[Bf-committers] "Local" Socket from Geometry Node in Material Nodes

[Tobias Oelgarte]

I experimented with the material nodes and stumbled upon the geometry 
node. It delivers the global, local, view and orco coordinates. What i 
find quite confusing is either the naming or implementation of the 
"local" socket. From the name you could assume that this is the 
coordinate inside the local space of the object. But is the local 
coordinate on the screen, which is exactly the same as the view socket, 
except that it isn't normalized. Wouldn't it be better if this node 
would deliver the local space coordinates instead?

I tried to build something like a portal and i know that compositing can 
do the job, but is for some cases really hard to set up. It would be an 
easy job to display an object only on one side if i could map the local 
coordinates to alpha. But i can't since global is global, view/current 
local not useful and orco is always adjusted to the mesh itself (min/max).

My goal was it to be able to rotate the object in object-mode so that 
the axis (y for example) tells on which side (negative y-values) the 
object is displayed or not. Then you could move the mesh (by armature or 
something else) and it would only displayed in front of the x-z plane 
with the rest cut up.

I uploaded an simple example to http://www.pasteall.org/blend/5971
It should illustrate why actually delivering the local coordinates of 
Suzanne could be great.

Greetings from Tobias Oelgarte