[Bf-blender-npr] next steps of Freestyle and Blender NPR development

[Tamito KAJIYAMA]

Hi All,

Just to keep things going in the development of Freestyle and Blender
NPR capabilities, I would like to hear opinions about next steps of my
BF-funded development project.

This is a follow-up of previous discussions on priority targets for
Blender 2.72 release [1]. The first target was Freestyle optimization
for reduced memory consumption, which has been steadily in progress.
Early performance results of the Freestyle memory optimization efforts
can be found in recent weekly reports of the BF project [2]. The second
target was Freestyle integration into Cycles. This target was done by
recent merging of patch D632 into git master [3].

The scope of the present request for comments is then to better agree on
next steps after 2.72 and how to proceed with improvements of Freestyle
and Blender NPR solutions. As a rule of thumb, this time I would propose
to focus on quality NPR rendering. Specifically, we select such
development targets that are expected to contribute to improved quality
of NPR rendering results.

A proposed list of next development targets is as follows:

1. Freestyle optimization for reduced memory consumption (ongoing).

2. View map caching for faster user interactions in line stylization.

3. Adding Z depth information to Freestyle strokes.

4. Vertex weights for better user control of stroke stylization.

I believe these goals are justified by foreseen impacts on quality
rendering in NPR visual production.

Opinions on the proposal, as well as other proposals of different
development targets for the next months are very welcome. I would
especially like to hear from NPR artists of the Gooseberry team studios.

Now that we are in the BCon3 phase of the Blender development cycle, my
work hours will be addressed to testing and bug fixing in view of the
upcoming Blender 2.72 release. Hence I don't define a deadline of the
request for comments for now. Any feedback is much appreciated.

[1] http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-blender-npr/2014-June/000041.html
[2] http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Kjym3/DevFundProject/2014
[3] https://developer.blender.org/D632

With best regards,

-- 
KAJIYAMA, Tamito <rd6t-kjym at asahi-net.or.jp>