[Bf-animsys] Library Linking and Proxy System reboot

Nathan Vegdahl nathanvegdahl at gmail.com
Fri Jun 6 02:05:38 CEST 2014


Back in February I broached the topic of improving the library linking
system as part of the Gooseberry technical targets:
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2014-February/042812.html

I'd like to continue that discussion here on the bf-animsys mailing
list, as suggested by Ton.

A quick summary:
The core problem is that you cannot locally animate or otherwise
modify library-linked data in your scene.  Currently Blender has a
"proxy" system that works around this limitation for armatures, but it
has a lot of weird quirks and is limited to armatures.  This is a
severe limitation and production workflow problem for Blender.

My current tentative proposal is outlined in the link above, and is
further clarified in these links:
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2014-February/042814.html
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2014-February/042822.html

I think this is an extremely important topic that has been repeatedly
overlooked over the past few years because:

1. It really only becomes a major issue in complex productions, of
which there are (currently) few done in Blender.  Therefore most
Blender users (and many developers) have difficulty seeing why it's
such a horrible situation.

2. We have hacky workarounds that are "good enough" to make excuses
and push it down as lower-priority than other development goals.

3. It's an "unsexy" problem that doesn't strictly change what Blender
can produce, it only improves workflow.

But really, this is a serious issue that significantly hinders
efficient, scalable, and intuitive workflows in Blender productions.
And I admit that am disappointed that it doesn't appear to be a
specific technical target for Gooseberry, which as far as I know is
largely about improving production workflow in Blender.  (Unless I
missed it? http://gooseberry.blender.org/may-developer-meetings/)

Can we please add this as a specific technical target for Gooseberry?
And let's further discuss design and how we can go about this.

Thanks!

--Nathan



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