender Foundation contributed to them in a sense of bug
fixing and general maintenance.
This change makes it explicit that those files are at least
partially copyrighted by the Blender Foundation.
Note that this does not make it so the Blender Foundation is
the only holder of the copyright in those files, and developers
who do not have a signed contract with the foundation still
hold the copyright as well.
Another aspect of this change is using SPDX format for the
header. We already used it for the license specification,
and now we state it for the copyright as well, following the
FAQ:
https://reuse.software/faq/
Allows to share buffer data between the render result and image buffers.
The storage of the passes and buffers in the render result have been
wrapped into utility structures, with functions to operate on them.
Currently only image buffers which are sharing buffers with the render
results are using the implicit sharing. This allows proper decoupling of
the image buffers from the lifetime of the underlying render result.
Fixes#107248: Compositor ACCESS VIOLATION when updating datablocks from handlers
Additionally, this lowers the memory usage of multi-layer EXR sequences
by avoiding having two copies of render passes in memory.
It is possible to use implicit sharing in more places, but needs
some API to ensure the render result is the only owner of data before
writing to its pixels.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/108045
See: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/103343
Changes:
1. Added `BKE_node.hh` file. New file includes old one.
2. Functions moved to new file. Redundant `(void)`, `struct` are removed.
3. All cpp includes replaced from `.h` on `.hh`.
4. Everything in `BKE_node.hh` is on `blender::bke` namespace.
5. All implementation functions moved in namespace.
6. Function names (`BKE_node_*`) changed to `blender::bke::node_*`.
7. `eNodeSizePreset` now is a class, with renamed items.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/107790
For derived mesh triangulation information, currently the three face
corner indices are stored in the same struct as index of the mesh
polygon the triangle is part of. While those pieces of information are
often used together, they often aren't, and combining them prevents
the indices from being used with generic utilities. It also means that
1/3 more memory has to be written when recalculating the triangulation
after deforming the mesh, and that the entire triangle data has to be
read when only the polygon indices are needed.
This commit splits the polygon index into a separate cache on `Mesh`.
The triangulation data isn't saved to files, so this doesn't affect
.blend files at all.
In a simple test deforming a mesh with geometry nodes, the time used
to recalculate the triangulation reduced from 2.0 ms to 1.6 ms,
increasing overall FPS from 14.6 to 15.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/106774
In some cases comments at the end of control statements were wrapped
onto new lines which made it read as if they applied to the next line
instead of the (now) previous line.
Relocate comments to the previous line or in some cases the end of the
line (before the brace) to avoid confusion.
Note that in quite a few cases these blocks didn't read well
even before MultiLine was used as comments after the brace caused
wrapping across multiple lines in a way that didn't follow
formatting used everywhere else.
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
For example
```
OIIOOutputDriver::~OIIOOutputDriver()
{
}
```
becomes
```
OIIOOutputDriver::~OIIOOutputDriver() {}
```
Saves quite some vertical space, which is especially handy for
constructors.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/105594
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
This simplifies the usage of the API and is preparation for #104478.
The `CustomData_add_layer` and `CustomData_add_layer_named` now have corresponding
`*_with_data` functions that should be used when creating the layer from existing data.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/105708
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.
Use a consistent style for declaring the names of struct members
in their declarations. Note that this convention was already used in
many places but not everywhere.
Remove spaces around the text (matching commented arguments) with
the advantage that the the spell checking utility skips these terms.
Making it possible to extract & validate these comments automatically.
Also use struct names for `bAnimChannelType` & `bConstraintTypeInfo`
which were using brief descriptions.
Currently you can retrieve a mutable array from a const CustomData.
That makes code unsafe since the compiler can't check for correctness
itself. Fix that by introducing a separate function to retrieve mutable
arrays from CustomData. The new functions have the `_for_write`
suffix that make the code's intention clearer.
Because it makes retrieving write access an explicit step, this change
also makes proper copy-on-write possible for attributes.
Notes:
- The previous "duplicate referenced layer" functions are redundant
with retrieving layers with write access
- The custom data functions that give a specific index only have
`for_write` to simplify the API
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14140
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
Attributes are unifying around a name-based API, and we would like to
be able to move away from CustomData in the future. This patch moves
the identification of active and fallback (render) color attributes
to strings on the mesh from flags on CustomDataLayer. This also
removes some ugliness used to retrieve these attributes and maintain
the active status.
The design is described more here: T98366
The patch keeps forward compatibility working until 4.0 with
the same method as the mesh struct of array refactors (T95965).
The strings are allowed to not correspond to an attribute, to allow
setting the active/default attribute independently of actually filling
its data. When applying a modifier, if the strings don't match an
attribute, they will be removed.
The realize instances / join node and join operator take the names from
the first / active input mesh. While other heuristics may be helpful
(and could be a future improvement), just using the first is simple
and predictable.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15169
These were redundant for one of a few reasons:
- A call to `BKE_mesh_tag_coords_changed` was correct instead
- A mesh has dirty normals when created from scratch anyway
- The call was redundant with `BKE_mesh_runtime_clear_geometry`
Render stored a shallow copy of the scene view layers and views for thread
safety, without proper functions to free it. But with the CoW depsgraph this
scene is already a copy of the original and an additional copy is not needed.
Refactor to use the scene view layers and some other settings directly instead
of making a copy.