Features a lot of timeline-related cache optimizations as well as general
optimizations and improvements in timeline behavior. Should improve
usability significantly.
A huge optimization that ensures only the parts of a node graph that have
changed get pushed to the renderer. For thread-safety, the node graph is
copied elsewhere so that users can make changes asynchronously and the graph
can update when its threads are ready. Up until now, if an input value changed,
every node's values would be re-copied, or worse, if a connection was changed,
the entire graph would be recopied. This has been negligible in testing since
we've been largely testing with small graphs, but for massive projects, it's
important that this be as optimized as possible.
As opposed to simply leaving all values in the table, nodes can now "take"
values that they use to free up memory (e.g. "taking" input buffers if they're
used to produce an output buffer).
This is a fairly large change, expect regressions.
When adjusting a slider, keyframe time, or curve value, it is undesirable to
re-cache the entire affected area while the user is still dragging UI objects.
Since the video is unlikely to be playing, the priority must go to the
currently active frame so the user gets visual feedback on the rendered image
as soon as possible. This was implemented in some areas, but this commit should
have that functionality in all areas.
Since rationals aren't a known Qt format, the QVariant container can't
automatically convert them to and from strings (for XML serialization). We have
to hijack these functions and do the conversion manually for those types.
Also moved the block name type to a node input, which means it's serialized
and copied by default (I'm not sure why it wasn't already like this).
Since all NodeInputs will generally only need their data type and default
value set once, we place it all into the constructor for cleaner and easier
to manage code.
Since all Nodes have an output that provides all output values now, we now
never need to add an output from a Node derivative. These changes remove the
last of them and disable the ability to add more outputs from a derivative.
Since the nodes won't be holding any rendering data themselves in this system,
we may as well enforce some level of non-write access by setting all the
functions to const. They were already const-friendly, they just weren't
labelled as such.
commit
For testing the new iteration, the texture cache disk download was written
into the main thread instead of into the separate threads. Now they're back
in separate threads again.
Also I think some of these files probably should have been in the previous
commit.
The new rendering pipeline strives to simplify the nodes themselves as much
as possible and move much of the logic to an external rendering engine. This
change removes all of the responsibilities that no longer belong to the
nodes themselves and will soon be folded into the renderer.
Nodes were previously written to be "strongly typed" in that a parameter's
"type" enforced whether it could be connected to another. All code related
to that has now been removed since not only is it hard to maintain and
likely unnecessary, it's possible the nodes will work differently later on
anyway.
itsmattkc