bf-Blender / Windows (2005/10/29) : new boolean

[lguillaume]

Hello, the new boolean is in CVS, in this build bullet+sumo GE, no patch, just a compile to test boolean.

CVS :

This is a bit a patch... unforseen issue with the new Screen Handlers.
(Screen handler is used now to trigger animated screen).

When files get saved with Verse_Blender, it has the verse handler set,
which causes the handler system to run without a means to disable it with
release versions of Blender. This patch disables the Verse Handler to be
set on reading files.

Jiri; you will have to uncomment this code when you sync it with your tree!

When you add new face with F key, then blender set up smoothness due to
smoothness of faces in neighbourhood. It tries to set up normal of new
face due to normals of faces in neigbourhood too.
btw: this coding was inspired by andy's tutorial at conf in Amsterdam.

NLA & Action goodies;

-> Locked Strip length
When changing time of the animation curves in an Action, the strips in NLA
just remained the same length, causing very confusing situations.
By setting the strips to Locked (Nkey NLA window), it always updates the
strip length to make sure all keys are included, and not more. From now on
(not on old files) this is the default strip method.

-> ALT+C clear size
This menu has 2 options, the first clears the size, the 2nd remaps the
action (only when you didnt use the new Lock feature).
Both options are in the Pulldown menu too

-> Key drawing
The weird beveled button in Action/NLA didn't accurately show what time it
was actually on. I've replaced it with an Icon now, diamond shaped, in a
design derived from the TimeLine markers.

- bug fix: clicking at button "Flip Normals" in button window didn't
display changes in 3dview and data wasn't added to undo stack too

- Bugfix #3271: saveRenderedImage() was corrupting memory while trying to
build the filename (thanks for good bug report, Pablo)

Copy scene did not copy the markers... causing in memory errors on quit.
No real baddie, but still very good to fix!

Bugfix: Using the "Influence" slider for Constraints popped back to the
keyed positions when an Ipo was assigned to the Constraint.

Lots of BPy Mesh additions:
- added faces.uvSel attribute: can get/set selection status of UV vertices in
UV Editor window
- make mesh.faceUV, mesh.vertexUV and mesh.vertexColor writable: users
can now enable/disable UV faces, vertex colors, "sticky" vertices
- fixed bug with mesh tool methods: before it would only work if an object
linked to the mesh was selected
- added mesh.quadToTriangle() and mesh.triangleToQuad() methods
- added selected() method to verts, edges, faces; returns list of indices
of selected items
- mesh.getFromObject() now gets derived mesh data
- ported vertex group methods from NMesh (required change to Object.c)
- ported module dictionaries from NMesh

Nice one: Transform in NLA with the "Lock" feature, not only draws other
windows, but also evaluates (depgraphed) all Objects involved.
Try select all in NLA and drag around!

Here's another milestone: Shape Keys now can be inserted in Actions and NLA

It works like for moving Object Ipos to the Action, press the Action icon
in the header of the IpoWindow, to the left of the mode selection menu.
It then creates an Action (if not existed) and moves the Shape Ipo to the
Action, using custom channel "Shape".

Main code change was that evaluating Ipo Curves for Relative Shapes had to
be recoded, but that's pretty minor and even much cleaner. (added "curval"
in the KeyBlock struct).
That this feature can work is thanks to the full modifier/derivedmesh
recode Daniel did, can't give him enough credits!

Also; small fixes in Outliner, for clicking on the Ipo icon (sets the Ipo
window to show that Ipo).

Error in creating Python dict for new Mesh API.
It was calling PyModule_AddObject() with unassigned pointer. Crashed on
exit here (python 2.3.2). Weird thing was that python 2.3.5 didnt complain

New: use ALT+ScrollWheel to step through frames. Like for Arrow keys, it
does not cycle (not jump back to start frame on the end).

Mac users can also use Apple+ScrollWheel btw!

Tweaks to the camera visualisation:

We decided that the dashed lines were too much,
making the view very busy with dashed parent lines,
lamps, etc. So now the camera lines are drawn solid,
but the arrow (now triangle by andy's demand!) is drawn
outlined for inactive cameras, filled for the active
camera.

Irc reported bug by Sapir: Shape Key factor slider in Edit Buttons crashed
when no ipo window was opened. Was using an old global pointer. fixed!

Tiny cosmetic tweak to the outliner, making the
connecting line not so strong to see the other icons easier

Hm, last method was not so good across various colour
themes. Now the line uses a blend of the outliner theme
colours instead of being hard coded.

Autocomplete for buttons that need Blender data names (ID's and Bones).

Just press TAB and it completes up to the level a match is found. If
more matches exist a menu could pop up, thats for later. Now an evening
off!

Somehow, most files are missing from this commit, and I have no idea why,
so there will be more files following.

Anyway: NEW BOOLEANS from Google Summer of Code (Courtesy of Marc Freixas)

Known problems:

- Random freezes while using them as a modifier. This may not be directly
related to modifiers though - it's maybe just the huge number of
operations that leads to a higher probability of triggering a bug

- Static booleans (the first 3 entries in the WKEY menu) are borked
anyway, this is not due to this commit.

- Errors when exiting Blender (dupli_alloc stuff), is not related to this
commit, either.

Please test if everything works, and check the other build systems, I only
know that make works.

Also, compare the results of, say, cube-cylinder, in old and new booleans

Orange's buglist!

- Action Editor: hotkeys V and H for handles were invisible, added menus
- NLA strips: when current frame is exactly on the strip end, it didn't
include that action... needs a rounding correction for it.
- Action/NLA: deleting keys in Action, which results in only 1 key left,
resulted in zero sized strip length. Now the strips are defaulted to be
1 frame in size minimal.
- NLA editor: ALT+C "Convert to strip" didn't increment Action user count
- 3D Window: CTRL+P make parent to Bone still gave the insane menu with all
bone names. With unified PoseMode select it can just parent to the
active Bone. Note; this now requires the Armature to be in PoseMode to
work.
- Rotation Constraint; the new options to only map to X,Y,Z rotation, did
set the not mapped rotation axes to zero. These should remain unchanged.
- AutoKey optionn for Actions; should not insert action keys on ESC

And added a fix myself:

- When SHIFT+selecting a Bone in PoseMode, and the Armature was not selected
or active yet, it doesn't extend-select/deselect the Bone anymore.
This case is only useful when you try to add IK or Constraint, so the
shift+selection should only activate the clicked Bone.

ColorBand editing suggestion from Andy; CTRL+click inserts a new 'key' in
the ColorBand, with color/alpha as defined by that position.

New: Mirror Modifier now has option "Do Clipping", which prevents vertices
during Transform to go through the mirror. Note that it is *only* during
transform, and ESC restores the non-clipped positions of vertices.

Downloads :
7zip (1992kB)
zip (2647kB)

[ElBarto]

With that built and the one before getting troblöe to run, always getting error message: "Application couldn't be initialized (0x0000007b)".

Getting this since built 20051020, older builds work.

Using Win2K SP4. Blender 2.37a runs stable, no problems at all.

[MikeMLP]

"edge loop delete" is not (and has not within the last few test builds) been in the "Control E" menu.

[suntzu]

hello,

I'm sorry but there is a little mistake:

make a plane, extrude edges to make a cube, than in object-mode make an original cube. If you than make a boolean difference (W3) you get an union and if you make a union (W2) you get a difference. This happens if one object is extruded.

WINXP

!THINK!

suntzu

[AKIRA_B]

I think that the optimal draw is not working when you press it.
Is that a bug?

[matt_e]

"edge loop delete" is not (and has not within the last few test builds) been in the "Control E" menu.

Yep, it's moved to the delete menu where it belongs

[lguillaume]

I think that the optimal draw is not working when you press it.
Is that a bug?

When you are in Edit mode, in subsurf modifier, the button at the left of the button "^" have to be enabled to show optimal in Edit mode

ElBarto, don't have problem, try to download Blender 2.40 alpha 1 "official test build". This release use python 2.4.

[MikeMLP]

Yep, it's moved to the delete menu where it belongs Smile

If so, then the shortcut listed under the Mesh->Edges->Edge Loop Delete should be changed to "DEL" rather than Ctrl E, so that people looking for it know where to go.

I have always liked how all of the possible tools are listed under the "Mesh" menu. I can use it as a shortcut guide and find new tools that I wouldn't have otherwise known about. It just has to be accurate to be functional. I looked for it under Ctrl-E because that is where blender said it would be found.

Hope this clears things up.

Also, I kind of prefered it on the control E menu, because on the delete menu, I have to take my left hand away from its "home" position, and move it over the Del. key for that particular function. But that is just me, if it must be on the del. key, I'll settle for consistancy within the menus.

Thanks

[Hos]

I'm sorry but there is a little mistake:

make a plane, extrude edges to make a cube, than in object-mode make an original cube. If you than make a boolean difference (W3) you get an union and if you make a union (W2) you get a difference. This happens if one object is extruded.

Hi suntzu,

This is not really a mistake. In order for the algorithm
to determine what is inside an object and what is outside, it
uses face normals. Sometimes with an extruded plane, the
normals aren't in an optimal direction. You can confirm this
by turning off 'double-sided' for the mesh and observing that
some, or perhaps all, of the faces are black. The way to avoid
this problem is after extruding select all the vertices and do a
ctrl-N to make the normals point outside. You will find that the
booleans work well after doing that (I hope).

Regards,
Chris

[MikeMLP]

While I'm at it, I don't know if this has been brought up before, but I definately think that some of the behavior of the old loop cut system is better than the new. Hopefully, it is simply incomplete, but since it has remained unchanged for quite some time now, I am begining to think that it is considered "done"

Ctrl R-> left click. Now look at the info bar. Percentage is listed as a value between -1.000000 and 1.000000. It seems to make a lot mor sense to have this look and act like the old system (2.37a), where the percentage is between 0% and 100%, and F swaps the side from which 0% is based.

Also, holding Ctrl on the new system causes it to snap to the eqivalent of 5% snaps. holding shift results in the same sort of behavior as the old system, but holding both control and shift together is the same as holding just shift. I would make a lot more sense for this to work like the old system, where holding Ctrl snaps to 10% intervals and holding Ctrl and shift together snaps to 1% intervals.

The old system also showed (s) for smooth, (f) for flip side, and (p) for proportional in the info bar. I already know these combos, but new users will have no way of knowing of these functions.

[ysvry]

mike you can use the x key too instead of the del key so your hand can stay put.

[suntzu]

hi hos,

what a fool am I ,

thx

!THINK!

suntzu

[matt_e]

If so, then the shortcut listed under the Mesh->Edges->Edge Loop Delete should be changed to "DEL" rather than Ctrl E, so that people looking for it know where to go.

Indeed it should, I didn't realise that hadn't been changed. I'm very well aware of the importance of having the tools and their shortcuts in the menus (actually there are a few more new tools that are missing and should be added too), so thanks for the heads-up on this one.

Also, I kind of prefered it on the control E menu, because on the delete menu, I have to take my left hand away from its "home" position, and move it over the Del. key for that particular function. But that is just me, if it must be on the del. key, I'll settle for consistancy within the menus.

Well the Del key is just an alternative for the X key (which is, incidentally, in the menus ).

[AKIRA_B]

I think that the optimal draw is not working when you press it.
Is that a bug?

When you are in Edit mode, in subsurf modifier, the button at the left of the button "^" have to be enabled to show optimal in Edit mode

Oops you are right

[void256]

unified renderer + motion blur = crash

this started in the 2.4 alpha version and continues to be a problem with
this latest testbuild. no problem in 2.37 at all