Previously, one had to search for the name of an input node (Geometry, Light
Path, etc.) instead of for the actual desired values.
This patch makes it possible to search for the output names of various input
nodes directly. All other outputs of the input node are hidden automatically.
This was partially support for the Scene Time before.
Supported nodes:
* Compositor: Scene Time
* Geometry Nodes: Camera Info, Mouse Position, Scene Time, Viewport Transform
* Shader Nodes: Camera Data, Curves Info, Geometry, Volume Info, Light Path,
Object Info, Particle Info
Right now, the output names are hardcoded in the menu. We don't have a great way
to access those without an actual node instance currently. For that we'll need
to make the node declarations available in Python, which is a good project but
out of scope for this this feature. It also does not seem too bad to have more
explicit control over what's shown in the search.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/139477
The main way to create a new node group right now is to select some nodes and
then press ctrl+G. This works well for the common case when one already has some
nodes to group. However, there is no good alternative currently for when one
wants to create a new group from scratch. A common workaround currently is to
add some dummy node, then press ctrl+G and then to delete the dummy node in the
group again. Obviously, we can do better than that.
This patch adds a `New Group` entry in the menu. It's available in geometry,
compositing and shading Nodes. The operator adds a new node group called
"NodeGroup" (the same default name we use for ctrl+G currently). Then it adds a
new group node and assigns the new group to it. The group itself does not have
any inputs or outputs by default because any such socket would just be a guess
that's likely wrong and more annoying than useful.
A nice side benefit of adding this operator is that the Group menu is not empty
in shading and compositing nodes initially which always looked a bit off.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/138430
The "Make Panel Toggle" operator does not check if active item is an input socket,
leading to a situation where it can be called on Boolean output sockets.
Doing this creates weird behavior where the panel and associated
operators believe it has a toggle, but is not reflected in the UI drawing.
Other weird behaviors include being able to rearrange output sockets
and apply the operator again to another output socket.
This patch adds a check in the operator's poll function to prevent it
from being called on output sockets.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/137526
This implements bundles and closures which are described in more detail in this
blog post: https://code.blender.org/2024/11/geometry-nodes-workshop-october-2024/
tl;dr:
* Bundles are containers that allow storing multiple socket values in a single
value. Each value in the bundle is identified by a name. Bundles can be
nested.
* Closures are functions that are created with the Closure Zone and can be
evaluated with the Evaluate Closure node.
To use the patch, the `Bundle and Closure Nodes` experimental feature has to be
enabled. This is necessary, because these features are not fully done yet and
still need iterations to improve the workflow before they can be officially
released. These iterations are easier to do in `main` than in a separate branch
though. That's because this patch is quite large and somewhat prone to merge
conflicts. Also other work we want to do, depends on this.
This adds the following new nodes:
* Combine Bundle: can pack multiple values into one.
* Separate Bundle: extracts values from a bundle.
* Closure Zone: outputs a closure zone for use in the `Evaluate Closure` node.
* Evaluate Closure: evaluates the passed in closure.
Things that will be added soon after this lands:
* Fields in bundles and closures. The way this is done changes with #134811, so
I rather implement this once both are in `main`.
* UI features for keeping sockets in sync (right now there are warnings only).
One bigger issue is the limited support for lazyness. For example, all inputs of
a Combine Bundle node will be evaluated, even if they are not all needed. The
same is true for all captured values of a closure. This is a deeper limitation
that needs to be resolved at some point. This will likely be done after an
initial version of this patch is done.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/128340
Implement shortcuts for viewer nodes. Viewer nodes are now activated using the operator `bpy.ops.node.activate_viewer()` instead of activating the viewer by setting the node to active.
This also unifies the behavior with viewer shortcuts in the compositor (see attachment in the original PR).
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/134555
Adds the option to create a boolean socket that can be used as a panel toggle.
This allows creating simpler and more compact node group UIs when a panel
can be "disabled".
The toggle input is a normal input socket that is just drawn a bit differently in
the UI. Whether a boolean is a toggle input or not does not affect evaluation.
Also see #133936 for guides on how to add and remove panel toggles.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/133936
Artists often want to quickly switch back and forth between two or more nodes while compositing.
This patch implements two operators `NODE_OT_viewer_shortcut_set` and `NODE_OT_viewer_shortcut_get` that allow users to map a viewer node to a shortcut. For example, pressing `cltr+1` while a node is selected, assigns that node to the shortcut `1`, creates a viewer node if it has none attached and sets that viewer node to active. Pressing `1` will set the active node with shortcut `1` to active.
Shortcuts are saved in DNA to preserve them after saving/loading blend files.
Limitations:
- Only compositor node tree is supported, because shading editor has no viewer node and geometry nodes viewer works differently.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/123641
This adds a new type of zone to Geometry Nodes that allows executing some nodes
for each element in a geometry.
## Features
* The `Selection` input allows iterating over a subset of elements on the set
domain.
* Fields passed into the input node are available as single values inside of the
zone.
* The input geometry can be split up into separate (completely independent)
geometries for each element (on all domains except face corner).
* New attributes can be created on the input geometry by outputting a single
value from each iteration.
* New geometries can be generated in each iteration.
* All of these geometries are joined to form the final output.
* Attributes from the input geometry are propagated to the output
geometries.
## Evaluation
The evaluation strategy is similar to the one used for repeat zones. Namely, it
dynamically builds a `lazy_function::Graph` once it knows how many iterations
are necessary. It contains a separate node for each iteration. The inputs for
each iteration are hardcoded into the graph. The outputs of each iteration a
passed to a separate lazy-function that reduces all the values down to the final
outputs. This final output can have a huge number of inputs and that is not
ideal for multi-threading yet, but that can still be improved in the future.
## Performance
There is a non-neglilible amount of overhead for each iteration. The overhead is
way larger than the per-element overhead when just doing field evaluation.
Therefore, normal field evaluation should be preferred when possible. That can
partially still be optimized if there is only some number crunching going on in
the zone but that optimization is not implemented yet.
However, processing many small geometries (e.g. each hair of a character
separately) will likely **always be slower** than working on fewer larger
geoemtries. The additional flexibility you get by processing each element
separately comes at the cost that Blender can't optimize the operation as well.
For node groups that need to handle lots of geometry elements, we recommend
trying to design the node setup so that iteration over tiny sub-geometries is
not required.
An opposite point is true as well though. It can be faster to process more
medium sized geometries in parallel than fewer very large geometries because of
more multi-threading opportunities. The exact threshold between tiny, medium and
large geometries depends on a lot of factors though.
Overall, this initial version of the new zone does not implement all
optimization opportunities yet, but the points mentioned above will still hold
true later.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/127331
Add new ID_IS_EDITABLE macro that checks if the ID can be edited in the
user interface. Replace usage of ID_IS_LINKED where it is used with this
meaning.
Also add a corresponding ID.is_editable property for Python.
This prepares for the ability to edit some linked datablocks for brush
assets.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121838
This allows node groups to have a description that is shown in the add menu
or when hovering over the node header.
This new description is stored in `bNodeTree.description`. Unfortunately, it
conflicts a bit with `ID.asset_data.description`. The difference is that the latter
only exists for assets. However, it makes sense for node groups to have
descriptions even if they are not assets (just like `static` functions in C++ should
also be able to have comments). In some cases, node groups are also generated
by addons for a specific purpose. Those should still have a description without
being reusable to make it easier to understand for users.
The solution here is to use the asset description if the node group is an asset,
and to use `bNodeTree.description` otherwise. The description is synced
automatically when marking or clearing assets.
A side benefit of this solution is that appended node group assets can keep their
description, which is currently always lost.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121334
This changes the menu switch socket to use the socket-items system
(`NOD_socket_items.hh`) that is already used by the simulation zone, repeat
zone, bake node and index switch node. By using this system, the per-node
boilerplate can be removed significantly. This is especially important as we
plan to have dynamic socket amounts in more nodes in the future.
There are some user visible changes which make the node more consistent with
others:
* Move the menu items list into the properties panel as in 0c585a1b8af.
* Add an extend socket.
* Duplicating a menu item keeps the name of the old one.
There is also a (backward compatible) change in the Python API: It's now
possible to directly access `node.enum_items` and `node.active_index` instead of
having to use `node.enum_definition.enum_items`. This is consistent with the
other nodes. For backward compatibility, `node.enum_definition` still exists,
but simply returns the node itself.
Many API functions from `NodeEnumDefinition` like
`NodeEnumDefinition::remove_item` have been removed. Those are not used anymore
and are unnecessary boilerplate. If ever necessary, they can be implemented back
in terms of the socket-items system.
The socket-items system had to be extended a little bit to support the case for
the menu switch node where each socket item has a name but no type. Previously,
there was the case without name and type in the index switch node, and the case
with both in the bake node and zones. The system was trivial to extend to this
case.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121234
When passing strings to str.format(..) use `{:s}` format specifier
which only takes strings and wont run `.__str__()` on non-strings.
While `{!s}` is an equivalent to `%s`, for the most part `%s` was
used for strings, so using `{:s}` is clearer and more specific.
Part of modernizing scripts in Blender, where the previous convention
was to use percentage formatting which has become the "old" way to
format strings in Python.
See proposal for details #120453.
Ref !120552
Use `FileHandlers` to handle file drag-n-drop in Node Editors. Drop-boxes
still remain since they handle Images ID drag-n-drop.
This also allows to open/drag-n-drop multiple files at once.
Also this will allow add-ons to also support drag-n-drop for images and
movies in node editors while still providing access to Blender's native
support since File Handlers let users choose which to invoke if there's
multiple configured.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/121051
Extract
- Statuses for the external text editor
- Newly created enum node item
- Newly created plane track data
- Newly created custom orientation data
- Operator names in drag and drop menu (need to use operator's
translation context)
- GN attribute statistic node inputs
Disambiguate
- Single-letter colors: A and B can mean Alpha and Blue, or simply A
and B as in two operands in an operation
- Dissolve: issue reported by Tamar Mebonia in #43295
- Translate in the User Preferences. This introduces a new
BLT_I18NCONTEXT_EDITOR_PREFERENCES ("Preferences") translation
context
- Planar (reported by deathblood)
This one is incomplete, because there is currently no way to
disambiguate presets or GN fields. I don't see how either could be
achieved cleanly.
The former would need to define the context inside the preset and
evaluate the file prior to showing it in the presets menu, which
sound bad.
The latter would need to introduce an additional string inside
`FieldInput`s, which would be controversial given how little it
would be used.
Remove
- Unused translation `iface_("%s")` in toolbar
- Remove obsolete N_() tags in a few node descriptions.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/119065
This patch adds support for _Menu Switch_ nodes and enum definitions in
node trees more generally. The design is based on the outcome of the
[2022 Nodes Workshop](https://code.blender.org/2022/11/geometry-nodes-workshop-2022/#menu-switch).
The _Menu Switch_ node is an advanced version of the _Switch_ node which
has a customizable **menu input socket** instead of a simple boolean.
The _items_ of this menu are owned by the node itself. Each item has a
name and description and unique identifier that is used internally. A
menu _socket_ represents a concrete value out of the list of items.
To enable selection of an enum value for unconnected sockets the menu is
presented as a dropdown list like built-in enums. When the socket is
connected a shared pointer to the enum definition is propagated along
links and stored in socket default values. This allows node groups to
expose a menu from an internal menu switch as a parameter. The enum
definition is a runtime copy of the enum items in DNA that allows
sharing.
A menu socket can have multiple connections, which can lead to
ambiguity. If two or more different menu source nodes are connected to a
socket it gets marked as _undefined_. Any connection to an undefined
menu socket is invalid as a hint to users that there is a problem. A
warning/error is also shown on nodes with undefined menu sockets.
At runtime the value of a menu socket is the simple integer identifier.
This can also be a field in geometry nodes. The identifier is unique
within each enum definition, and it is persistent even when items are
added, removed, or changed. Changing the name of an item does not affect
the internal identifier, so users can rename enum items without breaking
existing input values. This also persists if, for example, a linked node
group is temporarily unavailable.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/113445
The previous commit introduced a new `RPT_()` macro to translate
strings which are not tooltips or regular interface elements, but
longer reports or statuses.
This commit uses the new macro to translate many strings all over the
UI.
Most of it is a simple replace from `TIP_()` or `IFACE_()` to
`RPT_()`, but there are some additional changes:
- A few translations inside `BKE_report()` are removed altogether
because they are already handled by the translation system.
- Messages inside `UI_but_disable()` are no longer translated
manually, but they are handled by a new regex in the translation
system.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/116804
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/116804
Follow-up fix for #113330.
The `valid_socket_type` classmethod in node trees is only available on
custom node trees (but documentation does not say that). It cannot be
used to determine if the default float socket type is valid for built-in
node tree types. We have to assume this socket type is always valid for
built-in node trees, or the operator will try to call a non-existent
method.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/113540
Custom node trees may not suppor the default NodeSocketFloat socket
type. In case this default type is not supported, search all registered
socket types and pick the first one that is supported by the custom
node tree.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/113330
Part 3/3 of #109135, #110272
Switch to new node group interfaces and deprecate old DNA and API.
This completes support for panels in node drawing and in node group
interface declarations in particular.
The new node group interface DNA and RNA code has been added in parts
1 and 2 (#110885, #110952) but has not be enabled yet. This commit
completes the integration by
* enabling the new RNA API
* using the new API in UI
* read/write new interfaces from blend files
* add versioning for backward compatibility
* add forward-compatible writing code to reconstruct old interfaces
All places accessing node group interface declarations should now be
using the new API. A runtime cache has been added that allows simple
linear access to socket inputs and outputs even when a panel hierarchy
is used.
Old DNA has been deprecated and should only be accessed for versioning
(inputs/outputs renamed to inputs_legacy/outputs_legacy to catch
errors). Versioning code ensures both backward and forward
compatibility of existing files.
The API for old interfaces is removed. The new API is very similar but
is defined on the `ntree.interface` instead of the `ntree` directly.
Breaking change notifications and detailed instructions for migrating
will be added.
A python test has been added for the node group API functions. This
includes new functionality such as creating panels and moving items
between different levels.
This patch does not yet contain panel representations in the modifier
UI. This has been tested in a separate branch and will be added with a
later PR (#108565).
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/111348
Listing the "Blender Foundation" as copyright holder implied the Blender
Foundation holds copyright to files which may include work from many
developers.
While keeping copyright on headers makes sense for isolated libraries,
Blender's own code may be refactored or moved between files in a way
that makes the per file copyright holders less meaningful.
Copyright references to the "Blender Foundation" have been replaced with
"Blender Authors", with the exception of `./extern/` since these this
contains libraries which are more isolated, any changed to license
headers there can be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Some directories in `./intern/` have also been excluded:
- `./intern/cycles/` it's own `AUTHORS` file is planned.
- `./intern/opensubdiv/`.
An "AUTHORS" file has been added, using the chromium projects authors
file as a template.
Design task: #110784
Ref !110783.
This feature is going to be replaced with a more thorough refactoring
of the node group interface UI, which has actual node drawing support
and a new API for integration of panels into nodes.
Design task: #109135
Implementation: #110272
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/110803
Prefer the more generic exception type as it's possible exceptions
derive from this and not "Exception".
Also use the name 'ex' for exceptions instead of 'e'.
This adds support for running a set of nodes repeatedly. The number
of iterations can be controlled dynamically as an input of the repeat
zone. The repeat zone can be added in via the search or from the
Add > Utilities menu.
The main use case is to replace long repetitive node chains with a more
flexible alternative. Technically, repeat zones can also be used for
many other use cases. However, due to their serial nature, performance
is very sub-optimal when they are used to solve problems that could
be processed in parallel. Better solutions for such use cases will
be worked on separately.
Repeat zones are similar to simulation zones. The major difference is
that they have no concept of time and are always evaluated entirely in
the current frame, while in simulations only a single iteration is
evaluated per frame.
Stopping the repetition early using a dynamic condition is not yet
supported. "Break" functionality can be implemented manually using
Switch nodes in the loop for now. It's likely that this functionality
will be built into the repeat zone in the future.
For now, things are kept more simple.
Remaining Todos after this first version:
* Improve socket inspection and viewer node support. Currently, only
the first iteration is taken into account for socket inspection
and the viewer.
* Make loop evaluation more lazy. Currently, the evaluation is eager,
meaning that it evaluates some nodes even though their output may not
be required.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/109164
Adds an optional list of panels to node trees. Each socket can be
assigned a panel. UI panels will be created in the future in the
modifier for these grouped sockets.
Panels are stored as a pointer array in node trees, next to socket
declarations. Each panel has a name, but it does not have to be unique.
In future a panel might also store whether it is visible by default and
similar information.
C API and RNA API are both added. Panels and their socket
assignments are accessible to users through another list in the "Group"
tab of the node editor sidebar.
Sockets in the same panel will remain together even when adding,
removing, or moving sockets or panels, renaming, etc.
A socket can be moved up or down within a panel but each panel
remains a contiguous block. Actual tree views may be created later.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/108649
