[Bf-committers] Meeting minutes

[Charles Wardlaw]

The nodal logic proposal sounds fantastic.

I guess my first question is: why is it limited to the game engine?   
People have wanted object nodes for years, and that's basically what  
this is.  Instead of keyboard or joystick input, all you really need  
is the ability to either run input from a time node (already noted on  
the wiki page) or to have data pulled towards end result nodes rather  
than pushed on a frame-by-frame basis.

In Maya's dependency graph, for example, result nodes (nodes with no  
further downstream dependencies) are checked to see if they're  
"dirty".  If they are, then they call upstream sources and ask them  
for data.  Nodes asked for data will check themselves, calculate, and  
cache their values, then send that data downstream.

If the nodal logic system were just a bit more generalized, and didn't  
rely on being in game engine mode to work, it could become a rigging  
tool on par with Maya or XSI.  Add in the ability to enable / disable  
node traversals per object (possibly by wrapping nodes as a modifier  
or something), and bam said the lady-- I have a much stronger position  
to argue from re: using Blender on a longer project at my studio.

How will iteration over lists of objects be handled?  Or will it?

The other question I have is on this line:

> Nodes may be distributed via the standard Blender install, or  
> through open source libraries, or as closed-source licensed routines  
> from vendors.

I doubt I'll ever fully understand how the GPL works in conjunction  
with other software licenses, but wouldn't a closed-source node need  
to be distributed as a C++ dynamic library, and as such not be usable  
with Blender due to a GPL violation?  Although, if Blender offered  
some sort of script locking of compiled Python files (a la MaxScript)  
I could see people releasing paid node collections.

~ C




On 2009-11-02, at 9:49 PM, Alex Fraser wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:48 AM, Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org>  
> wrote:
>> - Benoit is working now on a new logic editing system for the GE:
>>   http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/GameEngine/NodalLogic
>>   Feedback welcome, design is in progress still.
>
> This looks great. I've used nodal logic in another game engine before,
> and this proposal looks pretty much spot-on. I made a couple of small
> changes to the wiki - I hope that's a good place to leave feedback.
>
> Cheers,
> Alex
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