[Bf-python] Contrib Addon Review: bTrace

[Campbell Barton]

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bTrace Addon Review
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This addon looks to have some interesting functionality, though Im a
bit concerned its a mish-mash of different tools
mixed into one.

I found it hard to know what this addon was supposed to do exactly,
does it animate objects? convert grease pencil?
adjust materials? (all of the above?).

Its not clear to me which tools in this panel depend on existing
object animation to work, and which tools generate animation for you
--- better tooltips & reports could help here.

Its also not clear the context that each tool is supposed to work in,
when testing I got py errors that the context wasn't right.

Are these known-issues?, the addon header says its in-development.


Adding more to this issue of bringing various tools added together ---
the grease pencil tools are included in the handwriting section.
(the grease pencil tools are already in the toolbar above, this seems
redundant).

So I worry that this addon tries to define its own work-flow outside
of blenders (which seems handy), but also means you
have to figure out how/when to use each of the tools.

Simple example of this is the "Handwriting" section only accepts
grease pencil input, and gives curve output.
I'm not sure why this is done, grease pencil has a convert to curves
option and it limits the tool from being run on
existing curves.


>From reading the wiki page the intention of the addon has become a bit
more clear but I still think more consideration
needs to be taken with what tools to mix together.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Curve/Btrace


Before this addon gets a code review, Id suggest to identify key
components of this addon and check if some of them should be split off
into separate tools.


Eg:

- Converting a mesh to a curve, this is generally useful and not
really related to tracing, blender has built-in
  Mesh to curve conversion too, so perhaps integrate this tool? -- why
have 2 tools that do this?

- Handwriting seems like it could be its own addon+operator, animating
the radius of a curve like this is nifty
  but seems unrelated to tracing with other parts of the addon.

- Adding FCurve noise & color noise on selected object - IMHO could be
own addon/tool.

- Of cources mesh & particle tracing should stay apart of the bTrace's addon.


The authors of this tool may think they loose something by splitting
the addon up, but I think this is up to
docs/tutorials to show how to mix these tools together. The wiki links
from the addon can link to a tutorial that show how to use bTraces +
ColorNoise + HandWriting etc - in combination.


So for now, I think this addon needs further stabilization and Id like
to see it split up, but am interested
in feedback from the authors (maybe there's some good reason not to
that I missed out).


-- 
- Campbell