[Bf-committers] User-defined Material Properties

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Yes, having custom properties for (most of) Blender's internal data is  
on the wishlist already for long. :)
It should also be used - for example - by yafray or other external  
render modules or game engine exporters. We still have to meet with the  
developers about that topic.

How it would integrate in the UI is also an issue... at this moment I  
would prefer to do this work in a way other projects benefit from as  
well.

For example; one could execute a script (or we do it builtin for a  
couple) that creates by default the preset properties for a specific  
purpose. So, instead of a Yafray Panel in Lamp buttons now, a "Custom"  
Panel can be used, then filled with the options Yafray likes to extend  
lamps with.

Taking the idea further, it could work well if the property system can  
become hierarchical, or at least grouped in multiple lists. That way  
you can have a group of Yafray properties, Crystal Space properties,  
OpenFlight properties... for each group you can also define to have it  
filling a new Panel in the buttons menus, with a nice clear title.

Oh, and then the Property system should become a bit more flexible, for  
example to define types of buttons, or layouts... or, we let Python  
draw such property Panels.

Lots of questions! Needs further research... especially on creating  
insight in all the specifications each developer/artist has for  
extending Blender for specific purposes. Just adding it now "because it  
can" is asking for troubles. :)


-Ton-

On 11 Oct, 2005, at 4:53, Greg MacDonald wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
>  I'm writing an io script for openflight, which has a lot of fields  
> blender doesn't. I was going to extend the structures in the code  
> myself, and was halfway through doing so when Campbell talked me out  
> of it. Which is good... :)
>
>  Most of the extra fields work nicely as object properties, but I've  
> found that it would also be useful to place properties on materials as  
> well. If I code this up and add a ui panel off of the material shading  
> context to display and edit properties, what are the chances this  
> would make it into the main tree?
>
>  Or would attaching properties to any data block be more useful? Or  
> even feasible?
>
>  -Greg
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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org  
http://www.blender.org