UI: Don't render missing linked eevee material previews, avoid freeze
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Authored by Julian Eisel (Severin) on Nov 17 2022, 5:08 PM.

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Reviewers

Brecht Van Lommel (brecht)
Clément Foucault (fclem)
Jeroen Bakker (jbakker)

Commits

rB571f373155cb: UI: Don't render missing linked material previews, avoids UI freezing

Summary

Issue from the Project Heist production:
Opening the material selector after reloading files would cause long UI freezes, because some linked in materials don't have the preview stored in the source file. So Blender would keep rerendering it after every file load.

Implemented here: Skip rendering previews of linked IDs, unless it's a solid mode render (which is usually fast). Not having a preview is not a big issue, a long reoccuring UI freeze is.

I also have a proof of concept patch for saving the rendered icons in the OS thumbnail cache. But I'm not happy with the implementation, the related code is already a mess and introducing this makes it considerably worse. This workaround is simple and reasonable enough.
Hopefully shader compilation won't be so much of an issue in the near-ish future anymore, the workaround can be removed then.

Diff Detail

Repository: rB Blender

Event Timeline

Julian Eisel (Severin) requested review of this revision.Nov 17 2022, 5:08 PM

Julian Eisel (Severin) created this revision.

Harbormaster completed remote builds in B24695: Diff 57743.Nov 17 2022, 5:08 PM

Julian Eisel (Severin) added a project: EEVEE & Viewport.Nov 17 2022, 5:09 PM

Julian Eisel (Severin) added a reviewer: Clément Foucault (fclem).

I'd disable this for all render engines, it can be just as slow with Cycles, especially if materials are using high res images.

Also not clear why the OpenGL backend would be checked specifically, Metal or Vulkan would not avoid this.

This revision now requires changes to proceed.Nov 17 2022, 5:30 PM

In D16538#450255, @Brecht Van Lommel (brecht) wrote:

I'd disable this for all render engines, it can be just as slow with Cycles, especially if materials are using high res images.

I think being a bit slow is fine, but I think for other engines it doesn't usually freeze the UI? But I wouldn't mind disabling it there too, if you think it's better.

Also not clear why the OpenGL backend would be checked specifically, Metal or Vulkan would not avoid this.

I heard some conflicting information about how much shader compilation would change with Vulkan, but I was under the impression we would at least be able to compile shaders off the main thread, leaving the UI responsive. Again, this is my main concern currently.

I think UI freezing is just one problem, loading heavy texture files every time is an issue as well. Vulkan or Metal can help but it's no guarantee.

I'd rather have it disabled for all renderers.