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
Add three cached topology maps to `Mesh`, to avoid computations when
mesh data isn't changed. Choosing the right maps to cache is a bit
arbitrary, but generally we have to start somewhere. The limiting
factor is memory usage (all the new caches combined have a
comparable footprint to a UV map).
For now, the caches added are:
- Vertex to face corner
- Vertex to face
- Face corner to face
These caches are used in quite a few places already;
- Face corner normal calculation
- UV value merging
- Setting sharp edges from face angles
- Data transfer modifier
- Voxel remesh attribute remapping
- Sculpt mode painting
- Sculpt mode normal calculation
- Vertex paint mode
- Split edges geometry node
- Mesh topology geometry nodes
Caching topology maps means they don't have to be rebuilt every time
they're used. Meshes copied but without topology changes can share
the cache, further reducing re-computations. For example, FPS with a
large mesh using the "Corners of Vertex" node went from 1.8 to 2.3.
Entering sculpt mode is slightly faster too.
There is some obvious work for future commits:
- Use caches in attribute domain interpolation
- More multithreading of second phase of map building
- Update/build caches eagerly in some geometry nodes
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/107816
Since vertex and face normals can be calculated separately, it simplifies
things to further separate the two caches. This makes it easier to use
`SharedCache` to avoid recalculating normals when copying meshes.
Sharing vertex normal caches with meshes with the same positions and
topology allows completely skipping recomputation as meshes are
copied. The effects are similar to e8f4010611, but normals are much
more expensive, so the benefit is larger.
In a simple test changing a large grid's generic attribute with geometry
nodes, I observed a performance improvement from 12 to 17 FPS.
Most real world situations will have smaller changes though.
Completely splitting face and vertex calculation is slightly slower
when face normals aren't already calculated, so I kept the option
to recalculate them together as well.
This simplifies investigating the changes in #105920 which resolve
non-determinism in the vertex normal calculation. If we can make the
topology map creation fast enough, that might allow simplifying this
code more in the future.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/110479
The `lib_link` callback cannot always be fully replaced/removed, as in
some case it is also doing some validation checks, or data editing based
on the result of lib_linking internal ID pointers.
The callback has been renamed for that purpose, from `read_lib` to
`read_after_liblink`. It is now called after all ID pointers have been
fully lib-linked for the current ID, but still before the call to
`do_versions_after_linking`.
This change should not have any behavioral effect. Although in theory
the side-effect of this commit (to split lib linking itself, and the
validation/further processing code) into two completely separated steps
could have some effects, in practice none are expected, and tests did
not show any changes in behavior either..
Part of implementing #105134: Removal of readfile's lib_link & expand code.
The `expand` callback is 'trivial' to replace, since it is only iterating
over ID pointers and calling a callback.
The only change in behavior here is that some pointers that were not
processed previously will now be.
In practice this is not expected to have any real effect (usually
the IDs used by these pointers would have been expanded through other
usages anyway). But it may solve a few corner cases, undocumented issues
though.
Part of implementing #105134: Removal of readfile's lib_link & expand code.
This commit adds a new option flag to the lib_query foreach_id code,
which will make deprecated ID pointers to be processed as well.
NOTE: Currently there is no report to the callbakcs about the fact that
it is processing a deprecated ID. This can be easily added later if it
becomes necessary.
Part of implementing #105134: Removal of readfile's lib_link & expand code.
There is no reason at all for each ID read/write callbacks to have to
deal with this generic, common data explicitely. Generic ID read/write
code is the place to handle such data (just like asset, liboverride,
etc. data are handled already).
Note behavioral change expected here.
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
Currently, while calculating face corner normals, Blender retrieves
custom normal data with write access. When the the custom normals in a
single smooth corner fan don't match, they are reset to the average
value.
This behavior is very old, but it comes from when Blender didn't have a
strong idea of const correctness. Indeed, modifying custom normal data
while calculating normals isn't threadsafe, which is important because
normals are calculated for viewport drawing, for example. And in the
future, properly caching face corner normals (see #93551) will require
the ability to calculate normals on a properly const mesh.
The fix is to still use the average of custom normals in a fan, but
not write that back to the custom data array. In my testing the results
are the same. Setting custom normals still fills the same value for all
corners in a fan.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/110478
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
It is possible to organize shape keys into a tree through the
reference key setting. Mesh editing and sculpting a reference
key is supposed to update all its children, but this was only
done for one level of dependencies.
This changes the code to retrieve the complete set of dependent
keys and update them all.
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/
The usage of the lib pointer was cryptic to say the least, it was
essentialy used to allow or not local IDs results in the mapping
old_id_pointer -> new_id_pointer lookup result.
Now:
- Explicitely pass a boolean to allow or not local ID as result in
lower-level code.
- Pass the 'self ID' pointer instead of its library to the whole
liblinking code (that was already the case in a few places).
Note that naming of the 'self id' pointer is currently very inconsistent
throughout the readfile liblink code, this will have to be cleaned up in
a separate step later. For now, `self_id` has been chosen for new code
as it matches the terminology in lib_query code.
The later change can also allow finer handling of lookup on undo, based
on how it was re-read (or not), should the need for this arise.
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
Using spans instead of raw pointers helps to differentiate ararys from
pointers to single elements, gives bounds checking in debug builds, and
conveniently stores the number of elements in the same variable.
Also make variable naming consistent. For example, use `loops` instead
of `mloop`. The plural helps to clarify that the variable is an array.
I didn't change positions because there is a type mismatch between
C and C++ code that is ugly to manage. All remaining code can be
converted to C++, then that change will be simpler.
Pull Request #105138
The order of arguments to memcpy was reversed, which is sadly possible
because the constness `KeyBlock` of keyblock doesn't propagate to
pointers it contains.
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
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
**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
