This patch implements a new Gabor noise node based on [1] but with the
improvements from [2] and the phasor formulation from [3].
We compare with the most popular existing implementation, that of OSL,
from the user's point of view:
- This implementation produces C1 continuous noise as opposed to the
non continuous OSL implementation, so it can be used for bump
mapping and is generally smother. This is achieved by windowing the
Gabor kernel using a Hann window.
- The Bandwidth input of OSL was hard-coded to 1 and was replaced with
a frequency input, which OSL hard codes to 2, since frequency is
more natural to control. This is even more true now that that Gabor
kernel is windowed as opposed to truncated, which means increasing
the bandwidth will just turn the Gaussian component of the Gabor
into a Hann window. While decreasing the bandwidth will eliminate
the harmonic from the Gabor kernel, which is the point of Gabor
noise.
- OSL had three discrete modes of operation for orienting the kernel.
Anisotropic, Isotropic, and a hybrid mode. While this implementation
provides a continuous Anisotropy parameter which users are already
familiar with from the Glossy BSDF node.
- This implementation provides not just the Gabor noise value, but
also its phase and intensity components. The Gabor noise value is
basically sin(phase) * intensity, but the phase is arguably more
useful since it does not suffer from the low contrast issues that
Gabor suffers from. While the intensity is useful to hide the
singularities in the phase.
- This implementation converges faster that OSL's relative to the
impulse count, so we fix the impulses count to 8 for simplicitly.
- This implementation does not implement anisotropic filtering.
Future improvements to the node includes implementing surface noise and
filtering. As well as extending the spectral control of the noise,
either by providing specialized kernels as was done in #110802, or by
providing some more procedural control over the frequencies of the
Gabor.
References:
[1]: Lagae, Ares, et al. "Procedural noise using sparse Gabor
convolution." ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 28.3 (2009): 1-10.
[2]: Tavernier, Vincent, et al. "Making gabor noise fast and
normalized." Eurographics 2019-40th Annual Conference of the European
Association for Computer Graphics. 2019.
[3]: Tricard, Thibault, et al. "Procedural phasor noise." ACM
Transactions on Graphics (TOG) 38.4 (2019): 1-13.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121820
Extract
- Cycles denoiser enum.
- Extensions user preferences UI.
- Node operator poll message from new node function.
Improve
- Split "(Enabled|Disabled) on startup, overriding the preference."
into two messages.
Disambiguate
- "Add" when describing the action of adding something should use the
Operator context.
- "Dimensions", in noise textures.
- "Transform" as a noun, the matrix transform type of Geometry Nodes,
as opposed to the verb to move things in space.
- "Parent" as a noun or verb (the parent of an object, to parent an
object to another).
Some issues reported by Satoshi Yamasaki, deathblood, and Gabriel Gazzán.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/122969
Transport rays that enter to another location in the scene, with
specified ray position and normal. This may be used to render portals
for visual effects, and other production rendering tricks.
This acts much like a Transparent BSDF. Render passes are passed
through, and this is affected by light path max transparent bounces.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/114386
This path merges the Musgrave and Noise Texture nodes into a single
combined Noise Texture node. The reasoning is that both nodes
intrinsically do the same thing, which is the layering of Perlin noise
derivatives to produce fractal noise. So the patch de-duplicates code
and unifies the use of fractal noise for the end use.
Since the Noise node had a Distortion input and a Color output, while
the Musgrave node did not, those are now available to the Musgrave types
as new functionalities.
The Dimension input of the Musgrave node is analogous to the Roughness
input of the Noise node, so both inputs were unified to follow the same
behavior of the Roughness input, which is arguable more intuitive to
control. Similarly, the Detail input was slightly different across both
nodes, since the Noise node evaluated one extra layer of noise. This was
also unified to follow the behavior of the Noise node.
The patch, coincidentally fixes an unreported bug causing repeated
output for certain noise types and another floating precision bug
#112180.
The versioning code implemented with this patch ensures backward
compatibility for both the Musgrave and Noise Texture nodes. When
opening older Blender files in Blender 4.1 the output of both nodes are
guaranteed to always be exactly identical to that of Blender files
created before the nodes were merged in all cases.
Forward compatibility with Blender 4.0 is implemented by #114236.
Forward compatibility with Blender 3.6 LTS is implemented by #115015.
Pull Request: #111187
Default to displaying nearly all nodes when the engine is not set to
Cycles or Eeeve. And instead hide nodes not supported in Eevee only
when Eevee is selected.
This way external engines can use the same menu, particularly useful
for upcoming support for conversion to MaterialX.
Only the Shader category was incomplete like this, so it can also be
seen as fixing an inconsistency with other categories.
