Moved N-keys dialog into panel (sub panel of "Scene")
_much_ better :)
Since UI-code isn't directly my main field of coding, please check
thoroughly...
=========
Merge of the famous particle patch by Janne Karhu, a full rewrite
of the Blender particle system. This includes:
- Emitter, Hair and Reactor particle types.
- Newtonian, Keyed and Boids physics.
- Various particle visualisation and rendering types.
- Vertex group and texture control for various properties.
- Interpolated child particles from parents.
- Hair editing with combing, growing, cutting, .. .
- Explode modifier.
- Harmonic, Magnetic fields, and multiple falloff types.
.. and lots of other things, some more info is here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewritehttp://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Particles_Rewrite_Doc
The new particle system cannot be backwards compatible. Old particle
systems are being converted to the new system, but will require
tweaking to get them looking the same as before.
Point Cache
===========
The new system to replace manual baking, based on automatic caching
on disk. This is currently used by softbodies and the particle system.
See the Cache API section on:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/PhysicsSprint
Documentation
=============
These new features still need good docs for the release logs, help
for this is appreciated.
Checked every instance of testbase to see this dosnt break anything, also changed TESTBASE and TESTBASELIB, both were used incorrectly in places.
added error_libdata() for library error messages that are everywhere.
added object_data_is_libdata to test if the object and its data's are from a library.
fixed 2 crashs in adding Curve points to a library object (remember to check, verify_ipocurve returns NULL!)
made duplicating and making dupli's real for lib objects possible, disabled joining into lib armatures and meshes.
Nice discovery by Ralf (cheleb): crasher with colorband, caused by NULL
pointer reading. It actually reveiled a weakness in code too, the
buttonswindow context was not set appropriate when buttons window had not
a header...
Please read:
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Imaging.834.0.html
Or in short:
- adding MultiLayer Image support
- recoded entire Image API
- better integration of movie/sequence Images
Was a whole load of work... went down for a week to do this. So, will need
a lot of testing! Will be in irc all evening.
- Proxy Armature: armature layer (visible bones) is now saved in proxy, so
on file reload the layer settings are restored
- bugreport: disabling subsurf (for view) didn't change the total amounts
in header.
Especially for Compositing it was annoying that colors always got clipped
in the 0.0-1.0 range. For this reason, extrapolated Curves now is the
default. Old saved files still have horizontal extrapolation.
Set the option with 'Tools' menu (wrench icon). This is a setting per
curve, so you might need to set all 4 curves for an RGBA curves widget.
In a quick glance: (temp image)
http://www.blender.org/bf/rt.png
Main reason is that Lattices are useful a lot for Armature deformation.
Lattices just provide much more precise and interesting control. However,
with only bone envelopes it's very hard to use.
Working with Lattice vertex groups is nearly identical to Mesh:
- on CTRL+P 'make parent' you can choose the deform option now
- In editmode, the buttons to control vertex groups are available
- In outliner you can select vertexgroups too
- Deforming Lattices with Armatures has all options as for Mesh now.
Note:
- No WeightPaint has been added yet. To compensate, the editmode
drawing for a Lattice with vertex group shows weight values for the active
vertex group.
- Lattice editmode doesn't undo/redo weight editing yet.
- Softbody for Lattice still uses own vertex weights
Implementation notes:
- derivedmesh weight_to_rgb() is now exported to drawobject.c
- been doing cleanups in code (order of includes, var declarations, etc)
- weightpaint button handling now is generic
I've checked on Brecht's proposal for Custom Element data;
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/CustomElementData
It could have been used, but that would mean the existing code for
vertexgroup handling and armature deform couldn't be re-used. I guess this
is really a later todo.
- buffer overflow was possible with providing a file path argument longer
than 256 characters.
- buttons "VCol Light" and "VCol Paint" were not mutual exclusive
- quicktime error menu (unable to create) had a enter in end
- deleting points in CurveMapping button (like Curves node in compositor)
did not give proper recalc event
- edges render menu had a tooltip still mentioning the unified render
When you rename a generated image, like "Render Result" or "Composite"
the float buffer in this image had to be copied, otherwise a next render
will make the renamed Image buffer invalid.
Note that renaming will not mean the images get packed or saved! So on
reloading .blend they're gone.
- Mark Border Seam: mark edges on the border of face selection as seam.
- Clear Seam: clears seams in selected faces.
Hotkey: Ctrl+E
- Alt+RMB Click: mark/clear edge as seam
- Alt+Shift+RMB Click: mark/clear seams along the shortest/straightest path
from last marked seam. The cost of the path also includes some measure of
'straightness' next to the typical distance to make things work more
predicatble and edgeloop friendly. Note that this cuts a path from edge to
edge, not vertex to vertex. That gives some nice control over the direction
of the seam.
Also includes:
- Removed old LSCM code.
- Fix updates glitches with DerivedMesh/Subsurf drawing in FaceSelect mode.
Now there's a drawMappedFacesTex instead of drawFacesTex.
- Minimize Stretch menu entry called Limit Stitch.
- Removed the lasttface global, was being set before it was used anyway, so
might as wel return from a function.
- Moved some backbuf sampling code to drawview.c from editmesh, so it can be
used by Faceselect and VPaint.
- Use BLI_heap in parametrizer.c.
system tracking changes in nodes, making sure only these nodes and
the ones that depend, are executed.
Further the 'time cursor' now counts down to indicate which node is being
done.
Also: you now can disable the "use nodes" button in the header, edit all
changes, and when you press that button again it nicely executes the
changes.
Still on the todo:
- make compositing threaded
- find a way to nicely exit compositing on input events... so the UI
keeps being responsive
- idea; a 'percentage' menu in header to enforce calculations on smaller
images temporally
A full detailed description of this will be done later... is several days
of work. Here's a summary:
Render:
- Full cleanup of render code, removing *all* globals and bad level calls
all over blender. Render module is now not called abusive anymore
- API-fied calls to rendering
- Full recode of internal render pipeline. Is now rendering tiles by
default, prepared for much smarter 'bucket' render later.
- Each thread now can render a full part
- Renders were tested with 4 threads, goes fine, apart from some lookup
tables in softshadow and AO still
- Rendering is prepared to do multiple layers and passes
- No single 32 bits trick in render code anymore, all 100% floats now.
Writing images/movies
- moved writing images to blender kernel (bye bye 'schrijfplaatje'!)
- made a new Movie handle system, also in kernel. This will enable much
easier use of movies in Blender
PreviewRender:
- Using new render API, previewrender (in buttons) now uses regular render
code to generate images.
- new datafile 'preview.blend.c' has the preview scenes in it
- previews get rendered in exact displayed size (1 pixel = 1 pixel)
3D Preview render
- new; press Pkey in 3d window, for a panel that continuously renders
(pkey is for games, i know... but we dont do that in orange now!)
- this render works nearly identical to buttons-preview render, so it stops
rendering on any event (mouse, keyboard, etc)
- on moving/scaling the panel, the render code doesn't recreate all geometry
- same for shifting/panning view
- all other operations (now) regenerate the full render database still.
- this is WIP... but big fun, especially for simple scenes!
Compositor
- Using same node system as now in use for shaders, you can composit images
- works pretty straightforward... needs much more options/tools and integration
with rendering still
- is not threaded yet, nor is so smart to only recalculate changes... will be
done soon!
- the "Render Result" node will get all layers/passes as output sockets
- The "Output" node renders to a builtin image, which you can view in the Image
window. (yes, output nodes to render-result, and to files, is on the list!)
The Bad News
- "Unified Render" is removed. It might come back in some stage, but this
system should be built from scratch. I can't really understand this code...
I expect it is not much needed, especially with advanced layer/passes
control
- Panorama render, Field render, Motion blur, is not coded yet... (I had to
recode every single feature in render, so...!)
- Lens Flare is also not back... needs total revision, might become composit
effect though (using zbuffer for visibility)
- Part render is gone! (well, thats obvious, its default now).
- The render window is only restored with limited functionality... I am going
to check first the option to render to a Image window, so Blender can become
a true single-window application. :)
For example, the 'Spare render buffer' (jkey) doesnt work.
- Render with border, now default creates a smaller image
- No zbuffers are written yet... on the todo!
- Scons files and MSVC will need work to get compiling again
OK... thats what I can quickly recall. Now go compiling!
- EXR now saves and reads Zbuffers correctly
- EXR reading didn't set alpha to 1 yet when no alpha buffer was present
- ImageWindow: the "black point" only checked for the r value... now is OK
- ImageWindow: Curves panal has button "reset"
- ImageWindow: hold LMB drag shows rgba and z values. With SHIFT or CTRL it
applies black/white point whilte dragging too
- ImageWindow: saving file copied the entire buffer... removed that. Also
made the header print clear; this save only saves in own file type.
- Curves: zoom and drag now gets clamped by the Clipping value
- Imbuf: duplicate buffer only copied one quarter of to new buffer
Image as loaded in Blender (from openexr.com):
http://www.blender.org/bf/exrcurve1.jpg
Image with different white point:
http://www.blender.org/bf/exrcurve2.jpg
Image with white and black point and a curve:
http://www.blender.org/bf/exrcurve3.jpg
Use SHIFT+click to set the black point, and CTRL+click for white point.
The buttons in the panel work too, of course.
The curves work after the black/white range was corrected, so you can
stick to curves with a normal 0-1 range.
There's also now a general color curve, marked with 'C' button.
Note; this currently only maps the float colors to a visible 8 bits per
channel rect. You can save it, but when the blender file loads the curve
or mapping is not executed until you click in the curves... have to look
at that still.
Speed for this is also quite unoptimized... still WIP, but fun!
- New UI element: the "Curve Button".
For mapping ranges (like 0 - 1) to another range, the curve button can be
used for proportional falloff, bone influences, painting density, etc.
Most evident use is of course to map RGB color with curves.
To be able to use it, you have to allocate a CurveMapping struct and pass
this on to the button. The CurveMapping API is in the new C file
blenkernel/intern/colortools.c
It's as simple as calling:
curvemap= curvemapping_add(3, 0, 0, 1, 1)
Which will create 3 curves, and sets a default 0-1 range. The current code
only supports up to 4 curves maximum per mapping struct.
The CurveMap button in Blender than handles allmost all editing.
Evaluating a single channel:
float newvalue= curvemapping_evaluateF(curvemap, 0, oldval);
Where the second argument is the channel index, here 0-1-2 are possible.
Or mapping a vector:
curvemapping_evaluate3F(curvemap, newvec, oldvec);
Optimized versions for byte or short mapping is possible too, not done yet.
In butspace.c I've added a template wrapper for buttons around the curve, to
reveil settings or show tools; check this screenie:
http://www.blender.org/bf/curves.jpg
- Buttons R, G, B: select channel
- icons + and -: zoom in, out
- icon 'wrench': menu with tools, like clear curve, set handle type
- icon 'clipping': menu with clip values, and to dis/enable clipping
- icon 'x': delete selection
In the curve button itself, only LMB clicks are handled (like all UI elements
in Blender).
- click on point: select
- shift+click on point: swap select
- click on point + drag: select point (if not selected) and move it
- click outside point + drag: translate view
- CTRL+click: add new point
- hold SHIFT while dragging to snap to grid
(Yes I know... either one of these can be Blender compliant, not both!)
- if you drag a point exactly on top of another, it merges them
Other fixes:
- Icons now draw using "Safe RasterPos", so they align with pixel boundary.
the old code made ints from the raster pos coordinate, which doesn't work
well for zoom in/out situations
- bug in Node editing: buttons could not get freed, causing in memory error
prints at end of a Blender session. That one was a very simple, but nasty
error causing me all evening last night to find!
(Hint; check diff of editnode.c, where uiDoButtons is called)
Last note: this adds 3 new files in our tree, I did scons, but not MSVC!
********* Node editor work:
- To enable Nodes for Materials, you have to set the "Use Nodes"
button, in the new Material buttons "Nodes" Panel or in header
of the Node editor. Doing this will disable Material-Layers.
- Nodes now execute materials ("shaders"), but still only using the
previewrender code.
- Nodes have (optional) previews for rendered images.
- Node headers allow to hide buttons and/or preview image
- Nodes can be dragged larger/smaller (right-bottom corner)
- Nodes can be hidden (minimized) with hotkey H
- CTRL+click on an Input Socket gives a popup with default values.
- Changing Material/Texture or Mix node will adjust Node title.
- Click-drag outside of a Node changes cursor to "Knife' and allows to
draw a rect where to cut Links.
- Added new node types RGBtoBW, Texture, In/Output, ColorRamp
- Material Nodes have options to ouput diffuse or specular, or to use
a negative normal. The input socket 'Normal' will force the material
to use that normal, otherwise it uses the normal from the Material
that has the node tree.
- When drawing a link between two not-matching sockets, Blender inserts
a converting node (now only for value/rgb combos)
- When drawing a link to an input socket that's already in use, the
old link will either disappear or flip to another unused socket.
- A click on a Material Node will activate it, and show all its settings
in the Material Buttons. Active Material Nodes draw the material icon
in red.
- A click on any node will show its options in the Node Panel in the
Material buttons.
- Multiple Output Nodes can be used, to sample contents of a tree, but
only one Output is the real one, which is indicated in a different
color and red material icon.
- Added ThemeColors for node types
- ALT+C will convert existing Material-Layers to Node... this currently
only adds the material/mix nodes and connects them. Dunno if this is
worth a lot of coding work to make perfect?
- Press C to call another "Solve order", which will show all possible
cyclic conflicts (if there are).
- Technical: nodes now use "Type" structs which define the
structure of nodes and in/output sockets. The Type structs store all
fixed info, callbacks, and allow to reconstruct saved Nodes to match
what is required by Blender.
- Defining (new) nodes now is as simple as filling in a fixed
Type struct, plus code some callbacks. A doc will be made!
- Node preview images are by default float
********* Icon drawing:
- Cleanup of how old icons were implemented in new system, making
them 16x16 too, correctly centered *and* scaled.
- Made drawing Icons use float coordinates
- Moved BIF_calcpreview_image() into interface_icons.c, renamed it
icon_from_image(). Removed a lot of unneeded Imbuf magic here! :)
- Skipped scaling and imbuf copying when icons are OK size
********* Preview render:
- Huge cleanup of code....
- renaming BIF_xxx calls that only were used internally
- BIF_previewrender() now accepts an argument for rendering method,
so it supports icons, buttonwindow previewrender and node editor
- Only a single BIF_preview_changed() call now exists, supporting all
signals as needed for buttos and node editor
********* More stuff:
- glutil.c, glaDrawPixelsSafe() and glaDrawPixelsTex() now accept format
argument for GL_FLOAT rects
- Made the ColorBand become a built-in button for interface.c
Was a load of cleanup work in buttons_shading.c...
- removed a load of unneeded glBlendFunc() calls
- Fixed bug in calculating text length for buttons (ancient!)
-> Any Group Duplicate now can get local timing and local NLA override. This
enables to control the entire animation system of the Group.
Two methods for this have been implemented.
1) The quick way: just give the duplicator a "Startframe" offset.
2) Advanced: in the NLA Editor you can add ActionStrips to the duplicator
to override NLA/action of any Grouped Object.
For "Group NLA" to work, an ActionStrip needs to know which Object in a
group it controls. On adding a strip, the code checks if an Action was
already used by an Object in the Group, and assigns it automatic to that
Object.
You can also set this in the Nkey "Properties" panel for the strip.
Change in NLA: the SHIFT+A "Add strip" command now always adds strips to
the active Object. (It used to check where mouse was). This allows to add
NLA strips to Objects that didn't have actions/nla yet.
Important note: In Blender, duplicates are fully procedural and generated
on the fly for each redraw. This means that redraw speed equals to stepping
through frames, when using animated Duplicated Groups.
-> Recoded entire duplicator system
The old method was antique and clumsy, using globals and full temporal
copies of Object. The new system is nicer in control, faster, and since it
doesn't use temporal object copies anymore, it works better with Derived
Mesh and DisplayList and rendering.
By centralizing the code for duplicating, more options can be easier added.
Features to note:
- Duplicates now draw selected/unselected based on its Duplicator setting.
- Same goes for the drawtype (wire, solid, selection outline, etc)
- Duplicated Groups can be normally selected too
Bonus goodie: SHIFT+A (Toolbox) now has entry "Add group" too, with a
listing of all groups, allowing to add Group instances immediate.
-> Library System
- SHIFT+F4 data browse now shows the entire path for linked data
- Outliner draws Library Icons to denote linked data
- Outliner operation added: "Make Local" for library data.
- Outliner now also draws Groups in regular view, allowing to unlink too.
-> Fixes
- depsgraph missed signal update for bone-parented Objects
- on reading file, the entire database was tagged to "recalc" fully,
causing unnecessary slowdown on reading.
Might have missed stuff... :)
Previous experiment (in 2000) didn't satisfy, it had even some primitive
NLA option in groups... so, cleaned up the old code (removed most) and
integrated it back in a more useful way.
Usage:
- CTRL+G gives menu to add group, add to existing group, or remove from
groups.
- In Object buttons, a new (should become first) Panel was added, showing
not only Object "ID button" and Parent, but also the Groups the Object
Belongs to. These buttons also allow rename, assigning or removing.
- To indicate Objects are grouped, they're drawn in a (not theme yet, so
temporal?) green wire color.
- Use ALT+SHIFT mouse-select to (de)select an entire group
But, the real power of groups is in the following features:
-> Particle Force field and Guide control
In the "Particle Motion" Panel, you can indicate a Group name, this then
limits force fields or guides to members of that Group. (Note that layers
still work on top of that... not sure about that).
-> Light Groups
In the Material "Shaders" Panel, you can indicate a Group name to limit
lighting for the Material to lamps in this group. The Lights in a Group do
need to be 'visible' for the Scene to be rendered (as usual).
-> Group Duplicator
In the Object "Anim" Panel, you can set any Object (use Empty!) to
duplicate an entire Group. It will make copies of all Objects in that Group.
Also works for animated Objects, but it will copy the current positions or
deforms. Control over 'local timing' (so we can do Massive anims!) will be
added later.
(Note; this commit won't render Group duplicators yet, a fix in bf-blender
will enable that, next commit will sync)
-> Library Appending
In the SHIFT-F1 or SHIFT+F4 browsers, you can also find the Groups listed.
By appending or linking the Group itself, and use the Group Duplicator, you
now can animate and position linked Objects. The nice thing is that the
local saved file itself will only store the Group name that was linked, so
on a next file read, the Group Objects will be re-read as stored (changed)
in the Library file.
(Note; current implementation also "gives a base" to linked Group Objects,
to show them as Objects in the current Scene. Need that now for testing
purposes, but probably will be removed later).
-> Outliner
Outliner now shows Groups as optio too, nice to organize your data a bit too!
In General, Groups have a very good potential... for example, it could
become default for MetaBall Objects too (jiri, I can help you later on how
this works). All current 'layer relationships' in Blender should be dropped
in time, I guess...
DXF: when an error message occurs during read, the main call returned
without clearing the used global vars... causing crash on calling again.
ALso: added warning when trying to assign a taper or bevel using Object
itself. (report from opengl tracker :)
Hrms... previous commit here to make sure faces are not added 'double',
caused a part in removedoubles not to work well, removing too many
faces. Solved it more proper now.
There we can find now Particles, Fields & deflectors, Soft Body and Fluids.
This also as preparation for more work on the particle side (becomes two
panels).
Also renamed panels, and made sure the name "Soft Body" is spelled every-
where the same!
It uses an icon as was designed long ago already. Needs some thinking...
This works pretty nice for better control over the curvature of any bone
deform. No need to give Bones (vgroups) large influence, just add a coupleof B-bone segments.
Two notes;
- The Bone property "Segments" defines if a deform happens as a 'B-bone'.
The drawtype B-bone is just for display in 3d window.
- A B-bone also deforms (bends) in Rest-position, if there's a joint that
creates a curved Bone. Therefore, best results you get by creating a
rest-position with straight joints. Or, if you prefer a slightly bended
restposition (for a spine or so), make sure the Mesh model is *not*
curved, the B-bone will do this for you.
Also added: proper events on changing buttons for Bones, like "Segm" or
"Dist" etc.
- moved back to editing buttons, where life is now cramped... switched
to constraint style foldout panes, still a WIP. In particular not
sure what buttons should be in header (and if current toggles stay
in header if they should also be in an expanded pane). Also need
new icons for move up/move down (and drag and drop would of course
be nice). Finally current plane is to make it so modifiers will
expand out in modifier pane for horizontal orientations instead of
just going down down down to goblin town.
- added error field to modifiers that is displayed in UI, need to have
some way for modifiers to return errors back to interface (esp. important
for python)
- tweaked cage determination and handling, currently the editmode cage
is determined by last modifier with OnCage set that is preceeded completely
by modifiers that support mapping or are disabled in editmode. it is
kinda confusing, but the interface only lets you toggle OnCage for modifiers
that support it - it just might not be clear all the time why you can't
toggle a certain modifier OnCage.
- update displistmesh_copy to only copy edges if non-NULL
There is a display bug that already existed but is more obvious with
new modifiers where parts of the pane get drawn in a different area
after toggling editmode. It has to do with drawing parts of the interface
using GL instead of 100% buttons. I try to keep my grubby little toes
out of the interface code so this can wait for Ton to return.
- added ModifierTypeInfo.freeData function
- added modifier_{new,free] utility function
- added ccgSubSurf_getUseAgeCounts to query info
- removed subsurf modifier faking (ME_SUBSURF flag is no
longer valid). subsurf modifier gets converted on file load
although there is obscure linked mesh situation where this
can go wrong, will fix shortly. this also means that some
places in the code that test/copy subsurf settings are broken
for the time being.
- shuffled modifier calculation to be simpler. note that
all modifiers are currently disabled in editmode (including
subsurf). don't worry, will return shortly.
- bug fix, build modifier didn't randomize meshes with only verts
- cleaned up subsurf_ccg and adapted for future editmode modifier
work
- added editmesh.derived{Cage,Final}, not used yet
- added SubsurfModifierData.{mCache,emCache}, will be used to cache
subsurf instead of caching in derivedmesh itself
- removed old subsurf buttons
- added do_modifiers_buttons to handle modifier events
- removed count_object counting of modifier (subsurfed) objects...
this would be nice to add back at some point but requires care.
probably requires rewrite of counting system.
New feature: Incremental Subsurf in Object Mode
The previous release introduce incremental subsurf calculation during
editmode but it was not turned on during object mode. In general it
does not make sense to have it always enabled during object mode because
it requires caching a fair amount of information about the mesh which
is a waste of memory unless the mesh is often recalculated.
However, for mesh's that have subsurfed armatures for example, or that
have other modifiers so that the mesh is essentially changing on every
frame, it makes a lot of sense to keep the subsurf'd object around and
that is what the new incremental subsurf modifier toggle is for. The
intent is that the user will enable this option for (a) a mesh that is
currently under active editing or (b) a mesh that is heavily updated
in the scene, such as a character.
I will try to write more about this feature for release, because it
has advantages and disadvantages that are not immediately obvious (the
first user reaction will be to turn it on for ever object, which is
probably not correct).
submitted by Alexander, changes/improvements are:
- Moved to new Panel in Scene buttons "Post Effects". Together with other
postprocessing options, such as Edge render. It is also not called DoF,
this because that's a bit pretending too much then. It's a zblur still!
- Made it render Alpha as well
- Made it use and deliver float buffers
- Huge cleanup of zblur.c code, was very messy. It was alling things in render
code without need even (win matrices, transform faces, etc)
- Fixed errors in using Z values (zbuffer is signed int)
- Removed very weird gamma corrections for front/back half
- Tweaked gaussian table, allow variable 'Sigma' to be set for gauss curve
- Didn't copy 'auto focus' yet. Use of this is very limited, and gives
false expectations, nor works for rendering anims with deamons well.
Main issue remains: it's not a very advanced feature... I still doubt
very much if this deserves to be released. Spent 2 days on trying to get
the key issues solved, with not much results.
- gauss filter code has weird side effects on large blur size
- having unsharp (blurred) in front also blurs what's around in back.
only blurred in back with sharp in front works a little bit
- severe aliasing errors... also due the code splitting in 2 halves
- doesnt work with unified yet
- won't work for halos, spot halos or transparant faces
Anyhoo... It was promised to be committed, so now artists can play with it.
Who knows it's useful after all, or some fixes can be implemented. :)
- On click on camera object in outliner, world buttons didnt display always
Plus; commented out the calls to select items with rightmouse. This is too
much WIP for official release, too much not working, and Matt prefers time
to further work on it as well.
The outliner is a hierarchical diagram displaying a list of data in Blender
and its dependencies. The 'databrowse' doesn't really show it, and Oops is
too chaotic still. And most of all, the former two don't offer much tools.
After discussions on irc, Matt came with this design proposal;
http://mke3.net/blender/interface/layout/outliner/
Which is closely followed for the implementation.
The current version only shows all 'library data' in Blender (objects,
meshes, ipos, etc) and not the 'direct data' such as vertex groups or NLA.
I decided to make it inside the Oopw window, as an option. You can find the
option in the "View" pulldown, or directly invoke it with ALT+SHIFT+F9
Here's a quick overview of the Outliner GUI:
- Header pulldown has options what it can show (Visible = in current layers)
- click on triangle arrow to open/close
- press AKEY to open/close all
- Leftmouse click on an item activates; and does based on type a couple of
extra things:
- activates a scene
- selects/activates the Object
- enters editmode (if clicked on Mesh, Curve, etc)
- shows the appropriate Shading buttons (Lamp, Material, Texture)
- sets the IpoWindow to the current IPO
- activates the Ipo-channel in an Action
- Selected and Active objects are drawn in its Theme selection color
- SHIFT+click on Object does extend-select
- Press DOTkey to get the current active data in center of view
TODO;
- rightmouse selection; for indicating operations like delete or duplicate
- showing more data types
- icon (re)design...
- lotsof options as described in Matts paper still...
Plus: moved particle interaction and effect buttons back to a single
Object context. The proposed solution (sub context) has workflow issues,
(adds another click (no hotkey) to view settings)
whilst almost all Object buttons nicely fit in single view still.
This was on todo since first particle commit, actually the idea was to
move particle related issues to a special sub-context, but leave the
effects themselves in the Object main menu. Splitting off Particles from
the Effect system isn't in the scope of what is feasible now.
Also note; the current panel 'particle interaction' actually should be
a generic 'forces and collision' panel, since it's also relevant for
soft body feature (WIP)... that can be changed later.
New is that objects can have a force field, and Meshes can even deflect
(collide) particles. This is in a new sub-menu in Object buttons F7
The full instructions where on the web, Leon mailed it me and I will put
it in CMS tomorrow. For those who like to play with it now, here are demo
files:
http://download.blender.org/demo/test/
Quite some changes where in the integration though... so previous created
particle deflectors will not work. Changes to mention now are:
- gravity is renamed to 'force field'
- force field and deflector options are in Object now, not in Mesh
- the options also have its own struct, doesnt add to Object by default
- force fields are possible for all object types, but only work on center.
So empty objects are typical for it.
Work to do:
- add draw method in 3d win to denote forcefield objects
- check on the UI (panel with different size?)
- add 'recalc' button in deflector panel
messages and pupmenu()s. Edited spelling and grammar,
stylistic consistency, etc.
I added the guidelines and rationale that I used to the
CMS here:
http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Language_and_terminology.338.0.html
Next step is to get icons in there, to make it easier to see
at a glance what sort of message (and how much attention
should be paid to it, or if it can be dismissed with a flick
of the mouse, eg. boring remove doubles notifications)
mockup: http://mke3.net:9000/blender/ui/controls/error_ok_icons.png
Logic buttons have not been Panelized (will be difficult, dont try!) so
the 'Home' and automatic view-limits didn't work it anymore.
This caused logic blocks not being accessible by scrolling window.
Fixed by updating the code that sets view limits.
multiple functions and partially recoded. Because now all the uv mapping
settings are accessible throught the panel, no popus will be shown when
pressing 'U' to unwrap faces in face select mode. Also From Window to Cylinder
and From Window to Shpere became obsolete, as you can set this in the new
panel.
The panel contains buttons for all the existing uv mapping modes, and the
following settings:
- Cube size: For Cubical unwrapping.
- Radius: Radius for Cylindrical unwrapping.
- View Aligns Face, View Aligns Top, Align to Object: For Cylinder and Shpere.
Respectively means you are in front of the Cylinder/Sphere, look through the
Cylinder, or use the object rotation to determine how the cylinder is
positioned (old Cylindrical unwrapping).
- Polar XZ, Polar XY: With 'View Aligns Top' enabled, defines at which polar
you are looking.
- No Edges, Draw Edges, All Edges: Draw no edges, draw edges z-buffered on top,
draw all edges, without depth test.
All credits for this part (and also at least half of the other UV editor
improvements) go to Jens Ole Wund aka "bjornmose".
rigurous. Now it only switches context when selecting a new object
type, also "invisble", when shading buttons are not drawn.
What I committed changed context always when pressing the 'shading
context' icon button. This was annoying when you were editing textures
or radiosity, world, etc. In such cases it should just draw the old
settings.
- New lamp type added "Area". This uses the radiosity formula (Stoke) to
calculate the amount of energy which is received from a plane. Result
is very nice local light, which nicely spreads out.
- Area lamps have a 'gamma' option to control the light spread
- Area lamp builtin sizes: square, rect, cube & box. Only first 2 are
implemented. Set a type, and define area size
- Button area size won't affect the amount of energy. But scaling the lamp
in 3d window will do. This is to cover the case when you scale an entire
scene, the light then will remain identical
If you just want to change area lamp size, use buttons when you dont want
to make the scene too bright or too dark
- Since area lights realistically are sensitive for distance (quadratic), the
effect it has is quickly too much, or too less. For this the "Dist" value
in Lamp can be used. Set it at Dist=10 to have reasonable light on distance
10 Blender units (assumed you didnt scale lamp object).
- I tried square sized specularity, but this looked totally weird. Not
committed
- Plan is to extend area light with 3d dimensions, boxes and cubes.
- Note that area light is one-sided, towards negative Z. I need to design
a nice drawing method for it.
Area Shadow
- Since there are a lot of variables associated with soft shadow, they now
only are available for Area lights. Allowing spot & normal lamp to have
soft shadow is possible though, but will require a reorganisation of the
Lamp buttons. Is a point of research & feedback still.
- Apart from area size, you now can individually set amount of samples in
X and Y direction (for area lamp type 'Rect'). For box type area lamp,
this will become 3 dimensions
- Area shadows have four options:
"Clip circle" : only uses a circular shape of samples, gives smoother
results
"Dither" : use a 2x2 dither mask
"Jitter" : applys a pseudo-random offset to samples
"Umbra" : extra emphasis on area that's fully in shadow.
Raytrace speedup
- improved filling in faces in Octree. Large faces occupied too many nodes
- added a coherence check; rays fired sequentially that begin and end in
same octree nodes, and that don't intersect, are quickly rejected
- rendering shadow scenes benefits from this 20-40%. My statue test monkey
file now renders in 19 seconds (was 30).
Plus:
- adjusted specular max to 511, and made sure Blinn spec has again this
incredible small spec size
- for UI rounded theme: the color "button" displayed RGB color too dark
- fixed countall() function, to also include Subsurf totals
- removed setting the 'near' clipping for pressing dot-key numpad
- when you press the buttons-window icon for 'Shading Context' the context
automaticilly switches as with F5 hotkey
Please be warned that this is not a release... settings in files might not
work as it did, nor guaranteed to work when we do a release. :)
all calls to ortho2 with correctness offset of 0.375 instead of 0.5.
this efficiently solves bug in drawing UV lines as reported.
cvS: ----------------------------------------------------------------------
using an identical offset; which is 0.375 and official recommended
by OpenGL.
This to further investigate the AA font errors on some systems
with ATI cards.
- nkey menu for buttonswindow (hex values) couldnt be restored yet, is
for next release
- replaced Nkey in IpoWindow with Panel, this now displays the buttons
that were formerly in 'anim buttons' as well; to view the boundbox
values of all visible curves, and adjust it.
- the new panel also has the 'set speed' option, fixed stuff in it and
added better errorwarning... still not a very well coded tool!
like: BIF_ThemeColor(TH_GRID); will be sufficient. Blender does the rest.
- fixed bug in CTRL-X (reload home file) with themes
- fixed bug in horizontal alignment of different height panels. Seems also
to solve the drawing error with constraints...
- panels work
- ipo window done
- buttonswindow done
Please be warned that saving Themes now wont work... it will also save
BLACK for all uninitalized colors... so dont panic when you see weird
things, just go back the default theme and copy a new one.
