[Bf-committers] Unlimited clay status

[Raul Fernandez Hernandez]

Hi all

 A quick status report with good and bad news:

The good first :P
  I'm ready to commit when I get connected again the new patch that add
the possibility to get realtime feedback as the user subdivide the mesh,
I have set it as an option, becasue as I have feared for high polycounts
is still better to have it updated at stroke end.
  I think this kind of flexibility is good, now the user have tree levels

  -Normal sculpting (current workflow)
  -dynamic subdivission (realtime unlimited clay) (Low res)
  -static subdivission  (non realtime unlimited clay) (Hi res)

 The low res and high res threshold is machine dependant and not written
in stone ;)

And ow the bad one:
  Since the current sculpting system wasn't designed for dynamic topology
the PBVH tree which is based has no fast update function to handle
changes in topology without need to rebuild the entire tree, so the
current solution use the rebuild PBVH tree option that is painfully slow
for realtime update at relative low polycounts.

 But a derived good news is that such a function could be implemented, and
now that the problem is spotted, is the next goal to achieve.

 the new BLI_pbvh_update_mesh() function should insert the new subdivided
faces/verts in the tree as sugested by Nicholas Bishop ... a question
though: What is the best expected time for updates in a PBVH tree?

 I will preciate the help of the creators of the pbvh structure, a quick
explanation on how it works could save me lot of time trying to understnd
it from the plain source code :)

                             Cheers  Raul

                              Cheers  Raul