[Bf-committers] OpenGL Profiles Project?

[Matt Ebb]

Pretty much, I've heard the idea of 'OpenGL profiles' mentioned relating to blender for a long time, usually mentioned as a solution for the issue of differing support of openGL features across cards, whether due to age or just incompatibility. The issue is often "how can we move to more current/advanced openGL features without disrupting support on older cards?".

So afaik rather than having to write exceptions and checks in every bit of openGL code, you could define a few base level targets, define some standard levels of support across the range of most basic to most advanced, and try to assign the current session a profile based on auto-detecting hardware. Then the various GL related code would work depending on those defined profiles - eg. advanced profiles would use more advanced GL features and there could be fallback code paths for more basic profiles. Users could then also manually set their profile in preferences - i.e. if the auto-detected one doesn't work well for them.

cheers

Matt



On 05/10/2010, at 02:04 , Michael Matthews wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> Are anymore folks able to confirm ideasman42's expalanation?  I have to be
> able to get the project approved very soon.
> 
> Thanks,
> ~Michael Matthews
> 
> On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 1:30 AM, Michael Matthews <erobererunc at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Campball,
>> 
>> Thank you, that was helpful.  I will be looking into this this weekend to
>> try to come up with a proposal.  Obviously if anyone else would like to
>> chime in with more details, and specific proposals that they've thought up
>> for this in the past, that would very helpful, as well!
>> 
>> Cheers
>> ~MM
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Oct 1, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com>wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Michael, the project is still open, Its normally best for the
>>> developers who will review the patch to reply to these mails, Brecht
>>> or Ton -.
>>> But since they are not, Ill try :).
>>> 
>>> To me its not totally clear what OpenGL profiles would cover, some
>>> things come to mind.
>>> 
>>> - Currently we have the GPUGlobal struct which is initialized by
>>> GPU_extensions_init, would this be extended to detect more features?,
>>> maximum offscreen buffer size for eg?
>>> - Make use of more advanced opengl features but allow fallbacks? like
>>> FSAA which we have disabled code for... or turning VBO's on if the
>>> hardware supports it for eg.
>>> - User selectable profiles, allow user to select a profile that draws
>>> faster on low end hardware or force a profile if their hardware is not
>>> recognized.
>>> 
>>> You also ask about getting help, existing developers can help out with
>>> specific issues but first it would be good to see ideas from you as to
>>> how you intend to do this.
>>> Once you have some proposal its easier to make changes so you can go
>>> ahead with the project.
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 3:22 PM, Michael Matthews <erobererunc at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> Anyone out there?  As I said, this is for a class, and I have a due date
>>> for
>>>> when I need to submit this proposal, and I'd like to know more about
>>> what it
>>>> is before I propose it. =)
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Michael Matthews <
>>> erobererunc at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>> 
>>>>> I am looking for some help on one of the projects that is mentioned on
>>> the
>>>>> open projects page.  Is anyone willing to give any details on the
>>> OpenGL
>>>>> profiles project?  This is the description that is given on the
>>> projects
>>>>> page:
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/project-openings/
>>>>> *develop an abstraction layer for "OpenGL Profiles", to wrap specific
>>>>> calls needing exceptions for specific platforms *
>>>>> 
>>>>> Is this project still available?  Does anybody already have an idea of
>>> how
>>>>> to complete that task, and would like to share that knowledge?
>>>>> 
>>>>> As for me, I am looking to fulfill a college Masters course open source
>>>>> project requirement, and I would love to do something with Blender.  I
>>>>> discussed options on the IRC channel and this project seemed like the
>>> best
>>>>> option, but I'm open to other suggestions.  Thank you for any help that
>>> is
>>>>> available.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>> ~MM
>>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Bf-committers mailing list
>>>> Bf-committers at blender.org
>>>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> - Campbell
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bf-committers mailing list
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>>> 
>> 
>> 
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