2025-05-08 Core Module Meeting

Meetings
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Everyone is welcome on the Google Meet linked below every other Thursday, alternating between 10:00 CET and 16:00 CET.

Present:

The meeting covers the core module topics (DNA/RNA, ID management, Depsgraph, Blendfile I/O, etc.).

Links

Updates on Blender 5.0 Projects for 4.5 Release

  • 2GB BHead limit: Has been merged by Jacques in the future 4.5, the option remains experimental and will be removed for the final release. Work for a few python scripts is still needed for Blender 5.0 before moving this option out of experimental (once 4.5 is branched out).
    • Jacques also had to split the blendloader module in two, creating a new minimal blendloader_core to be used by code like the thumbnailer, to avoid half of the full blender symbols to be put into such basic util executables.
  • IDProperties storage split: The PR is still waiting for reviews.
  • Embedded Linked IDs: Still very WIP, needs to be prioritized. Jacques and Bastien have worked on it a bit the past two weeks, and have a list of TODOs before it can be considered as an MVP ready for review, but hard to find time to work on it so far.
  • Attributes Storage Modernization: The PR is in the final review phase, should be ready for merge soon.
  • ID Name Size Increase: It has a design task now. Michal is trying to find time to work on this, Bastien will help and ensure that things are ready for 4.5 Beta in one month.

Other Topics

  • Runtime RNA Data Wrapping: Jacques started working on it.
  • Static IDs Initialization: Bastien committed the announced refactor, they are now allocated out-of-Main IDs, and can be handled through the regular ID management API.
  • Jacques made a devtalk post regarding proper conventions for DNA structs and their C++ class wrappers. This is also related to the question of how to make RNA system compatible with such ‘C++ class dominant’ future, where simpler DNA C-like structs would only be used for blendfile read-write, and all runtime access would happen through their C++ wrappers. There are already some issues in current RNA code when accessing some of the recently added ‘runtime’ data, see e.g. the issues uncovered by this WIP refactor.
  • Hans has a PR to make the Collection ID runtime data allocated.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on Thursday 22nd May, 10:00 CEST/Amsterdam time (your local time: 2025-05-22T08:00:00Z).

The provisional meeting agenda will be linked in the Core Meetings Overview thread before the meeting.

Core Meeting Notes

This is the place to take notes for on-going Pipeline, Assets & I/O meetings, before moving them to Meetings - Developer Forum . Please keep it as a clean, ready-to-use template for the next meeting.