[Bf-committers] Weights range in vgroups

[Lukas Tönne]

> I don't think I expressed any "opinion", the functionality is useful
> but probably not the *place* for this since vgroups are by definition
> a 0.0-1.0 value. Blender has custom vertex data available in the C
> API, but everything is so hardcoded that.. good luck using that in a
> modifier or anywhere else. I keep looking forward to the nodetree and
> for now I'll go with not enabling this where it doesn't belong.

Good point!
I think using vertex groups to store calculated results is a bit of an
abuse: They are primarily user-defined inputs for modifiers and as
such should be easily accessible (which includes 0-1 range as Campbell
pointed out). Even more important might be that modifiers and other
users of vgroups *expect* them to be in 0-1 range, which would make
them ignore out-of-range values in the best case or simply go crazy by
extrapolating.

Calculated values with unlimited range should instead be stored in
custom vertex data, but as noted by Daniel these "custom" data layers
are actually hardcoded - there is no way to add really new data layers
for things like this, let alone access them anywhere. Nodes would
unlock that beast, but until then i think it's best to keep them
inside range limits.