[opensource-dev] Upcoming depth-of-field feature

[Nyx Linden]

Depth of Field is a quick feature one of our devs developed while 
looking into anti-aliasing bugs. It didn't take a substantial amount of 
time away from bug-hunting, and should be useful for a variety of 
purposes (photography and machinima for starters).

At this point it should be considered a toy, in that its a feature that 
hasn't yet been formally finished, debugged, qa'd, or had a good 
interface put on top of it. Feedback is appreciated for when we do 
prepare to polish it up of course.

As always, you can see the changes we've made in the mesh branch in our 
public repository:
http://hg.secondlife.com/mesh-development

You can always get the latest successful build of our changes here (link 
is also on the wiki downloads page):
http://automated-builds-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/hg/repo/mesh-development/latest.html

Feedback is appreciated to be put into jira-form under the mesh beta 
project for specific bug reports and feature requests, or on the forums 
for any topics that could require discussion:
http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/forums/mesh

Thanks for noticing, and thanks for the feedback!

  -Nyx

On 11/25/2010 06:54 PM, Ricky wrote:
> Agreed, DOF is on my long-list not my short-list of things I'd like to
> see done.  However, I expect that SL's deferred rendering system has a
> laundry list of issues. Just look at it's history; it's been little
> more than a pet-project since it's inception.  A pet project with the
> capability to go far, but still just a pet project.  Getting the
> client into a stronger codebase (2.0) and then stabilized with very
> little new features has been the largest pushes in recent history.
>
> In fact, we've (LL and OS devs,) been working stability for so many
> months that it might be time to push for a cool, if small, new
> feature.  However, with the new level of visibility, it won't be as
> much a surprise. I hope.  From my reading here, most people don't like
> surprises! :P  Maybe something nice, like a good UI skinning system...
>   See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Skinning#Phase_2_-_Switchable_Skins
>   Or maybe a roll-out of meshes, but I suspect that's wishing too hard!
> :P
>
> As to the original question about DoF, here's what is known:
>    http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22depth+of+field%22+OR+DOF+site:secondlife.com
> Which gives the following JIRAs:
> https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-19244  PROFESSIoNAL TOOL:
> Snapshot: add functions: Dynamic Focus, Depth of field and Blurr
> https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3921  photographic tools: DoF
>
> In VWR-3921 Adeon Writer pointed to this build of the mesh viewer:
> http://automated-builds-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/hg/repo/mesh-development/rev/215482/index.html
>
> Ricky
> Cron Stardust
>
> On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Geenz Spad<geenz at geenzo.com>  wrote:
>    
>> I wonder how awesome it'll run on top of the already awesome deferred
>> renderer that has really awesome performance on really awesome video cards
>> that have really awesome drivers?
>>
>> Honestly, as nifty as DOF is as far as the "pretty" factor is concerned,
>> right now the deferred renderer needs a few more optimizations before any
>> additional features are added to it, and it still needs a few more work
>> arounds for buggy drivers (for example, successfully running the deferred
>> renderer on ATI hardware still tends to vary from person to person,
>> depending on their hardware and driver combination).  On top of that, you
>> still need a pretty powerful video card in order to really take advantage of
>> it, though I think that really has to do with bottle necks within the
>> rendering system as a whole, not just bottle necks presented by the deferred
>> renderer its self (although deferred rendering does have it's own bottle
>> necks, and SL's deferred renderer in particular presents a few interesting
>> ones of its own due to its flexibility).
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 4:43 PM, Ricky<kf6kjg at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>      
>>> Things ARE getting fixed, just look at the daily scrum reports or the
>>> progress tracking in the JIRA.  Also take note that sometimes "adding"
>>> a single feature will often resolve several bugs and feature requests.
>>>   For instance the Deferred rendering channel will add the ability to
>>> have greater than 7 light-sources, solving several issues with<ugh>
>>> facelights and other lights taking out room lighting.
>>>
>>> As to optimization, things are pretty optimized.  Yes, they CAN get
>>> better, but without a major restructuring of how content is created,
>>> we will never have the high render rates found in the online and
>>> offline games.  Even so, the work being done on upgrading KDU looks
>>> like it is improving load/render rates as it is.
>>>
>>> Don't forget that there are multiple people in multiple teams working
>>> on this program.  Some are better at adding new features, and so are
>>> better utilized in that area.  Some are better testers than coders,
>>> and so that's where they get used.  Some, fairly rare, are really good
>>> at making existing code much better.  All these people types are at
>>> work here, and putting them all into "optimizing or fixing things"
>>> would be a death-knell for the company.
>>>
>>> I'd say, instead of berating new (and very cool,) advancements, we
>>> should all applaud the work being done.  At the very least it will
>>> make someone's day that much brighter.
>>>
>>> Just my opinion,
>>> Ricky
>>> Cron Stardust
>>>
>>> On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 12:34 PM, Rob Nelson
>>> <nexisentertainment at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>        
>>>> Oh good, let's add more features instead of either optimizing things or
>>>> fixing things.
>>>>
>>>> Rob
>>>>
>>>> On 11/25/2010 8:56 AM, Opensource Obscure wrote:
>>>>          
>>>>>    Thanks to BlakOpal today I saw these very cool images:
>>>>>    http://twitpic.com/3a0vag/full
>>>>>
>>>>> http://picasaweb.google.com/Runitai/DeferredRendering#slideshow/5542853119016406770
>>>>>
>>>>> http://picasaweb.google.com/Runitai/DeferredRendering#slideshow/5543062518728480114
>>>>>
>>>>>    Where can I find more information about this depth-of-field
>>>>>    feature? (wiki pages, blog/forums, JIRA...)
>>>>>
>>>>>    It really looks good. I'm going to download a test build now.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>    Thanks in advance
>>>>>    Opensource Obscure
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