- Previews inside groups now get updated too
- Activating nodes inside of groups updates UI and preview render correctly
- Entering/leaving groups updates UI and previewrender
- Material Node: now draws socket name next to colorpicker for inputs
**** NEW: Group Nodes
Node trees usually become messy and confusing quickly, so we need
not only a way to collapse Nodes into single 'groups', but also a
way to re-use that data to create libraries of effects.
This has been done by making a new Library data type, the NodeTree.
Everything that has been grouped is stored here, and available for
re-use, appending or linking. These NodeTrees are fully generic,
i.e. can store shader trees, composit trees, and so on. The 'type'
value as stored in the NodeTree will keep track of internal type
definitions and execute/drawing callbacks. Needless to say, re-using
shader trees in a composit tree is a bit useless, and will be
prevented in the browsing code. :)
So; any NodeTree can become a "Goup Node" inside in a NodeTree. This
Group Node then works just like any Node.
To prevent the current code to become too complex, I've disabled
the possibility to insert Groups inside of Groups. That might be
enabled later, but is a real nasty piece of code to get OK.
Since Group Nodes are a dynamic Node type, a lot of work has been
done to ensure Node definitions can be dynamic too, but still allow
to be stored in files, and allow to be verified for type-definition
changes on reloading. This system needs a little bit maturing still,
so the Python gurus should better wait a little bit! (Also for me to
write the definite API docs for it).
What works now:
- Press CTRL+G to create a new Group. The grouping code checks for
impossible selections (like an unselected node between selected nodes).
Everthing that's selected then gets removed from the current tree, and
inserted in a new NodeTree library data block. A Group Node then is
added which links to this new NodeTree.
- Press ALT+G to ungroup. This will not delete the NodeTree library
data, but just duplicate the Group into the current tree.
- Press TAB, or click on the NodeTree icon to edit Groups. Note that
NodeTrees are instances, so editing one Group will also change the
other users.
This also means that when removing nodes in a Group (or hiding sockets
or changing internal links) this is immediately corrected for all users
of this Group, also in other Materials.
- While editing Groups, only the internal Nodes can be edited. A single
click outside of the Group boundary will close this 'edit mode'.
What needs to be done:
- SHIFT+A menu in toolbox style, also including a list of Groups
- Enable the single-user button in the Group Node
- Displaying all (visible) internal group UI elements in the Node Panel
- Enable Library linking and prevent editing of Groups then.
**** NEW: Socket Visibility control
Node types will be generated with a lot of possible inputs or outputs,
and drawing all sockets all the time isn't very useful then.
A new option in the Node header ('plus' icon) allows to either hide all
unused sockets (first keypress) or to reveil them (when there are hidden
sockets, the icon displays black, otherwise it's blended).
Hidden sockets in Nodes also are not exported to a Group, so this way
you can control what options (in/outputs) exactly are available.
To be done:
- a way to hide individual sockets, like with a RMB click on it.
**** NEW: Nodes now render!
This is still quite primitive, more on a level to replace the (now
obsolete and disabled) Material Layers.
What needs to be done:
- make the "Geometry" node work properly, also for AA textures
- make the Texture Node work (does very little at the moment)
- give Material Nodes all inputs as needed (like Map-to Panel)
- find a way to export more data from a Material Node, like the
shadow value, or light intensity only, etc
Very important also to separate from the Material Buttons the
"global" options, like "Ztransp" or "Wire" or "Halo". These can not
be set for each Material-Node individually.
Also note that the Preview Render (Buttons window) now renders a bit
differently. This was a horrid piece of antique code, using a totally
incompatible way of rendering. Target is to fully re-use internal
render code for previews.
OK... that's it mostly. Now test!
********* 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!)
- Adding execution code for Node trees. Was a bit a puzzle, since I want
it to be multithreading by design. This now is solved by defining a
stack per tree for all data that's being written into. This stack, which
resides now in the NodeTree itself, then can be allocated per thread.
- For testing pleasure, I've added a 'mix node' and a 'show node', so
you can already see it do something. :)
- reshuffled structure, to put things nice together, and have easier node
adding. Current state is still WIP though, structure might change.
For the record; new file node_shaders.c will contain all shader node
definitions, apart from the drawing callbacks.
Next: I'm going to check on Andrea's work on icons now, since this is very
much needed for true shader/composit work.
Now back to release work...
- Sunday merger with bf-blender
- Foundations for new Node editor in Blender, generic framework that can
be used for Material/Texture, Compositing, Logic or maybe even Sequencer.
Note: this doesn't do anything yet, nor save! Is just to get this nice
in CVS now. :)
