Intelligent partial mesh export

[Lord Crc]

Hi,

it seems that Blender 2.61 introduced an Update API, which allows us to register a callback for when an object is modified. Any objects which have been modified since last call are flagged. We can even determine if the mesh itself has been updated or "just" position and such.

I've been working on including this, to augment the "partial ply export" option, and it seems to work well. There is however two big issues:
- The update notification is only sent for "visible" changes. For example changing the "render" subdiv amount will not trigger an update. This is due to internal limitations in how this feature was implemented.
- Brecht says it's technically possible that an update notification is missed, ie not sent, when it should be.

Thus, we need some easy and obvious way to force a full export, for use with final rendering. A big toggle button perhaps?

For test rendering the partial export is a great time saver.

[Abel]

it seems that Blender 2.61 introduced an Update API, which allows us to register a callback for when an object is modified. Any objects which have been modified since last call are flagged. We can even determine if the mesh itself has been updated or "just" position and such.

That's great news, I've been waiting for this for a long time!

- The update notification is only sent for "visible" changes. For example changing the "render" subdiv amount will not trigger an update. This is due to internal limitations in how this feature was implemented.
- Brecht says it's technically possible that an update notification is missed, ie not sent, when it should be.

That's too bad. But I suppose they're planning to eventually fix at least the latter issue.

Thus, we need some easy and obvious way to force a full export, for use with final rendering. A big toggle button perhaps?

At the moment there is a "Partial PLY Export" tick button, wouldn't that be clear enough? I suppose renaming it to "Partial Export" or "Partial Mesh Export" would be a good idea if this function works with LuxRender geometry files as well.

[Lord Crc]

That's too bad. But I suppose they're planning to eventually fix at least the latter issue.

I'm not sure if it's just a bug or a consequence of how the update system works. From what Brecht said it didn't sound likely, but sufficient that he said he wouldn't trust the update api for a final render.

What I'm thinking is that users will love this feature and then promptly forget to untick it before doing a final render. Or untick it and forget to tick it again afterwards, and get annoyed. So I was thinking a "one-off" mode where only the next export is done in full, and then it returns to partial mode.

[Abel]

What I'm thinking is that users will love this feature and then promptly forget to untick it before doing a final render. Or untick it and forget to tick it again afterwards, and get annoyed. So I was thinking a "one-off" mode where only the next export is done in full, and then it returns to partial mode.

That makes sense - in that case I imagine the big button ("force full export"?) would ideally be right under the Render button, although I don't know if that is possible. Once we have this button I propose to make partial export the default, making the Partial PLY Export button superfluous.

[A-man]

Why not split the big 'Render' button into 2, or make another one beside/under it, and have one of them titled 'Full Render' and one 'Partial Render' or something like that. This way, you simply choose at the time of export which option you want. If you are consistently doing test renders, you can just keep clicking 'Partial Render', and when it comes time for the final render, click 'Full Render'.