[Bf-committers] some Blender 2.8 system design docs

[Mike Erwin]

Here are some design docs I've been working on. They tend toward the
technical, but all are focused on improving the user and developer
experiences. Everything here is about interactive drawing. Mostly in the 3D
viewport but since OpenGL is used for all of Blender's UI much more than
the viewport is affected.


hardware support
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H2AjV-dZJuaxM24FChYoa9TY1doZEFavMHe_MyM9GqE/edit?usp=sharing>
What will Blender 2.8 run on?

drawing objects in the 3D view
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dDZVdIA41NqYnLcln9nTVAIYlB7oPuTGtncGLiK6uPs/edit?usp=sharing>
This is focused on 3D view interactions, how we can leverage people's
hardware to make their experience smooth & responsive. This doc covers the
"how"; "what" we are drawing with this system is the most interesting part,
and is covered briefly in the following *very rough* draft:
looking at objects
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vqohxI_WQKnHCFusQM98Cl8lmIWSz0a2qmrAGJ3nRoY/edit?usp=sharing>

GPU contexts
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/10xdiHIU-LHBBahJdSaMubERnfi4TB1Pb1F5-9gqwHZs/edit?usp=sharing>
The transition from "legacy" OpenGL 2.1 and how we can get from here to
"modern" GL 3.2 core profile. Establishing that base is a major goal for
Blender 2.8, and will open up so many cool techniques and streamline future
development.

Gawain
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rRaFqjRaElGZydeGqKTMq3N2_Ysyhii5MWmro9Q8Mr0/edit?usp=sharing>
A library to handle low-level GPU details, and give us useful machinery
that modern GL and Vulkan do not provide.


Please add your comments, suggestions, questions to these docs. I'm also
very interested to hear how other people's projects fit together. If
anything here aligns with your project, or clashes with it, respond here so
we can work it out.

You may have seen some of these docs before, but I'm always updating based
on feedback so please give them another scan.

My short term plan is to keep writing more words, responding to feedback,
and modifying those words until we agree on the general plan. Then we can
divide the plan into tasks and get back to coding full time! Which, at
least for me, is easier than writing :)

Mike Erwin
musician, naturalist, pixel pusher, hacker extraordinaire