[Bf-committers] Render API follow-up

[joe]

BTW, remember I wrote that generic tiling cache system in the DSM
branch.  It's specifically meant to handle everything from DSM, to
image buffers, to normal shadow buffers, volumetric data, etc.

Joe

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 11:45 AM, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> For many years we try to settle the render API topic, especially to
> allow advanced export and/or integration with third party renderers.
> For various reasons it remains getting postponed; mostly because the
> specs for such a system are complex and fuzzy.
>
> Before Wintercamp I was contacted by Terrence from Lux to at least give
> some roadmap or insight in how we like to proceed with rendering in
> Blender. Many developers out there are eagerly waiting for such
> clarity, and they are getting a bit tired or demotivated with our slow
> progress in this area. :)
> I've promised we would spend some time together during the Wintercamp
> workshop on this.
>
> We've discussed a couple of strategies; including a more 'high end'
> integration, not based on exporting geometry/materials but for example
> exposing an api to use raytrace calls and visibility info.
> However, what we quickly fell back to was the simple fact that we first
> should work on a good (re)design of how Blender will tackle rendering
> in general. This should start with a better way to define own shaders
> (real shader tree editor, shader language), but also a more advanced
> interal shading/lighting pipeline, and better methods to handle caching
> (geometry bucketing, image tiling, shadowbuffer tiling).
> This will, combined with the 2.5 flexibility to extend on Blenders data
> via RNA, deliver a much better starting point for a future proof design
> for integration (plugins) or export.
>
> So... not an easy answer! :) But I think it's fair for Blender to first
> fix their own  issues before moving to get better support for external
> renderers. That topic is really high on the prioriry list, and can get
> first priority when 2.5 is in a workable state, when we start up our
> next movie project for example.
>
> It's extremely tricky to pin me down on dates for this, but very likely
> work on rendering code comes back before july, with a working new
> architecture for this some months later (october?).
> Designs for an improved render system could start away though, and I'd
> be very interested to see what Terrence or others have in mind,
> especially how integration should ideally work from their perspective.
>
> -Ton-
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
> Blender Institute BV  Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam The Netherlands
>
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