[Bf-committers] A contribution

Jonathan Merritt bf-committers@blender.org
Wed, 30 Jun 2004 19:24:12 +1000


Hi Dan,

Could you please expand on your metadata idea a little?  Do your 
metadata fields exist only for empties, or will they exist for all objects?

The reason I ask is that I've been thinking for a long time about how 
best to set custom shaders for objects, for use in RenderMan export.  
Although we already have quite decent simulation of the basic Blender 
lights and materials, the ability to set custom shaders is a must-have 
to be able to truly harness the power of RenderMan renderers.  Both the 
shader and a varying number of shader parameters (which can be floats, 
string, matrices, and arrays of those types) need to be set.

Currently, I'm heading towards the idea of an *entirely* different type 
of material, integrated into Blender in a way that is independent of any 
other system (I'm not sure what Paul Gregory's thoughts on the matter 
are).  However, it continually occurs to me that shader names and 
parameters might form part of a much larger dictionary of values (like 
your metadata), that could apply in different contexts and be accessed 
in a much more generic way.  I'm very reluctant to use the game engine 
properties for this, but a similar (expanded) system would be ideal.

> Stephane SOPPERA wrote:
>
>> Dan Brown wrote:
>>
>>> Ok, I've made a simple one for just the metadata. It is at 
>>> http://www.harthinian.com/emptymeta1.jpg
>>
> >
>
>> Why not using the gameengine properties?
>> In the last CVS version of blender, you can access these properties 
>> using python.
>>
>
> Aha! I never even knew they were there, they are exactly what I am 
> talking about. I only investigated the gameengine briefly not long 
> after it was first introduced so I must have missed these then, or whe 
> they were introduced. Thanks for pointing it out.


-- 
Jonathan Merritt.
PhD Student - Equine Biomechanics.
Equine Centre, The University of Melbourne,
Werribee, Victoria, Australia.