[Bf-committers] Orange branch schedule

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

I'm going to move now to the 2nd phase of the render coding project;  
which is a full refactor of the source/blender/render/ module in  
Blender.
Targets are;

- kill all bad level calls and abuse of render code in non-render  
modules
- means: build a good api to control the entire render process
- separate the render process in a more controllable pipeline, I will  
use ideas from the Reyes architecture for it
- default render with "buckets" (tiles), and allow threads to do each a  
full bucket (and more than 2 threads too)
- prepare for smart bucketing of object/polygon data as well (later)
- enable layer render (separate in front/back using blender layers or  
scenes)
- enable pass render (per layer, output RGB diffuse, RGB, Spec A, Z,  
AO, etc)
- generalize current passes for halos and transparent, so it can be  
used for more (hair)
- use exr to store all tiles and passes in a single file (but also  
prepare for multiple computers to render tiles together)
- enable motion blur by storing motion vectors in vertices, so blur  
passes can be done in postproduction (or exported)
- make a noodle editor for reading back the exr 'layer-passes' and  
enable compositing
- enable preview renders of any object/scene in any situation (like  
within a border in 3d win)
- enable preview renders that only re-render a specific material

Hrms... the list is scary! :)

Anyhoo; it means a lot of code shuffling... especially in the render  
module, but also in the other blender parts like renderwin.c,  
material.c, previewrender.c, actually any c file that now has  
"render.h" included.
To make a future merge of orange branch back possible, I'd appreciate  
it if we can keep the code related to rendering fully frozen now. I  
know there's bugs still in it, but the benefits of a clean new API for  
render is evident too!

As a result, unified render might get killed (is really a system I  
can't maintain well).
Also yafray export might need to be fully re-integrated. But, that was  
scheduled to do anyway, based on much wanted renderman (Aqsis) export  
too! For this I can really use help in a later stage. I've also asked  
Alfredo to help with compositing effects.

One downside is that I can't do much now on bf-blender support or  
fixing... this is my own deadline for Orange. The guys should have  
started rendering weeks ago!

I'll drop in IRC during meeting time, and will only occasionally check  
mail for the next 4-5 days!

-Ton-

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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org  
http://www.blender.org