Blender 2.42a Update Released

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As usual, the 2.42 release is followed up by a bugfix release. The main reasons were a completely broken game Player (on all platforms) and a recompile with the latest Python version for Linux users.

Besides that, a handful of bugs have been fixed. Here’s the list of fixes that Ton has posted on Blender.org:

  • Materials: crash fix for empty Material Nodes, which get set to Halo.
  • Materials: copy/paste option (icon buttons) did not work for NodeTrees properly
  • Render: using option “Border” missed window re-display in end.
  • Composite: Translate Node didn’t work for all Node types (note, still doesn’t work for Blur Node)
  • Composite: Adding new Node in Group now updates end result.
  • Composite: Vector Blur node now accepts B&W input for Image.
  • UV Image Window and Node Editor now draw correct Premul Alpha images (Note; support for non-premul “Key alpha” will be added later).
  • Scripts: mesh_skin didn’t work
  • Scripts: vrml97_export used temporal Objects badly
  • Python API: Image.GetCurrent() fixed for “Render Result”.
  • Python API: me.faces.delete() crash fixed
  • 3D Window: having multiple 3d views sometimes resulted in wrong grabbing correction (moving objects was not tied to mouse movement)
  • Sequencer: error in Gamma fixed
  • Fluids: Manual viscosity settings now work

Of course, you can download this release from the Download area on Blender.org.

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    • Mantar

      Random number generator’s still broken. I’ll have to take another stab at compiling the damn thing. (Did I ever mention I absolutely hate Scons? It’s fine when it works, but when it fails…)

    • basse

      how is scons worse when it fails, than make?

      .b

    • http://www.renderreality.com Joe

      Hallelujah! We’ve been struggling with this particular bug ever since the release:

      Python API: Image.GetCurrent() fixed for “Render Result”.

      I am so glad to see such responsibility on the Blender team to so quickly address these problems. Sincere kudos!!!

    • pixelNate

      Great. Oh, wait a minute, PPC Mac version not updated. :^(

    • http://www.renderreality.com Joe

      Crap. I am trying the new release and it looks like my script still doesn’t work. I am trying to do something like this to change cameras and resolution:

      if (frame==3):
      cntx.imageSizeX(1280)
      cntx.imageSizeY(1024)
      Scene.getCurrent().setCurrentCamera(Object.Get(“Camera03″))

      if (frame==4):
      Scene.getCurrent().setCurrentCamera(Object.Get(“Camera04″))
      cntx.imageSizeX(1000)
      cntx.imageSizeY(1000)

      However, it no longer will change the resolution to 1000×1000 as it used to. :(

    • Kernon

      @Joe:
      I can’t tell you if you’re script is wrong but, you said that you all were struggling with getting your original code to work with the 2.42 release. Is it possible that you’ve introduced an error somewhere while trying to get it to work with 2.42? Maybe if you have your original (pre 2.42) code, it will run with no problems in 2.42a. Just a thought…

    • rcas

      @Joe, if it gets fixed in CVS, poke me and I will make a proper deb file build of CVS for Ubuntu with it (in case you have ubuntu).

      @pixelNate: PPC Mac build will be there soon, maintainer of the builds was away at the time of 2.42a release, according to the mailing list.

      @Mantar: when scons fail it outputs a gcc error, just like make.

      @basse: scons is much worse because the name is not so easy to pronounce ….

      By the way, does anyone like Optimized builds of Blender ?

    • epat

      well, if we knew what cntx was actually declared as it might help… -epat.

    • Kernon

      @Joe:
      Also, just looking at your code, I see that the structure of the two IF statements are different.

      The first one sets the resolution, then changes the camera.
      The second one changes the camera, then sets the resolution.

      That may not really matter but, it might be good to have them follow the same order.

    • epat

      yikes – too quick

    • epat

      I thought I was the first to reply – but that’s what comes of having so many people reading this at once I suppose…

    • epat

      BTW: sorry to single…double…triple! post; but there’s a bug that’s been bothering me too – I have a blend that is scripted to play a game when it’s loaded, then exit, and load another file which does the same (basicly a demo loop sort of thing); BUT, when it loads the next file, it loads all funny and dosen’t even have any objects in it, even though when it’s loaded normally, it works perfectly! – in v242 it just segfaults instead!! -epat.

    • http://www.renderreality.com Joe

      @Kernon:

      The code was working fine with 2.41. When we tried it on 2.42, it did not work. SO, we were modifying it to try to get it to work. We were never successful. Then I saw this release and was hopeful but my hopes were dashed this morning. I wonder if they fixed Image.getCurrent() but not Scene.getCurrent. Actually, it may even be completely unrelated because the camera switching does actually work. The problem is that the image is not being resized properly anymore. So these statements may be more at fault:

      cntx.imageSizeX(1000)
      cntx.imageSizeY(1000)

      @rcas I don’t know what Ubuntu is :(

      @Kernon again: I’ll keep that thought in mind about the order of the statements but I don’t think that is the problem. I was under the impression that Blender *should* do the same thing when you press the ANIM button as it does when you manually advance frames. I can advance the frames and see my script working. But when I press ANIM, it doesn’t work anymore.

      @all: Perhaps I need to start a thread on the forums. I initially thought that something was intentionally changed in Blender and it was on me and my company to make our scripts work again. Then, I saw this new release and got excited that it wasa simple bug and we could stop wasting man hours. So, that was the intent of my original post… to express joy at the bug fix and pride in the Blender team. Now, I am back to square one and I will probably require help to get it to work…

    • Mantar

      basse and rcas: Thank you EVER so much for the sarcastic responses. It’s so much more helpful than the silence or “it must be your distro” responses I’ve become accustomed to the past three weeks I’ve been frustrated by this.
      This is not the first time I’ve had problems with Scons, and it’s not that I’m having trouble pronouncing it, har-de-har-har. The first time was about a year ago on some obscure package where Scons would fail and not give me a gcc error, thank you very much. After a talking to people in irc, it turned out it was some kind of bug in Scons, and upgrading finally got me an error message, at which point I gave up on the program as I didn’t need it and I’d spent far too much time fooling with it already.

      This time, Scons finished compilation without incident, but when I went to install I found out that it hadn’t compiled any executables. None. No error messages, nothing. “Everything is fine, sir! Now let’s install no blender and no blenderplayer!” I tried re-running Scons, and it again claimed to have finished with no troubles, but nothing changed. So, I deleted the entire build directory and re-extracted from the tarball, and this time Scons refused to compile. ON A CLEAN DIRECTORY. I got some bizarre errors that didn’t turn up anything on google.
      Why, yes, that’s right, I’m getting non-deterministic results from a compile with Scons. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Yeah, I can see how that’s totally the same as just a plain Makefile.
      I assume I’ve hit a bug in Scons once again, lucky me, but I don’t care now. I figure it’s a pile of crap, and I don’t have the time to play around with compiling Scons from CVS in the hopes that I can then compile blender in order to fix a minor random number bug that wasn’t present in the build of 2.42RC3, but was in 2.41, 2.42, and 2.42a.
      So just forget I mentioned it.

    • rcas

      @Mantar: Ok, its just that I never had any trouble with scons and haven’t seen such kind of problems neither. But it may happen. Sorry about that. By the way, what OS are you using Windows, Linux or Mac ?

    • http://kawzon.se dawgpound

      Anyone heard when the 2.42 Mac-version will be fixed? It’s a shame the gameplayer is broken, which is my favorite part of blender…

    • Kayde

      The gameplayer? broken?
      So much for me even bothering to attempt to make a zelda game….

      Looks like I’ll have to stick to good ol’ python to make a 2D game….

    • http://kawzon.se dawgpound

      Jupp, none of my logic-brick setups are working as they should, too bad (it will probably get fixed within a couple of days, since the rest of the OS:s were).

    • http://www.kulma.org basse

      Mantar:
      scons installs into a different directory than make..
      so if you get through without errors, i think you have the executable,
      you just have to find out where it went.

      you can also define this by hand in your user-config.py file by setting “BF_INSTALLDIR” variable.

      these are defaults, from config/linux2-config.py:

      BF_BUILDDIR = ‘../build/linux2′
      BF_INSTALLDIR=’../install/linux2′

      (so one up from source root, check that)

      .b

    • spiderworm

      @Kayde

      Good gosh man! The post is about a bugfix release where the gameplayer is fixed! Did you bother reading it? Make your frikkin game in Blender if you want!

      spidey

    • http://kawzon.se dawgpound

      @ spiderworm

      I believe he was commenting on the Mac version, which has yet been updated (to my knowledge).

    • basse

      well, world will be a better place without one more zelda game i think..

      .b

    • http://www.blendernation.com bart

      @basse: comments like that could get you banned from this website, you know! ;-)

    • basse

      bart: i try.. i try.. :)

      .b

    • http://www.markbremmer.com Mark

      It seems like the 2.42a version doesn’t like to export sequenced .obj files on the Mac platform. Has anybody experienced this or is it just my lucky day. ;)

      Mark

    • http://www.ruicampos.com rcas

      Try a development build, maybe it is fixed ?!

      I know that there were some improvements in the OBJ Export Import, so it might solve that too.
      Dunno, I think you don’t loose or win by trying to do it on a Dev Build.

      New dev builds will be available this weekend for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (powerpc) at BlenderBuilds.com as well as with a follow up article on what happened on the CVS this month.

    • http://www.markbremmer.com Mark

      Yep, the Dev build cured it. What a great program!

    • Mike

      Six months ago blender didn’t work when having ubuntu’s 64-bit version. It was there as a dead button, but didn’t do anything. After the new release, dapper drake, it opened but didn’t do much else. Fortunately it was still possible to model in windows (32bit) and after that to use the faster rendering features of linux (ubuntu).

      Now what?
      My ubuntu committed a suicide and after a full installation (re-installing didnt’ do anything) my computer is as it was six months ago: I have a dead blender button.

      Any ideas?

      P.S. Tried already opensuse 10.0, 10.1 internet installation, cd installation, dvd installation with no luck. My computer is 64bit amd athlon 4000+.

    • http://www.ruicampos.com rcas

      To Mike: Have you tried a dev build ? http://www.blenderbuilds.com

    • Mike

      Here are some symptoms of my blender-ubuntu syndrome:

      - I don’t know exactly what you mean by that dev build.
      - I’m a newbie in ubuntu so installing goes with synaptic but not without it.

      Wondering… whether there is any jargon free, step by step instructions simply to put ones computer to work, preferably with blender.

    • http://consulting.tellim.com David Millet

      Mike,

      Why don’t you jump into the IRC chatrooms (take a look at these instructions: http://www.blendernation.com/2006/10/25/getting-started-in-blender-irc/ ) and we’ll help you debug the issue. There are MANY in the community that use Ubuntu.

      spiderworm

    • Mike

      Thank you rcas and David,

      I’ll do that.