Change Details

The purpose of `NodeTreeRef` was to speed up various queries on a read-only `bNodeTree`. Now that we have runtime data in nodes and sockets, we can also store the result of some queries there. This has some benefits: * No need for a read-only separate node tree data structure. * Makes it easier to make reuse cached queries in more parts of Blender that can benefit from it. I downside is that we loose some type safety that we got by having different types for input and output sockets, as well as internal and non-internal links. This patch refactors `DerivedNodeTree` so that it does not use `NodeTreeRef` anymore but uses `bNodeTree` directly. Todo: * Cleanups/Documentation of some methods.

The purpose of `NodeTreeRef` was to speed up various queries on a read-only `bNodeTree`. Now that we have runtime data in nodes and sockets, we can also store the result of some queries there. This has some benefits: * No need for a read-only separate node tree data structure which increased complexity. * Makes it easier to make reuse cached queries in more parts of Blender that can benefit from it. A downside is that we loose some type safety that we got by having different types for input and output sockets, as well as internal and non-internal links. This patch refactors `DerivedNodeTree` so that it does not use `NodeTreeRef` anymore but uses `bNodeTree` directly. To provide a convenient API (that also somewhat close to what `NodeTreeRef` had), a new approach is implemented: `bNodeTree`, `bNode`, `bNodeSocket` and `bNodeLink` now have C++ methods declared in `DNA_node_types.h` which are implemented in `BKE_node_runtime.hh`. To make this work, I had to change `makesdna` a bit to skip the C++ methods when parsing the dna header files. While this approach is not entirely clean, I couldn't think of a way to make the API work well without this yet. This approach also fits into potential future plans where DNA is only used for IO and Blender works more on C++ types internally (that was discussed in chat before).

The purpose of `NodeTreeRef` was to speed up various queries on a read-only `bNodeTree`. Now that we have runtime data in nodes and sockets, we can also store the result of some queries there. This has some benefits: * No need for a read-only separate node tree data structure which increased complexity. * Makes it easier to make reuse cached queries in more parts of Blender that can benefit from it. IA downside is that we loose some type safety that we got by having different types for input and output sockets, as well as internal and non-internal links. This patch refactors `DerivedNodeTree` so that it does not use `NodeTreeRef` anymore but uses `bNodeTree` directly. Todo: * Cleanups/Documentation of some methods. provide a convenient API (that also somewhat close to what `NodeTreeRef` had), a new approach is implemented: `bNodeTree`, `bNode`, `bNodeSocket` and `bNodeLink` now have C++ methods declared in `DNA_node_types.h` which are implemented in `BKE_node_runtime.hh`. To make this work, I had to change `makesdna` a bit to skip the C++ methods when parsing the dna header files. While this approach is not entirely clean, I couldn't think of a way to make the API work well without this yet. This approach also fits into potential future plans where DNA is only used for IO and Blender works more on C++ types internally (that was discussed in chat before).