Amen to that. Some of those “maps” might be used for different kind of data. I mean not just one integer per facemap as it seems to be the case in Pablo’s branch, but colours, floats or vectors (normal, velocity) so that we can manipulate those attributes through houdini-like procedural modeling with ‘everything nodes’. It’s good to have the big picture in mind.
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Let me add to the confusion.
Why not implement a container function for all kinds of maps in the various map lists.
These would serve 2 main functions - making management of large lists easier and more orderly - makes it possible to reference multiple maps at the same time - like all face maps in one container/subfolder.
This could then be used by all kinds of functions/ tools and addons in Blender to create, store and manage their data with automated naming conventions and little hierarchies.
Did you ever scroll through an endless list of 500 shape keys searching for the “breast size slider” and wondering why ??
- because Blender has no shape key groups . That’s why.
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Double amen from me. Folders in UILists ? You’ve preached the right parish.
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While I understand his concern, I do find it a bit odd that they are addressing this now when the feature is almost ready for the Alpha testing with most features in place. This feature has been known and planned for for months.
Also, if they truly want to unify all the systems, why not build upon the new foundation that Pablo has made by merging old functionality with the new one? I am really not a fan of scrapping the new system in favour of the old when it has been properly integrated into Sculpt Mode.
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I really hope they don’t use this as an excuse to put this feature on freeze until god knows when they’ll be able to integrate Face Maps with Pablo’s feature. Hopefully Pablo will eat this requirement for breakfast.
And I hope the UI/UX person touches this as little as possible. Almost every change that came to Sculpt mode from the UI team has been a step backwards. Naming conventions were given more priority than easy of use, like the guy didn’t even talk to people who actually use Blender’s sculpt mode. Thank god for Pie Menu Editor.
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I haven’t actually tried the patch, but it seems to me like Face Groups and Face Maps are different things with different applications.
You can’t have two overlapping ‘islands’ with Face Maps, a face can only belong to one island at a time (like land belongs to only one country at a time on a political map).
Face Groups sounds like Vertex Groups, where vertices can belong to as many groups as you like.
I have no idea if that is actually how it works, but that’s what it sounds like 
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I suspect the devs are doing this as a rehab for your Sculpt Mode feature addiction. 
This seems like an unnecessary confusion. Face groups in sculpt mode are just temporary selections for mesh manipulation during sculpting, they shouldn’t mix it with the regular vertex groups/maps etc, they are completely different things.
I hope Pablo can make them understand the feature.
I agree 100%.
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Well, I think having both Sculpt Face Groups and Face Maps exist next to each other is rather confusing. I agree with @zeauro, @Hadriscus and @Romanji.
Cant we just call them “selection groups”.
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Face maps are for rigging, unlike face groups. Joining them can easily become a mess.
The thing is, why wouldn’t you want to have Face Groups available in other modes of Blender (or even modifiers)? I know I would. Sculpting cannot be developed in a vacuum. Just like there’s no reason why brush improvements shouldn’t also find their way over to the painting modes… Blender is a complete application. It’s not just one mode or feature and its development needs to correspond to a design that has that awareness.
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Yeah, I see no reason Face Groups and/or Face Maps should be unavaliable outside sculpt mode. Moreover, you should be able to cast face groups into vertex groups and edge groups - assign any kind of group to any kind of input, and assume it will be appropriately converted automatically.
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I agree that porting improvements over to other modes makes sense and should be done. However, I don’t want Blender to get into a situation where progress is being halted indefinitely because a feature is not yet compatible with some other mode while being nearly feature complete to vastly improve a specific area of Blender. I.e. Face Groups.
If improvements can be ported over from other modes, then make a design task where developers can keep track on these areas so they can get addressed. I don’t think it’s wise to delay improvements unless some very serious issue gets revealed to justify a delay.
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Got any example of what you mean in that last paragraph? Haven’t really kept track on what changes have been done by the UI/UX team. 
Unfortunately, that approach is an easy way to build up technical debt, which ultimately makes the codebase more difficult to maintain and extend. Sometimes (most times?) its worth it to wait for the right design.
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Yeah I too agree, basically what Pablo did, is he took the facemaps code and repurpose it for the sculpt mode which is a great feature to have, the code might be shared between different modes but the bigger picture on how to use it for each mode is still lacking, I think Julian’s concern on the design is in the right place here and the core team & management need to step in and do something.
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Good answer. I especially liked the part about us artists who have followed the development of the sculpt branch up until this point and the massively positive reception by beginners and veteran sculptors alike. Pablo again shows that he understands the needs of the users quite well by also putting himself in their shoes by just being an artist.
Plus, it’s no like he has been creating patches in a vacuum without taking the feedback from other developers beforehand. Like Pablo himself pointed out regarding his conversations with Jeroen and William, among others. I think he currently strikes a good balance of taking feedback from the Blender devs while not forgetting what problems he was trying to solve in the first place.
After reading his reply, he is just my kind of guy when it comes to addressing problems, and I like him even more because of it.
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I think being able to have overlapping Face Maps would be great for Sculpt Mode as well. That would make the feature more powerful than ZBrush Polygroups.