Help me Co-author a new modifier? - [CompoundObject]

Archive Blender Development
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left = collection
right = with modifier applied

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image1920×1080 310 KB

here is what I have so far in action (this just scrapes the needed data atm / displays it using lines)

so I wrote a preliminary implementation in py - I wrote it in upbge/ the game engine so I could get quick feedback -

this scrapes all vertex into a grid using a increment, from multiple objects,
this way the mertex ‘merge’ - forming the data for a composite object to be drawn.

I need some help porting to C and taking over drawing the mesh in the modifier.

I was thinking this could be on a mesh like a simple cube - and be used to both manipulate the origin,
and store the material and act as a ui for the modifier.

ideally the collection used would be hidden, and it’s position relative to 0,0,0 would be used (like group objects of the past)

this can accelerate modular / procedural modeling and also things like terrain made of tiles that are snapped into place as the camera moves - allowing large detailed streaming worlds -

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Have you heard of OpenMeshEffects? It’s a mesh plugin software. There is a branch of blender that uses it to make custom modifiers in C code. The author wrote it when he needed to figure out how to bridge Blender and Houdini engine and keep the GPL intact. The idea is to have a mesh plugin standard like OpenFX for compositing. Hopefully it’ll catch on.