[Bf-committers] Armature total mess?

Chris Want cwant at ualberta.ca
Sat Feb 5 17:19:42 CET 2005


Ton Roosendaal wrote:
> Current conclusion; it not only has to be rebuilt from scratch, but we  
> also have to drop any attempts for compatibility... and try to get a  
> conversion coded *after* a new design has proven to work. If that's  
> even possible.
> 
> For the devs here who ever tried to grasp it (Hos, Theeth); is this  
> conclusion correct? Or should I not give up and try to reveil the  
> hidden treasures of the current implementation?

Hi Ton,

Welcome to my hell!

I think it is pretty confusing too. I spent a lot
of time trying to optimize the speed of the darn
thing, and after doing that I still felt that I
didn't understand it very well (mind you, I find a
lot of the blender code to be confusing).

I would say start fresh if you feel the current code is
too hard to extend... just please don't bring back IKA's!
While you're at it, I think it would help to re-evaluate
the subsurf system so that it supports partial updating
of the mesh during deformation (i.e., currently, when you
manipulate a character's pinky, the whole character's subsurf
has to be recalculated on every redraw, not just the pinky).
This subsurf recalculation was the bottleneck after
my speed optimizations (my optimizations involved
stopping blender from recalculating the entire armature's
pose when you just manipulate the pinky). Maybe this is
something for a 'displist refactor'. Anyways, there is no
doubt: an armature overhaul is a *huge* job that touches
a lot of blender code and will take a lot of time (hehe, let
me know if you want tuhopuu commit rights >=P).

Out of curiousity: do you have any experience with the
armature system from the user side of things? While the
code is sure hell, I guess if there is a hidden treasure
it would be that it allows users to do a lot of cool stuff
(although the system looks a bit dated compared to other
modern animation systems).

Chris

P.S. before starting over, perhaps you could send Reevan
a mail and ask a few questions?


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