[Bf-committers] blender as ui for game engine

Campbell Barton ideasman42 at gmail.com
Sat Jan 23 01:31:21 CET 2016


On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 5:49 AM, hewi jupama <hewi at jupama.org> wrote:
> How I love this discussion, you (may) know me.
>
> Allow me to again write you too many lines for people not to have time to read ;)
>
>>> What part of Blender's C core is neglected exactly?
>
> How funny you are asking.  have you ever looked at the creator.c file, the first and most basic file from blender, where it all starts:
>
>         if (G.background) {
>                 /* actually incorrect, but works for now (ton) */
>                 WM_exit(C);
>         }
>
> auch, that is when I say +1 for me.  And literally, this is just the start!  The blender C core code is riddled with these comments and hacks and it needs lots and lots of refactoring.  If you don't agree or see that, mmmh ... ? (don't know how to put that nicely so I wont put anything :)
>

Right, isn't great  - Blender can run headless but still has a
window-manager, and its API is still used.
On face value its stupid, but also relatively harmless.

You can view this as "glass half empty/full" ... you can point to
areas which need refactoring, as well as areas that have been
refactored recently.

Generally areas which are causing real confusion or bugs get priority.
It's less likely we go in and make changes when code works well and
isn't causing hassles (though refactoring for clarity/correctness
happens too).

>>> However the purpose of the "Blender" project is to:
>>> "build a free and open source complete 3D creation pipeline for
>>> artists and small teams."
>
> You are however absolutely right, the blender foundation wants to provide "a tool for ... " It is very important and a real privilege to see blender is sticking to these goals.  Many projects fail because they divert from their initial goal!
>
> We are discussing the preparation of the blender source code for 2020, to make it extendable and easily maintainable. To make it stick to the current conventions and guidelines on coding and project management (e.g. the ubiquitous right hand rule of XYZ Axis as a main source of sadness every time I open blender).   This, apparently, has nothing to do with current blender vision nor it's goals.  I see that now (I was involved very closely in the Blender Plugin System (BPS) discussion).
>
>>> we're not looking to prevent you from trying this.
>
> But you're not providing much of support either.  I was actually prohibited by Mr Roosendaal himself to discuss the BPS system on the developer irc channel "as it is not a supported project from the blender foundation".  Well, that makes me very sad.
>

I don't know the context of your discussion with Ton, but I assume
this would be in one of our meetings, since we're quite relaxed about
developer topics other times.

I'm not sure what you mean by *support* here.

Experimental projects from active committers don't receive any special
support either.

If by *support* you mean getting Blender developers to write code for
you to implement a plugin system - then this is a different matter
which Ton already covered.

>>> But *expecting* this will be accepted into master isn't reasonable
>
> Exactly wright and 100% correct yet again.  During Blender conference 2015, the question was raised why blender did not support these ideas or projects, Mr Roosendaals' reply was: "if you want that, you will just have to create your own community" (I am paraphrasing here, but it is essentially what he said)
>
> So basically, any discussion to refactor blender's source should be taken offline or elsewhere online, until the dev's and Ton see the benefit and are convinced of the relevance.
>

No - we can discuss refactoring of course,
but the purpose of refactoring matters when it comes to following
through and making the changes.

If you're asking active developers to spend time on refactoring for
the primary purpose of preparing for a project which isn't likely to
be accepted in master.
This is quite different from the refactoring we already do (though
there would be some overlap).

>> That's why I sent this email out to the group to see how many people would
>> be willing to support me while I did this but the response seems less than
>> luke warm, although I might be totally wrong.
>
> I had this idea already somewhere Dec 2013.  My idea was to create a BUI (blender user interface) and extend that using a plugin system.
>
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/BUI_BlenderUserInterface
>
> http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?319727-BUI-BlenderUserInterface&p=2528068&viewfull=1#post2528068
>
> My intention to achieve this is still not just luke warm but boiling hot.  Despite all the ice cubes that were thrown in my path.  I have source code ready to be reviewed.  I just need a place to drop it and we can start developing.
>

Hosting your own projects has never been easier.

Why didn't you use one of the many options already available?

> If you look through the spaghetti source code and all it's circular dependencies, you will find the source is not that hard at all.  It of course needs time and a good initial set-up.
>
> throw me a private line "hewi at jupama.org" to discuss future evolution of this idea.  Discussing it here will only cool you down.
>
> KR, hewi
>
> ps: Again i have though hard and long and over and over and doubted and re-read and re-phrased before I pushed the send button.  But, freedom of speech in mind, I finally did.
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-- 
- Campbell


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