[Soc-2013-dev] Weekly report #4 Cycles nodes

[Thomas Dinges]

Hi,
here my report for the 4th week: 
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:DingTo/GSoC_2013/Weekly_Reports/Week4

= Week 4 =

== What I did this week ==
I finished the Ray Depth feature. I implemented only the node variant 
now (as socket for the Light Path node), as this comes without any 
overhead. Examples:
* http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=55158 Here we use the output 
to apply a different shader to the third bounce. As in this example, you 
can use Math Nodes (Greater Than / Less Than) if you want to use values 
outside of the 0/1 range.
* http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=55159 Here we restrict the 
maximum bounce on a per shader basis for the left sphere. This way it 
looks like we would only have 1 max bounce set in the scene "Light 
paths" panel. This can be used to e.g. improve performance for objects 
far from the camera, which do not need full GI.
* http://www.pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=55160 Here we use the Ray 
Depth output to limit the influence of the area light. This can be good 
for e.g. fill lights, which do not need to contribute to the GI.

== Next week ==
The only remaining task is the per object motion blur multiplier, so I 
will look into that.
I will also review my work and look into fixing remaining issues (like 
Blackbody issues with 800-804 Kelvin) so my work can be merged to Trunk 
soon.

Apart from that, I need more tasks for the second half of my GSoC period. :D

Some things that I'd be interested to work on (just random ideas, no 
promises):
* Subsurface Scattering render passes.
* Improved Sky Model (Hosek and Wilkie).
* Shadow only material.
* Improved Regression test suite.
* Some cleanup / fixes for the Cycles standalone app.
* ...

== Questions ==
None. :)

-- 
Thomas Dinges
Blender Developer, Artist and Musician

www.dingto.org