This can be useful to allow creating these core attributes with shared
arrays. Otherwise CustomData has to be used directly, which is nice
to avoid. This was done in e45ed69349, but not everywhere.
The main goal of these changes is to support checking if some data has
been changed over time. This is used by the WIP simulation nodes during
baking to detect which attributes have to be stored in every frame because
they have changed.
By using a combination of a weak user count and a version counter, it is
possible to detect that an attribute (or any data controlled by implicit
sharing) has not been changed with O(1) memory and time. It's still
possible that the data has been changed multiple times and is the same
in the end and beginning of course. That wouldn't be detected using this
mechanism.
The `ImplicitSharingInfo` struct has a new weak user count. A weak
reference is one that does not keep the referenced data alive, but makes sure
that the `ImplicitSharingInfo` itself is not deleted. If some piece of
data has one strong and multiple weak users, it is still mutable. If the
strong user count goes down to zero, the referenced data is freed.
Remaining weak users can check for this condition using `is_expired`.
This is a bit similar to `std::weak_ptr` but there is an important difference:
a weak user can not become a strong user while one can create a `shared_ptr`
from a `weak_ptr`. This restriction is necessary, because some code might
be changing the referenced data assuming that it is the only owner. If
another thread suddenly adds a new owner, the data would be shared again
and the first thread would not have been allowed to modify the data in
the first place.
There is also a new integer version counter in `ImplicitSharingInfo`.
It is incremented whenever some code wants to modify the referenced data.
Obviously, this can only be done when the data is not shared because then
it would be immutable. By comparing an old and new version number of the
same sharing info, one can check if the data has been modified. One has
to keep a weak reference to the sharing info together with the old version
number to ensure that the new sharing info is still the same as the old one.
Without this, it can happen that the sharing info was freed and a new
one was allocated at the same pointer address. Using a strong reference
for this purpose does not work, because then the data would never be
modified because it's shared.
Similar to the cache of loose edges added in 1ea169d90e,
cache the number of loose vertices and which are loose in a bit map.
This can save significant time when drawing large meshes in the
viewport, because recalculations can be avoided when the data doesn't
change, and because many geometry nodes set the loose geometry
caches eagerly when the meshes contain no loose elements.
There are two types of loose vertices:
1. Vertices not used by any edges or faces
`Mesh.loose_verts()`
2. Vertices not used by any faces (may be used by loose edges)
`Mesh.verts_no_face()`
Because both are used by Blender in various places, because the cost
is only a bit per vertex (or constant at best) and for design consistency,
we cache both types of loose elements. The bit maps will only be
allocated when they're actually used, but they are already accessed
in a few important places:
- Attribute domain interpolation
- Subdivision surface modifier
- Viewport drawing
Just skipping viewport drawing calculation after certain geometry
nodes setups can have a large impact. Here is the time taken by
viewport loose geometry extraction before and after the change:
- 4 million vertex grid node: 28 ms to 0 ms
- Large molecular nodes setup (curve to mesh node): 104 ms to 0 ms
- Realize instances with 1 million cubes: 131 ms to 0 ms
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/105567
Implicit sharing means attribute ownership is shared between geometry
data-blocks, and the sharing happens automatically. So it's unnecessary
to choose whether to enable it when copying a mesh.
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
We don't use the callbacks that create virtual arrays from the custom data
anymore, they just add extra indirection. The only non-obvious case was
the crease attribute which had a setter function. Replace that with an
attribute validator like the other similar attributes.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/107088
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
Standardize naming, use spans and references for input parameters,
and improve documentation. Now the functions expect the lookups to
succeed as well, they will fail and assert otherwise.
The functions are also simple enough that it likely makes sense to keep
them all inlined
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.
Consistent with naming from 1af62cb3bf. Keep the "coord"
naming in the "vert_coords_alloc" set of functions since they should be
removed (see #103789).
This reverts commit 19222627c6.
Something went wrong here, seems like this commit merged the main branch
into the release branch, which should never be done.
This reverts commit 68181c2560.
I merged 3.6 into 3.5 by mistake. Basically I had a PR against main,
then changed it in the last minute to be against 3.5 via the
web-interface unaware that I shouldn't do it without updating the
patch.
Original Pull Request: #104889
Note that the node group has its sockets names
translated, while the built-in nodes don't.
So we need to use data_ for the built-in nodes names,
and the sockets of the created node groups.
Pull Request #104889
This makes `GVArrayImpl` and `VArrayImpl` more similar.
Only passing the pointer instead of the span also increases
efficiency a little bit. The downside is that a few asserts had
to be removed as well. However, in practice the same asserts
are in place at a higher level as well (in `VArrayCommon`).
Move the `ME_SHARP` flag for mesh edges to a generic boolean
attribute. This will help allow changing mesh edges to just a pair
of integers, giving performance improvements. In the future it could
also give benefits for normal calculation, which could more easily
check if all or no edges are marked sharp, which is helpful considering
the plans in T93551.
The attribute is generally only allocated when it's necessary. When
leaving edit mode, it will only be created if an edge is marked sharp.
The data can be edited with geometry nodes just like a regular edge
domain boolean attribute.
The attribute is named `sharp_edge`, aiming to reflect the similar
`select_edge` naming and to allow a future `sharp_face` name in
a separate commit.
Ref T95966
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16921
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
This moves all multi-function related code in the `functions` module
into a new `multi_function` namespace. This is similar to how there
is a `lazy_function` namespace.
The main benefit of this is that many types names that were prefixed
with `MF` (for "multi function") can be simplified.
There is also a common shorthand for the `multi_function` namespace: `mf`.
This is also similar to lazy-functions where the shortened namespace
is called `lf`.
* New `build_mf` namespace for the multi-function builders.
* The type name of the created multi-functions is now "private",
i.e. the caller has to use `auto`. This has the benefit that the
implementation can change more freely without affecting
the caller.
* `CustomMF` does not use `std::function` internally anymore.
This reduces some overhead during code generation and at
run-time.
* `CustomMF` now supports single-mutable parameters.
Previously, the lifetimes of anonymous attributes were determined by
reference counts which were non-deterministic when multiple threads
are used. Now the lifetimes of anonymous attributes are handled
more explicitly and deterministically. This is a prerequisite for any kind
of caching, because caching the output of nodes that do things
non-deterministically and have "invisible inputs" (reference counts)
doesn't really work.
For more details for how deterministic lifetimes are achieved, see D16858.
No functional changes are expected. Small performance changes are expected
as well (within few percent, anything larger regressions should be reported as
bugs).
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16858
Reading or writing a vertex group is expensive enough that it's worth
parallelizing. On a Ryzen 3700x, in a grid of 250k vertices with
30 randomly assigned vertex groups (each to 10-50% of vertices),
I observed a 4x improvement for writing to a group and a 3x
improvement when reading their data. This significantly speeds
up nodes that create a new mesh from a mesh that had vertex groups.
Since 78f28b55d3, allocating on multiple threads is much
faster, making it a nice improvement to parallelize vertex group
operations. This patch adds multi-threading when removing a
vertex group from the "Remove Named Attribute" node.
On a Ryzen 3700x:
Before: `(Average: 15.6 ms, Min: 15.0 ms)`
After: `(Average: 8.1 ms, Min: 7.6 ms)`
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16916
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
This can improve performance by 3-10x in some simple test cases,
when reading a boolean attribute on a different domain from the
one it's stored on.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D16054
Completely skip the work of interpolating domains for single values
for many to and from combinations. Similar to 535f50e5a6,
but slightly more complex because of the possibility of loose elements
on some mesh domains.
From D16054, with added comments.
This is the conventional way of dealing with unused arguments in C++,
since it works on all compilers.
Regex find and replace: `UNUSED\((\w+)\)` -> `/*$1*/`
This is very similar to D14077. There are two differences though.
First is that vertex creases are already stored in a separate layer,
and second is that we can now completely remove use of `Mesh.cd_flag`,
since that information is now inherent to whether the layers exist.
There are two functional differences here:
* Operators are used to add and remove layers instead of a property.
* The "crease" attribute can be created and removed by geometry nodes.
The second change should make various geometry nodes slightly faster,
since the "crease" attribute was always processed before. Creases are
now interpolated generically in the CustomData API too, which should
help maintain the values across edits better.
Meshes get an `edge_creases` RNA property like the existing vertex
property, to provide more efficient access to the data in Cycles.
One test failure is expected, where different rounding between float
the old char storage means that 5 additional points are scattered in
a geometry nodes test.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15927
We expect some builtin attributes to have positive values or values
within a certain range, but currently there some cases where users
can set attributes to arbitrary values: the store named attribute node,
and the output attributes of the geometry nodes modifier. The set
material index node also needs validation.
This patch adds an `AttributeValidator` to the attribute API, which
can be used to correct values from these untrusted inputs if necessary.
As an alternative to D15548, this approach makes it much easier to
understand when validation is being applied, without the need to add
arguments to every attribute API method or complicate the virtual
array system.
Currently validation is provided with a multi-function. That integrates
well with the field evaluations that set these values now, but it could
be wrapped to be friendlier to other areas of Blender in the future.
The Python API is not handled here either. Currently I would prefer to
wait until we can integrate the C++ and C attribute APIs better before
addressing that.
Fixes T100952
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15990
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
Using the same `GeometryComponentFieldContext` for all situations,
even when only one geometry type is supported is misleading, and mixes
too many different abstraction levels into code that could be simpler.
With the attribute API moved out of geometry components recently,
the "component" system is just getting in the way here.
This commit adds specific field contexts for geometry types: meshes,
curves, point clouds, and instances. There are also separate field input
helper classes, to help reduce boilerplate for fields that only support
specific geometry types.
Another benefit of this change is that it separates geometry components
from fields, which makes it easier to see the purpose of the two concepts,
and how they relate.
Because we want to be able to evaluate a field on just `CurvesGeometry`
rather than the full `Curves` data-block, the generic "geometry context"
had to be changed to avoid using `GeometryComponent`, since there is
no corresponding geometry component type. The resulting void pointer
is ugly, but only turns up in three places in practice. When Apple clang
supports `std::variant`, that could be used instead.
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D15519
A geometry component may reference read-only geometry.
In this case it has to be copied before making changes to it.
This was caused by rBb876ce2a4a4638142.
