Mesh: Move hide flags to generic attributes

This commit moves the hide status of mesh vertices, edges, and faces
from the `ME_FLAG` to optional generic boolean attributes. Storing this
data as generic attributes can significantly simplify and improve code,
as described in T95965.

The attributes are called `.hide_vert`, `.hide_edge`, and `.hide_poly`,
using the attribute name semantics discussed in T97452. The `.` prefix
means they are "UI attributes", so they still contain original data
edited by users, but they aren't meant to be accessed procedurally by
the user in arbitrary situations. They are also be hidden in the
spreadsheet and the attribute list by default,

Until 4.0, the attributes are still written to and read from the mesh
in the old way, so neither forward nor backward compatibility are
affected. This means memory requirements will be increased by one byte
per element when the hide status is used. When the flags are removed
completely, requirements will decrease when hiding is unused.

Further notes:
 * Some code can be further simplified to skip some processing when the
   hide attributes don't exist.
 * The data is still stored in flags for `BMesh`, necessitating some
   complexity in the conversion to and from `Mesh`.
 * Access to the "hide" property of mesh elements in RNA is slower.
   The separate boolean arrays should be used where possible.

Ref T95965

Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D14685

1 files changed, 22 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/source/blender/blenkernel/BKE_customdata.h b/source/blender/blenkernel/BKE_customdata.h
index 6e27fd2d80f..8bad89a9211 100644
--- a/source/blender/blenkernel/BKE_customdata.h
+++ b/source/blender/blenkernel/BKE_customdata.h
@@ -11,7 +11,9 @@
 #include "BLI_sys_types.h"
 #include "BLI_utildefines.h"
 #ifdef __cplusplus
+#  include "BLI_set.hh"
 #  include "BLI_span.hh"
+#  include "BLI_string_ref.hh"
 #  include "BLI_vector.hh"
 #endif
 
@@ -141,6 +143,15 @@ void CustomData_copy(const struct CustomData *source,
                      eCDAllocType alloctype,
                      int totelem);
 
+/**
+ * Like #CustomData_copy but skips copying layers that are stored as flags on #BMesh.
+ */
+void CustomData_copy_mesh_to_bmesh(const struct CustomData *source,
+                                   struct CustomData *dest,
+                                   eCustomDataMask mask,
+                                   eCDAllocType alloctype,
+                                   int totelem);
+
 /* BMESH_TODO, not really a public function but readfile.c needs it */
 void CustomData_update_typemap(struct CustomData *data);
 
@@ -155,6 +166,15 @@ bool CustomData_merge(const struct CustomData *source,
                       int totelem);
 
 /**
+ * Like #CustomData_copy but skips copying layers that are stored as flags on #BMesh.
+ */
+bool CustomData_merge_mesh_to_bmesh(const struct CustomData *source,
+                                    struct CustomData *dest,
+                                    eCustomDataMask mask,
+                                    eCDAllocType alloctype,
+                                    int totelem);
+
+/**
  * Reallocate custom data to a new element count.
  * Only affects on data layers which are owned by the CustomData itself,
  * referenced data is kept unchanged,
@@ -697,7 +717,8 @@ void CustomData_data_transfer(const struct MeshPairRemap *me_remap,
  * the struct.
  */
 void CustomData_blend_write_prepare(CustomData &data,
-                                    blender::Vector<CustomDataLayer, 16> &layers_to_write);
+                                    blender::Vector<CustomDataLayer, 16> &layers_to_write,
+                                    const blender::Set<blender::StringRef> &skip_names = {});
 
 /**
  * \param layers_to_write: Layers created by #CustomData_blend_write_prepare.