[Bf-committers] While we're talking about naming conventions...

[Roger Wickes]

I think we should do what language has done for many words, and make our own new composite word - Renderlayer, to be this term. In fact, when I started writing all the doco, I used that term and only later discovered it was two words. The only other word that comes to mind is View, which in database parlance means a subset of a total table - both selected rows and columns, which is kinda what a Renderlayer does. Subset is another word used in set theory, but both those terms (View, Subset) are very far away from the current term, so I vote we use Renderlayer. It also ties into Multilayer, which is the file format that saves each Renderlayer.

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________________________________
From: Roland Hess <rolandh at reed-witting.com>
To: bf-committers at blender.org
Sent: Mon, November 2, 2009 7:42:57 AM
Subject: [Bf-committers] While we're talking about naming conventions...

As someone who has written about rendering several times, I've found 
that I have to go a long way around to be clear to readers when talking 
about render layers. Explaining the render layers palette where you 
choose which layers go to which render layer indicates to me a place for 
improvement. I've always thought that the "render layers" should 
probably be called "render groups," as Blender's main "layers" 
functionality is really more of a "grouping/show/hide" functionality.

I know that we're probably not going to rename such an elementary item 
as "layers," but if we're being honest, Blender's use of the term is 
blatantly counterintuitive -- i.e. it goes directly against what the 
term means in the real world. "Visibility Groups" is probably the 
closest thing to it's actual function, although it's long and doesn't 
sound very good. We could be all proprietary and trademark our terms for 
something like "visiGroups! (tm)" :) Actually, a storage bin analogy is 
closer to how Blender uses the buttons, so maybe "bins", "boxes", or 
"crates" comes the closest.

If you get rid of the "layers" term, then you can still use "render 
layers" later on without confusion. However, it still goes against the 
functionality a bit.

Obviously, we don't have to do this, but the current terminology can get 
confusing ("No -- not layers, render layers!"), and goes against the 
term's real-world usage.

Roland
harkyman
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