Blender Git Commit Log

T61513: Refactored Cycles Attribute Retrieval

There is a generic function to retrieve float and float3 attributes
`primitive_attribute_float` and primitive_attribute_float3`. Inside
these functions an prioritised if-else construction checked where
the attribute is stored and then retrieved from that location.

Actually the calling function most of the time already knows where
the data is stored. So we could simplify this by splitting these
functions and remove the check logic.

This patch splits the `primitive_attribute_float?` functions into
`primitive_surface_attribute_float?` and `primitive_volume_attribute_float?`.
What leads to less branching and more optimum kernels.

The original function is still being used by OSL and `svm_node_attr`.

This will reduce the compilation time and render time for kernels.
Especially in production scenes there is a lot of benefit.

Impact in compilation times

job | scene_name | previous | new | percentage
-------+-----------------+----------+-------+------------
t61513 | empty | 10.63 | 10.66 | 0%
t61513 | bmw | 17.91 | 17.65 | 1%
t61513 | fishycat | 19.57 | 17.68 | 10%
t61513 | barbershop | 54.10 | 24.41 | 55%
t61513 | classroom | 17.55 | 16.29 | 7%
t61513 | koro | 18.92 | 18.05 | 5%
t61513 | pavillion | 17.43 | 16.52 | 5%
t61513 | splash279 | 16.48 | 14.91 | 10%
t61513 | volume_emission | 36.22 | 21.60 | 40%

Impact in render times

job | scene_name | previous | new | percentage
-------+-----------------+----------+--------+------------
61513 | empty | 21.06 | 20.35 | 3%
61513 | bmw | 198.44 | 190.05 | 4%
61513 | fishycat | 394.20 | 401.25 | -2%
61513 | barbershop | 1188.16 | 912.39 | 23%
61513 | classroom | 341.08 | 340.38 | 0%
61513 | koro | 472.43 | 471.80 | 0%
61513 | pavillion | 905.77 | 899.80 | 1%
61513 | splash279 | 55.26 | 54.86 | 1%
61513 | volume_emission | 62.59 | 61.70 | 1%

There is also a possitive impact when using CPU and CUDA, but they are small.

I didn't split the hair logic from the surface logic due to:

* Hair and surface use same attribute types. It was not clear if it could be
splitted when looking at the code only.
* Hair and surface are quick to compile and to read. So the benefit is quite
small.

Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D4375