[Bf-committers] Release todos

[Matt Ebb]

On 19/06/2006, at 01:58 AM, Ton Roosendaal wrote:

> Composite issues!
>
> Naming should be consistant.... discussed was:
> - rename "Render Result" node to "Render Layer" node (more accurate)
> - rename "Compositor" Image to "Viewer Node" Image (was confusing)
> - discussed was to rename "Composite" node too... but with the  
> previous change it might be not needed anymore. Will commit the  
> first 2 changes first, and we can de review in here.

The 'composite' node could use a name that shows that it's the data  
is that's getting passed out to disk (or to the render pipeline,  
rather), since a lot of people in the forums don't seem to get it  
that easily. Perhaps something like 'File Output' or 'Render  
Pipeline' or 'Composite Pipeline' ? Then again, the confusion I've  
seen could just be due to the fact that there are two nodes at the  
end, which doesn't definitively show what is the end of the line.  
Which brings me to the next thing...

I was going to bring this up earlier, but thought it was too late...  
But it's very relevant to this discussion, and would be really great  
if it could be improved:

It would be really really really really useful if the 'Composite'  
node also functioned as a viewer node. Right now, it is very clunky  
and annoying having to have two nodes at the end of your tree (a  
viewer and a composite). Every time you add new nodes to the end of  
the tree, you have to disconnect the comp and viewer nodes, add your  
new node, then connect up the comp, then connect up the viewer. Not  
only is it silly and time consuming having to connect up two nodes  
each time, but you also have to remember to connect up the composite  
node first, otherwise you're stuck waiting for the viewer node to  
recalculate and display before you can get on with the other half of  
this mundane task.

It would be much better if the Composite node also worked as a viewer  
too. Then you woudln't need an extra viewer node at the end of the  
tree, and in the Image Editor, you could have the 'Composite' image  
block, and also extra 'Viewer Node' image blocks for each of the  
additional viewer nodes that you may have added later on.

A 'composite' image block that only displays what's going in to the  
composite node would be good because then you could always be certain  
that you were viewing the final end result that was going out to  
disk. Once or twice before I've been working, tweaking colours etc  
thinking I was viewing the final result, but then I realised that  
another viewer node, connected a few nodes before the final  
composite, was active (it was outside of my node editor window's view  
so I couldn't see easily) and that with all my tweaking to make the  
image in the image editor look right, I was messing up the final result.

With extra 'Viewer Node' image blocks for each of the additional  
viewer nodes, it would provide a nice quick way to flip between a  
viewer node and the composite result for comparisons. I've been using  
the image-editor-render options recently thanks to those new changes,  
and Rui's trick of renaming the render result image works great for  
comparing versions. Doing the same between viewer nodes and the final  
comp output would be grand.

cheers

Matt