Dev:Ref/Release Notes/2.76/Freestyle
Freestyle non-photorealistic (NPR) rendering engine
Freestyle improvements include memory consumption optimization and new stroke modifiers for line stylization.
Memory optimization
Freestyle has been optimized for space and less memory is consumed throughout its rendering process. Only the memory consumption is reduced, while the visual output will be kept unchanged. Actual memory consumption reduction may vary scene by scene. Reduction of the peak memory size (in units of bytes) was evaluated using selected test scenes, and an average reduction of 7.2% was observed.
Technical details and more performance test results will be described in a separate blog post.
The present work on memory optimization was part of the outcome from a Freestyle/Blender NPR development project (April—September 2014) financially supported by the Blender Foundation Developer Fund.
New stroke modifiers
New stroke modifiers have been added to the Parameter Editor graphical user-interface of Freestyle, allowing for a wider variety of user-defined line styles (eeeb845d33e81af).
- Noise - adds noise to stroke vertex properties (i.e., line color, alpha transparency and thickness).
- Tangent - modifies the stroke appearance based on the traveling direction of the stroke.
- 3D curvature - alters strokes based on a geometric property called radial curvature of the underlying 3D surface.
- Crease angle - updates stroke appearance based on the angle between two adjacent faces of a crease edge.
- Simplification - merges stroke vertices that lie close to one another, like the Decimate modifier for meshes.
Contributor: Folkert de Vries (flokkievids).
