Managing what does and doesn’t render at light speed has really become a pain in the @$$
I’m staring at this scene with all these objects where I only want to isolate 1 with the ground, all the objects are in their own collection scheme and there is a lighting setup and cube maps, and I’m thinking… damn it…
Just to get out of the “hard way” (clicking 100x in the tree view), I paint selected everything and ran this in the console (disable render based on “hidden”). Wish you could understand my struggle ;(
>>> for o in bpy.context.scene.objects:
... o.hide_render = o.hide_get()
The reason why proper QCD system is needed - currently it turns just less fluent for character modeling, but it turns deadly impossible hard for a wide range of concave/constructive modeling workflows.
Managing what does and doesn’t render at light speed
horusscope, check up my proposal, that solves renderability display and setup speed issue.
This is item D on the list.
I see you know python, so you can already test that simple trick.
I hope that the blender developers have also become aware of this, your research and explanation are very valuable.
and I suspect that these processes could also be considered in the way in which the data-memory-management of the scenes is coded…
to better manage the heaviness of the scenes …
This research is all fine and dandy, but as a relatively new user, this is my perspective:
Again, this is the Dvorak/Right-click situation. It might be more optimal for the few people who take time to use it, but for the masses accustomed to an industry standard, it’s unfortunately not worth it.
Also, in a workplace multi-user environment, isn’t QCD just dead in the water from the start? Or does everyone just run around to all file originators and ask what’s inside the various squares? And if you yourself open a file after not having worked on it for 2-3 years, do you even remember?
What do you do, for example, if you imported a multi-story building with thousands of parts, furniture, lighting, floors, carpets, doors, windows, outlets, people, decorations, etc and run out of squares to put them in? What if you want to sort items by floor in addition to category? Collections enables this.
Hopefully there is nothing to prevent a 3rd party plugin developer from adding back a QCD system into Blender, but to me, it’s good riddance.
That’s easy - we will use collections in that case.
Nice picture, but it is a bit out of scope. It would be right, if we would ask to replace collections with QCD completely. But it is not true)
We need collections as well as proper QCD system on top of it, because they are, actually, different types of systems, and are needed for different certain types of production. They are not “replaceable”)
We don’t want them apart, we need them together, as it splits community by workflow type.
That means, that you don’t need it. That’s ok)
But does this mean that if you don’t need something, then nobody needs it?
In further I will explain what QCD were designed for. There are several pages left. It’s a complex question.
Currently Blender 2.8 has a QCD system, but it is not sufficiently developed to reach it’s full potential, since it was made outside the context of production requirements.
Those pages are from conversation with devs. I made them month ago and just posting them here.
The type of content context affects the workflow type.
Folder system is a nice example for context type explanation.
When user creates folders like “House project”, “BMW x5 model”, “Wedding photos” - it is static context, a context that can have short name, that is suitable for common layer systems.
When user creates folder “11111”, “New folder 2”, “URGENT”, “Misc”, “To sort”, that means that user faced with a dynamic context, that cannot be described with a couple of words, and only the content itself determines its purpose in that case.
Almost every kind of work in CG contains, or even consists from converting a dynamic context (ideas, concepts, sketches, references, versions and other temporal data) into a static context (final models, scenes or products).
So, we need a proper QCD-driven micromanagement tool to handle dynamic context.
By the way, here is video about how Maya users trying to overcome industry standards speed limits.
They are forced to make visibility animation in order to get a bit portion of QCD system flexibility.
U(2) = 3, so 3 keyframes are needed just to have ability to view full combinations of 2 elements.
So they are editing animations for static objects, and calling this “a nice tip”, even if Maya has a common layers system for decades. So, it’s all about speed.
U(5) = 31, so ,to process all possible combinations of 5 objects, you need 31 frames or 31 view layers.
We have dozens of such objects, even on average projects, so absence of proper micromanagement engine turns into a huge problem.
There were no layer system in blender.
There were visibility slots system accidently called “layers”
Collections are an attempt to bring common layer system to Blender.
Just like tagging system was called “groups”, move as “grab” and other things, unlike in industry standarts.
Well, there are no “new workflows”, there are “different workflows”.
You don’t need quick visibility navigation, because your work is creative, not constructive.
Quick Content Display system (those “squares” or “layers”) are needed for wide range of complex constructive workflows.
Your work is not related to that kind of workflow, so it is ok that you don’t need and don’t understand why such system is needed. A lot of people have creative workflows, they never faces situations, that constructive workflow people faces just daily)
So this split is between creative and constructive workflows people.
sooner or later it will come out an addon that will restore the situation of blender 2.7x layers…
precisely because we need this type of constructive workflows
I’m really interested in different ways of working but I have no idea what you mean besides there’s a difference between the layers systems in pre/post 2.8.
That and you are doing Autocad type of stuff? I guess if you can get away with using a Maya alternative for an Autocad alternative that’s pretty cool. It’s not like blender has to only be for goofy artistic stuff, but l imagine you’ll be waiting a while for the creative issues to be ironed out first. But who knows maybe I’m wrong, or misunderstanding what you even meant.
I’m going to go grab 2.79 again or maybe just checkout and build 279 for the heck of it and try to figure it out myself. All I’ve ever cared about was show / hide different groups but since you actually have experience with both layers systems, I’d like to learn if you have a video I can watch or something
That’s the main point - this depends from certain type of your production.
Basically
If you are managing massive and complex scenes (archiviz, animations), you need Collections system to effectively manage static (predefined) context.
If you are producing complex assets with multiple references of different type, LODs, variations, and other inplace temporal data (engineering, gamedev), you need QCD system to effectively manage dynamic (temporal) context.
Also could you give specific use cases? For example “I am a <role, eg animator>, I want to . Using old layers, I would , now I must .” You’ve explained how things are different, but I’m not clear on why that matters. When designing UX, it’s important to focus on what the user is trying to accomplish. You’ve explained what is different, but it’s not clear to me why that matters.
For quick hiding/showing collections, there is shift+Num, so there is quick unencumbered hotkey control. That is what you want with “Quick Content Display System”/CQD.
Objects may be linked in multiple collections, so to me they seem to have the same versatility and even more unlimited combinatorics. But perhaps there is a specific use case that it makes a difference?
And if you yourself open a file after not having worked on it for 2-3 years, do you even remember?
