[Bf-taskforce25] Blender spring cleaning

[Nathan Vegdahl]

Would it be possible to remove the "Render Stamp" option?  Unless I'm
missing something, it appears to be 100% redundant with the "Stamp"
option.
We could just make "Stamp" toggle stamps altogether.

--Nathan V

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 8:35 PM, Nathan Vegdahl <cessen at cessen.com> wrote:
> After talking with Joe on IRC he pointed me to this paper:
>   http://www.vis.uni-stuttgart.de/~weiskopf/publications/eg03short.pdf
>
>   Indeed halfway shadow buffers do have artifacts that normal buffers
> don't, namely self-unshadowing in some scenes with concave objects or
> surfaces that aren't closed such as planes.
>
>   So I retract my proposal (with apologies to Joe) to remove normal
> shadow buffers.
>
>   But I do think that halfway buffers (with a very small bias) should
> be made the default.  They generally "just work", unlike normal shadow
> buffers which usually require a fair amount of tweaking on a
> case-by-case basis to get rid of artifacts.
>
>   I also like Joe's idea of making the halfway buffers a checkbox on
> normal shadow buffers.  They are so closely related to each other that
> it seems odd for them to each have a separate menu item.  Then we can
> just make the checkbox on by default.
>
> --Nathan V
>
> On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 4:29 AM, joe <joeedh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Perhaps it could become a little checkbutton ("Use Midpoint") that
>> people can disable if they ever get the bad use cases.  It could be
>> kept amongst whatever other "advanced" options we end up with :)  I
>> think removing the option to ever use normal buffers would be a
>> mistake, though.
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 9:26 PM, Nathan Vegdahl <cessen at cessen.com> wrote:
>>>>>> It's not always better; there are issues on 90 degree corners.
>>>>>
>>>>>   I've been messing around for a while now trying to reproduce what
>>>>> you're talking about.  I'm not having any luck, and I've never seen
>>>>> any issues with corners before.  Could you send an example scene?
>>>>
>>>> Ah not really, I think I've seen it once or twice, but that's it.  Not
>>>> sure how to reproduce it either, heh.
>>>
>>> If that's the case then I would hazard a guess that it's either a bug,
>>> or user error (too low or too high bias).
>>> After drawing out some diagrams I'm still finding that halfway shadow
>>> buffers always perform better.  In cases where halfway shadow buffers
>>> have artifacts, normal shadow buffers have the same artifact but
>>> worse.  And with halfway shadow buffers much less bias is necessary to
>>> fix the artifact.
>>>
>>> --Nathan V
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 3:27 PM, joe <joeedh at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Nathan Vegdahl <cessen at cessen.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>      - Can we kill classic shadow buffers?  Classic-halfway is
>>>>>>> universally superior as far as I know, and it doesn't seem to have any
>>>>>>> noteworthy performance/memory penalties.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's not always better; there are issues on 90 degree corners.
>>>>>
>>>>>   I've been messing around for a while now trying to reproduce what
>>>>> you're talking about.  I'm not having any luck, and I've never seen
>>>>> any issues with corners before.  Could you send an example scene?
>>>>
>>>> Ah not really, I think I've seen it once or twice, but that's it.  Not
>>>> sure how to reproduce it either, heh.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> True oversampling is better, I think.  Certainly easier then messing
>>>>>> with resolution/softness settings.
>>>>>
>>>>>   To be fair, true oversampling should be done via DSM.  This was
>>>>> just a hack to get around the lack of DSM at the time, because we
>>>>> needed it for BBB.  I'd much rather kill this in favor of your DSM
>>>>> work (granted it's on the slow side, but it can be optimized over
>>>>> time).  In the mean time, larger buffer res + softness can do this in
>>>>> productions that need it.
>>>>
>>>> DSM isn't always worth it though, it really is quite a bit slower.
>>>> During BBB I tried very hard to get it working in time, but after a
>>>> certain point it became clear that it was just too slow for you guys,
>>>> so I eventually gave up on that goal.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>> - B-bone Rest: kill this!  It's an evil behavior kept only for
>>>>>>> backwards compatability with older files!  DIE!!!!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As someone with such a rig, I would be sad to see it go. On the other
>>>>>> hand, I'm sure my rig will need a fair amount of updating for 2.5
>>>>>> anyway, so probably the least of my worres. :)
>>>>>
>>>>>   I imagine several people out there have rigs like this.  But it's
>>>>> no longer the default behavior anyway, and for good reason: it's a
>>>>> buggy behavior.
>>>>>   Best to get rid of it in 2.5, I think, leaving only the sane behavior.
>>>>
>>>> Yeah I agree.
>>>>
>>>> Joe
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