[Bf-committers] Freestyle branch status report May 2012

[Nicholas Bishop]

Do you have a diff against trunk available? I'd be interested to see
how big of a changeset this merge would be.

Thanks,
-Nicholas

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 6:51 PM, Tamito KAJIYAMA
<rd6t-kjym at asahi-net.or.jp> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> The scope of this message is to report the up-to-date status of the Freestyle branch and
> discuss the possibility of the merge into the trunk.
>
> Since the January 2011 status report [1], the Freestyle development has focused on
> stability improvements and the completion of selected unfinished components
> including an artist-friendly GUI for interactive manipulation of Freestyle parameters.
>
> The stability of the Freestyle renderer is the highest priority of the project.  Thanks to
> intensive testing by branch users, many instability issues were sorted out and important
> bug fixes were made, such as a fix for occasional straight lines [2], improved handling
> of face smoothness in view map construction [3], and a fix for degenerate triangles in
> imported mesh data [4].  It should also be highlighted that substantial performance
> enhancement of view map construction was contributed by Alexander Beels [5].
>
> The new Freestyle GUI has been improved in many aspects, including the addition of
> new stroke geometry modifiers (e.g., [4, 6, 7]), and easy duplication of line sets and line
> styles [7].  Moreover, new edge and face attributes (Freestyle edge/face marks) were
> introduced for fine-control of feature edge selection [3].
>
> As mentioned in the January 2011 report, the Freestyle integration project listed three
> unfinished components that were planned to be done before the merge into the trunk
> is asked:
> 1. The aforementioned artist-friendly GUI for Freestyle parameters (90%)
> 2. Freestyle Python API Improvements (80%)
> 3. Feature edge detection at face intersection (0%)
> Percent values in the parentheses are subjective achievement rates as of this writing.
>
> In the meantime, I have been receiving an increasing number of positive opinions from
> branch users about the merge.  In fact, the time when the merge will happen is the most
> FAQ of the branch these days.  Aware of the documented incompleteness of the branch,
> however, I personally have a mixed feeling.  Here are some of pros and cons.
>
> Downsides of the merge:
>
> - The feature edge detection at face intersection is a must but not implemented yet.
>
> - Documentation is not ready.
>
> Upsides of the merge:
>
> - More testers of the Freestyle renderer are expected, which will accelerate stabilization
> and improvements of the renderer.
>
> - Branch users no longer have to rely on multiple versions of Blender, which makes their
> workflow simpler.
>
> - More development force can be addressed to the unfinished and other Freestyle
> components.  So far a significant amount of time has been regularly spent for merging
> changes of the trunk into the Freestyle branch, which is not so productive.
>
> In conclusion, I tend to think that the merge is a good idea even at this stage of
> development.  The Freestyle branch is fairly stable and useful.  It has been kept well
> synchronized with the trunk.  For these reasons, the merge can be made at any time.
>
> I am open to discussions about whether or not the merge should take place right now.
>
> Any feedback on this matter would be much appreciated.
>
> With best regards,
>
> --
> KAJIYAMA, Tamito <rd6t-kjym at asahi-net.or.jp>
>
>
> [1] http://code.blender.org/index.php/2011/01/freestyle-integration-report-january-2011/
> [2] http://freestyleintegration.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/development-updates-on-september-25/
> [3] http://freestyleintegration.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/development-updates-on-october-25/
> [4] http://freestyleintegration.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/development-updates-on-april-2/
> [5] http://freestyleintegration.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/development-updates-on-march-17/
> [6] http://freestyleintegration.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/development-updates-on-august-28/
> [7] http://freestyleintegration.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/development-updates-on-december-18/
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