[Bf-committers] Environment Variables for scripts and plugins

[Stefan Andersson]

> here are a few ideas on your points:
>
> - $HOME/blender/<...>
> this has been discussed a bit already, my idea is that blender should NOT
> create or use a visible directory into the user's home (like Maya does).
> Every OS has its way of dealing with app data and config, and we should
> follow that.

please don't. I think the maya/softimage way is a lot better than what
the "normal" OS behaviours are. By default various OS behaviour is to
hide this from the user. And what you really want is to expose this to
the user. Especially on unix this is a pain that it's always saved
under dot folder (which by default is hidden). What most users want is
to have it non hidden and also something you can work with.

> - BLENDER_PROJECT
> I think this is not needed and would be confusing to use (and I _HATE_ when
> Maya creates project dirs all over the place) ;)

I don't know where you get this. I have no problems at all with maya
creating folders all over the place.

> In a bigger project you don't really want resources in the shots
> directories... you want (for the 3d part) just an animation .blend file
> referencing characters, props and layout from a project-wide library, plus
> local caches.

The problem with this occurs when the blend file isn't aware of it's
location. You do want to have your resources in folders because you
can use offloading for rendernodes and also move projects without it
breaking. If you use relative paths you can rsync out libs to the
rendernods which means that they don't need to collect everything from
the network all the time. This goes mostly for textures and not
geoCache or Particles which often are small fragments per frame.

> Having to deal in the same shot with Blender projects dir, Maya project dir,
> <compositing tool> project dir, <paint tool> project dir, <audio tool>
> project dir... and all without versioning... is pipeline hell! :)

Yes, and for this you have a version script to save your scenes. I
think you also confuse how the pipeline should be structured

[ shot ]
     [3d]
        [scenes]
              [ anim ]
              [ model ]
              [ light ]
              [ sim ]
              [ track ]
     [2d]
        [scenes]
              [ comp ]
              [ roto ]
              [ precomp ]

And asset managment is more of a record of what you have, the
application should still be aware of where it has it's files. Or your
will have a application that traverses around the network trying to
find files.


> ...I'd be more than happy to discuss these things, see you on
> #blendercoders? my nick is lento

When I can I will drop by (irc blocked at work), I usually go with the
name [sanders3d]. I think these discussions will help integrating
blender into already existing pipelines. As most other 3d applications
can be put into the mix, I would hope that we could do the same with
blender. But for that to happen we need to be able to have access to
environments.

regards
stefan andersson





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[ protector of penguins - abuser of pixels ]