Kineme GL Tools 1.3

usefuldesign.au's picture

Today I upgraded GL Tools from 1.2 to 1.3. At a certain point I noticed that the line structure I was using didn't have as thin lines as when using GL Tools 1.2.

I reverted to 1.2 to confirm. Yes they do get a thinner appearance for Min. width in 1.2 (down to 0.06 width where they cease drawing). Would be nice if 1.3 (or 1.4) could get that kind of super-light appearance I was getting from 1.2.

When I open a composition that was saved under 1.3 installed with 1.2 installed I got a load error and it didn't run. Don't know if this implies a backwards compatibility bug for 1.3 or was just for my situation.

Also tried to lighten lines by using alpha in colour but it doesn't take alpha. I think cwright has discussed this elsewhere where he talks about implementing Kineme's GT Tools alpha blending mode, can't exactly recall. Alpha on line structures would be cool if it is possible though. GT Tools (and line structures in particular) are my most used Kineme patchs by far.

Error msg:

0x950396a8: -[QCContext renderPatch:time:arguments:]
0x9503948c: -[QCGraphicsContext renderPatch:time:arguments:]
0x95038580: -[QCOpenGLContext renderPatch:time:arguments:]
0x0000db2c
0x950ae78c: -[QCView render:arguments:]
0x950ae310: -[QCView startRendering:]
0x0000d234
0x91c9f688: _nsnote_callback
0x903a743c: _CFXNotificationPostNotification
0x91c9cdc4: -[NSNotificationCenter postNotificationName:object:userInfo:]
0x95d10a40: -[NSWindow _reallyDoOrderWindow:relativeTo:findKey:forCounter:force:isModal:]
0x95cdd408: -[NSWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:]
0x0000d02c
0x0747b6e0
0x95c6bb60: -[NSDocument showWindows]
0x95efee5c: -[NSDocumentController openDocumentWithContentsOfURL:display:error:]
0x0001a214
0x0001a184
0x95f6785c: -[NSApplication _doOpenFile:ok:tryTemp:]
0x95faa45c: -[NSApplication openFile:ok:]
0x9604838c: -[NSDocumentController(NSPrivate) _openRecentDocument:]
0x95d22358: -[NSApplication sendAction:to:from:]
0x95dbdd18: -[NSMenu performActionForItemAtIndex:]
0x95dbda48: -[NSCarbonMenuImpl performActionWithHighlightingForItemAtIndex:]
0x95d9f00c: AppKitMenuEventHandler
0x94273c4c: DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*)
0x94272de4: SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*)
0x9428fd08: SendEventToEventTarget
0x942c5498: SendHICommandEvent(unsigned long, HICommand const*, unsigned long, unsigned long, unsigned char, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*, OpaqueEventRef**)
0x942ebde4: SendMenuItemSelectedEvent
0x942ebcd8: FinishMenuSelection(MenuData*, MenuData*, MenuResult*, MenuResult*, unsigned long, unsigned long, unsigned long, unsigned char)
0x942c89ac: MenuSelectCore(MenuData*, Point, double, unsigned long, OpaqueMenuRef**, unsigned short*)
0x942c83c0: _HandleMenuSelection2
0x95cf0c58: _NSHandleCarbonMenuEvent
0x95c6672c: _DPSNextEvent
0x95c65c00: -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:]
0x95c5f8a0: -[NSApplication run]
0x00003f84

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Okay just did more checking, line colour alpha a-ok under GL Tools 1.2 in Alpha blending mode. Regression under 1.3 or is it just me?

Point Structure ditto re: alpha.

In fact this upgrade completely changes the look of many of my comps where alpha had been used and is replaced with and 'Over' blending look.

cwright's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Are you on 10.5 or 10.6? Can you email us the composition that causes that crash? (we're planning a 1.4 release Really Soon, so getting this soon can help us track down that regression before release).

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

10.5 shop here still.

Replacing all the Rendering Patches with v1.2 patches solved that one though. (ie. delete Line Structure Patches and insert them again). I've gone back to 1.2 for now.

I had to re-install v1.3 and make the comp again since I'd corrected it. Attached a sample comp but it just doesn't render at all this time — no crash.

My concern is the alpha and line weighting issues much more so than backwards compatibility with older version. I didn't express it clearly before. Hope 1.4 can get back to the good stuff. Favorite patches here.

PreviewAttachmentSize
GLTools-structure-noise.qtz10.87 KB

cybero's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

On 10.5 - [1.3]

That's major league puzzling on a whole lot of fronts.

I can't reproduce the bug that your composition provides. The bug I get in your composition is that the bottom right hand corner doesn't render the noise :-).

If I replace the patches for Line Structure with a fresh Line Structure patch, the problem disappears. So what works for reverting to 1.2 works when doing 1.2 to 1.3. Splines seems to be the favourite one for me to be going wrong like this as I work my way through older compositions.

The only form of reproduction I can get is to copy and paste the puzzlingly right hand bottom deprived version - I think it's all down to another form of bridging gap - between 1.2 and 1.3.

Replacing / Refreshing internal patches is something I've had to do before now due to my employing a by now updated / outdated / redundant / superseded type of patch or another.

cwright's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Did some testing -- GLTools 1.2 doesn't offer Line Structure, so I think you've got GLTools installed multiple times (which will cause weird, subtle problems, perhaps like this).

As for line-width stuff, line structure doesn't do anything particularly interesting -- it takes the value you provide, and does a glLineWidth([inputSize doubleValue]); call -- alpha also functions identically, as far as blend functions for etc. (the constants haven't changed since we introduced alpha support, as that'd break everything).

line smoothing has always been hinted at nicest, so that's not a change either.

check and make sure you don't have multiple copies of GLTools installed.

cybero's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

BTW - just working in 10.5.8 on Intel iMac - and find that including GL Tool Spline [1.3] patches problematic - occasional crashes - still relatively graceful crashes - was getting some really nice results and haven't lost too much work from this and its difficult to reproduce and has probably been talked off previously - but just thought I'd mention it as it just happened.

Specifically its intermittently when saving a composition that includes Splines that produces this problem, thus far no other GL Tools item causes similar problems - Kineme pertinent crash report on its way via the usual mechanisms.

Oh yes and also when copying and pasting - lazy of me - but usually no problem , also without trying to save can cause a crash. saving whilst still rendering seems to avoid this problem.

cwright's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Ahh, thanks for the copy/paste note -- reproduced it with that (though I'm not sure why... will investigate tomorrow).

sigh should nuke this patch and start over...

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

cwright wrote:
Did some testing -- GLTools 1.2 doesn't offer Line Structure, so I think you've got GLTools installed multiple times (which will cause weird, subtle problems, perhaps like this).

Proof! You guys are so prolific it's understandable if you've forgotten when Line Structure was added but it's definitely in the v1.2 I have. I found references in download 20080325 where cwright said: p.e. I'm working on a more full-featured GLTools with better spreads support. Should be fun, but might break backwards compatibility with the last version a bit (instead of position-only spreads, each input will be a spread for that specific attribute) So I'm infering it went in before that one too, no?

cwright wrote:
As for line-width stuff, line structure doesn't do anything particularly interesting -- it takes the value you provide, and does a glLineWidth([inputSize doubleValue]); call -- alpha also functions identically, as far as blend functions for etc. (the constants haven't changed since we introduced alpha support, as that'd break everything).

line smoothing has always been hinted at nicest, so that's not a change either.

Nice light lines!

Nice light weight and alpha observant lines!

I'm definitely getting chunky lines with v1.3 compared to v1.2 (Feb 06 2008). Also there is no alpha support for point or line structure start and end colours. I've quadrupel checked now. (Is there any way to avoid athentication by password when deleting and adding plugins in the patches Folder btw? ;)

Chunky even at the lowest numbers like 0.07!

Chunky even at the lowest line widths like 0.07 after which it fails to render at all! Ignoring Alpha from RGBA input.

cwright wrote:
check and make sure you don't have multiple copies of GLTools installed.
Check, that's a negative.

PreviewAttachmentSize
Picture 23.png
Picture 23.png81.52 KB
Picture 26.png
Picture 26.png188.43 KB
Picture 27.png
Picture 27.png111.06 KB

cwright's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

That's a 1.2 beta -- betas are moving targets, of course. The non-beta 1.2 didn't have line structure (I downloaded the official 1.2 release). I have a feeling that should have been marked as a 1.3 beta, but we make mistakes with our build system sometimes :/

any chance you can pull up the 1.2 beta's Info.plist (right click, show package contents, go into Contents folder, should be in there), and find the long version (should be something like "20090206" or something) -- that'll help us go back in time, as it were, and see what we've changed since then.

can you email me that composition, and the two GLTools plugins (for regression testing).

To avoid authentication, install them to ~/Library/Graphics instead of /Library/Graphics (the former is in your user directory, and applies only to your account, the latter applies to the whole system). You can also chmod /Library/Graphics..., but that's a tiny bit more involved (and repair permissions would likely undo it.)

smokris's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

I think I've isolated and fixed the cutting-and-pasting / saving problem (when rendering is stopped, the patch was releasing too much of its internal information.. including the input ports themselves (oops)).

GLTools 1.4, including this fix, is coming soon.

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Ahh beta, totally sorry to contradict you I should have mentioned that, I had a feeling you would know your own plugin's revision history.

CFBundleVersion is 20090205

Actually I already have your plugins in ~/Library/Graphics which is why I wonder about having to authenticate all the time. Is there a pref setting that oversees this?

Will send an email shortly with all attachments. Thanks for looking into it.

cybero's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Ever so slightly off topic - on either 10.5 or 10.6 with 1.3 GL Tools am getting Graph Foundation Log errors when seeking to feed an image to either Particle System or Sphere via a Render in Image of GL Tools objects. However the composition still renders despite this. Should I be terribly concerned or just put it down to messaging that points to nothing to worry about. Still trying to see if there aren't ways of overcoming this, had been hoping to get this into the Respository. :-)

smokris's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Could you attach (or email us) a sample composition and the console logs?

cwright's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Ok, I have no idea what's going on on your machine. anyway, here are my tests (using your supplied 1.2 beta, the production 1.3, and the upcoming 1.4 build) -- they're all identical for line widths 0.5, 1, and 4 (I didn't test/screenshot other widths, but I figured values below, equal, and above 1 would be fairly representative of all special cases)

Perhaps a simpler composition reproduces the problem more definitively?

Also note that rendering line widths less than 1 are driver-dependent -- they'll not render below certain thresholds, and there's nothing we can do about that (that's just how OpenGL works)

PreviewAttachmentSize
LineWidthTests.zip1.11 MB

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Thanks for the screenshots, cwright. I guess like you said, it's a drive issue. (NV FX 5200)

The good news for me is v1.4 is back to nice line rendering on this old DualG5!!

Nice depth sort sprite patch (still try to work out exactly what it's doing to have that effect!).

cwright's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

depth sort sprite generates a list of sprites to render, but doesn't actually render them -- then, the environment patch takes the list, sorts all the sprites by depth, and then renders then back to front (actually: opaque images are rendered front to back to minimize overdraw, and then transparent sprites are rendered back to front, to render alpha correctly "all the way down"). it's a bit slower than normal sprite because of the operations that take place, but it makes for some really cool effects :)

usefuldesign.au's picture
Re: Kineme GL Tools 1.3

Yeah some nice effects all right. Cheers.