So it seems like setDependentsDirty was not being called because I was missing a const, though I made some other syntax changes too so that may not have been the only issue.
class meshLocator : public MPxLocatorNode
{
public:
//add attributes
static MObject faces;
static MObject inputMesh;
static MObject outputDummy;
public:
void set_faces_dirty(bool value){faces_dirty = value;}
bool get_faces_dirty(){return faces_dirty;}
void set_inputMesh_dirty(bool value) { inputMesh_dirty = value; }
bool get_inputMesh_dirty() { return inputMesh_dirty; }
private:
//flags to allow us to cache data
bool inputMesh_dirty = false;
bool faces_dirty = false;
};
MUserData* testDrawOverride::prepareForDraw(
const MDagPath& objPath,
const MDagPath& cameraPath,
const MFrameContext& frameContext,
MUserData* oldData)
{
//get the MObject
MObject obj = objPath.node(&status);
meshLocator* newDerived = (meshLocator*)&obj;
MFnDependencyNode mFn(obj);
//============================
//get the inputMesh data if faces or inputMesh are dirty
//============================
bool inputMesh_dirty = newDerived->get_inputMesh_dirty();
MGlobal::displayInfo(MString("inputMesh is dirty:") + (inputMesh_dirty == 1));
MGlobal::displayInfo(MString("inputMesh is clean:") + (inputMesh_dirty == 0));
}
I think I've pinned down what the issue is. When I try to cast the mObject as a meshLocator, I won't have access to the data I stored on that node because casting a child class as a parent won't work like that.
I suppose that I could create output attributes on the meshLocator node to hold the data that I want to pass into here, but getting that data via plugs seems like it would be unnecessarily slow.
Is there a better method or is that dummy output method the "correct" way to do this?
