[Bf-funboard] general remarks on plugins
Ton Roosendaal
bf-funboard@blender.org
Sun, 6 Jul 2003 23:22:18 +0200
Hi,
In the past, with sequence and texture plugins, we've had only
troubles. Mainly because many people just don't know how to code
well... and they sent us (me!) the code claiming that Blender was
wrong. Especially when porting from one OS to another the problems came
up. Coding cross platform is not something many people know.
For reasons of stability, and especially cross-platform ability, I
hoped we could replace (the need for) plugins with Python. For several
purposes this has already worked out well, and the Python team
currently is working hard on getting that a lot better, easy access
with pulldown menus etc.
Blender was also not designed as a plugin system, as for example 3DS
is. You devise an internal architecture for it... which Blender doesn't
have. "Make Blender pluggable" is something we're far away from.
Whether or not that's desired for a blender3 is not an issue now. I
won't reject the idea of adding a plugin to the Effect system in
Blender, but still would advise to check whether Python isn't a better
system to use.
The Python speed issue can be solved:
- making a good builtin API with common calls (math, pixel operations,
etc)
- if not possible, linking python itself with a C/C++ compiled library.
- think different, speed is not important! Make stuff that works for
users. Optimizing is always easier to do in the very very last stage.
With the python team we already discussed concepts for having Python as
a sort-of Renderman shader as well, or for rendering texturemaps on the
fly (pixel shaders). In that sense, Python is currently the 'plug-in
api' of Blender.
-Ton-
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Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation ton@blender.org
http://www.blender.org