[Bf-committers] Layer system

[David Bryant]

I need to know what time the meetings are held in U.S. eastern 
time.Also,Sundays are hectic early on for me but I'll download Xchat and see 
if I can make it.

 To add my two cents right now, bit fields are not the way to go.The old 
system needs to be rebuilt.And even though it may seem like an insignificant 
recode, it's the future whether we acknowledge it or not.Those that do 3D 
for a living need more than 20 layers and named layers at that.
That's why I coded the named layers patch.I wasn't going to do anymore work 
regarding the layer system but since I can code, why not! If we pull this 
off, this will start a new era for Blender. It's been long overdue. 10 years 
overdue.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Hughes" <khughes at pacific.edu>
To: "bf-blender developers" <bf-committers at blender.org>
Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] Layer system


> Not sure if you visit the IRC channel, but it might be better/faster to
> hash out details of this before or after one of the Sunday meetings.
>
> Ken
>
> David Bryant wrote:
>> That makes a lot of sense.I agree 100 percent.
>> Hope we can talk more to solidify the layer code to be solid and not just
>> hacking it through.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Bob Holcomb" <bholcomb at mak.com>
>> To: <bf-committers at blender.org>
>> Sent: Friday, December 21, 2007 8:09 AM
>> Subject: [Bf-committers] Layer system
>>
>>
>>
>>> This never made it on the ML from before since I used my work account
>>> (naughty me).
>>>
>>> I just don't want it be a premature optimization (or feature in this
>>> case).  I've seen a lot of talk about expanding the layers, and
>>> comparison to Maya/Lightwave, but I haven't seen empirical evidence to
>>> support that 20 layers is not enough.  Is it truly a problem?  How many
>>> layers is reasonable?  What do the Peach guys think-they're probably
>>> pushing blender harder than the average user.  I personally would
>>> probably lose stuff given 999 layers to choose from.
>>>
>>> Edit:  After talking to Cambo on irc, he says that people routinely need
>>> more than 20 layers, plus some other considerations.
>>>
>>> That being said, bit fields are great, but they come at a cost.  If we
>>> want named layers and more than 32 of them, why don't we create an array
>>> (or linked list) of layer structs that has a list of the objects in the
>>> layer.  The layer struct itself can have data (like a name, visible) and
>>> then can point to all of its objects.  This way the object doesn't need
>>> to worry about what layer it is on, the layer struct does that.
>>>
>>> The code:
>>>
>>> if (objectmask & viewmask) {
>>>    draw_object();
>>> }
>>>
>>> becomes:
>>>
>>> for (x = 0; x < numLayers; x++){
>>>  if(objectlayer[x]->active){
>>>    draw_objects_in_layer();
>>>  }
>>> }
>>>
>>> Also, I would be seriously surprised if looping over an array of 1000
>>> layers  every redraw event  has an impact on the user experience (not
>>> frame rate).  I have yet to be able to find anybody who can tell the
>>> difference between 60 fps and 6000 fps.  I recommend  1) determining if
>>> there is a problem (edit: yes there is) 2)coming up with a good
>>> (flexible, easy to maintain) solution that works and then 3) optimize
>>> only if is identified as a bottleneck.
>>>
>>> Just my 2 cents.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Bob
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>
>>
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>
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