Blender 2.46 is at BCON 3

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changed-since-245001.jpgSome exciting changes in Blender and the development is at BCON 3

“The work of the past half year – also thanks to the open movie project “Peach” – has resulted in a greatly improved feature set, worth releasing! We currently are scheduling a 2.46, to accompany the Peach movie release in april/may 2008.”

For all 2.46 goodies, go to Changes since 2.45
(Note; support for NDOF devices is part of the release spec too)

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    • Vinimay Kaul

      I can’t wait any longer for this. I am toooooo excited. The new Features list is tempting. Can’t wait to try my hands on them.

    • 3sie 3wiel

      Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! Like… I canna wait mun.

    • Thor

      This is amazing – a really substantial update; I used to use an external normal mapping tool and export from blender, but not any more! By “quaternion skinning” I presume they mean “dual quaternion skinning”, which I have implemented before, and was pleased with the results. I don’t know if blender would now have the option to interpolate dual quaternion ipos…

      What else am I looking forward to… oh yeah “removal of the UV face select mode” sounds good, and soft shadows for raytracing will be fantastic too. Can’t wait :D

    • http://www.graphicmelody.com Reynante M. Martinez

      Whew! This is gonna be tough learning. hehe! I’m so so sooo excited! :D

    • http://www.letwory.net Nathan Letwory

      Hey, that list is missing PyNodes! :]

      /Nathan

    • Henrik Härkönen

      Wow!

      Amazing list of new features again. I’m especially waiting for the new Sequencer features, that will enable me to edit my videos even faster and easier than before! I actually edit all home videos with Blender too, it’s just the best SW for that in Linux distros. :)

    • wayne

      these features are awesome… been playing with them in svn for a while now.

      most of the features make one think “how did we ever live without this???”

      ————-

      and then 2.5 will come out………

      i also have a sneaking suspicion ton is thinking bout blender 3 as well :p

    • Schnappi

      2.46? i thought the next Blenderupdate would be 2.5?
      But a stable in between-release is of course a good idea :)
      im very interested to work with the glossy reflections and the new raytraced soft-shadows :)

    • http://johantri.deviantart.com johantri

      WOW !!! AWESOME LIST ^_^ can’t wait to try ‘em all. salute to all developers ;)

      i hope in blender 2.5 there will be preview rendering with safe frame and stuff, sort of maya playblast

    • http://www.davidrevoy.com David Revoy ( Deevad )

      Just one sentence to say :
      Great job to all devellopers ! Amazing new function for my favorite 3D software !

    • Ravetracer

      I thought, that this features are planned for 2.5. Now I’m very impressed to see them in 2.46 :D.
      I’ve played with some of them from the SVN version, like wayne do. Especially the particle system is very
      interesting for me. At the moment, it’s some time of testing, but I wanna figure out, how to make real volumetric fire and steam with Blender. It’s the biggest secret ;).

    • paul

      Oh gawd, I love blender devs! XD

    • http://vgspectra.net Sephiroth the Bimbo Master

      A new movie, a new blender release, and a lot of imrpovements, I can’t wait to have it in may hands :P

    • http://patriarchproduction.blogspot.com Mikhail P. Schalk

      I believe the Cloth Modifier is going to be included as well: http://www.wxtools.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=27 . I’m really excited about this new release now. The sooner it comes out the better.

    • Drax

      A cloth modifer is already included and it will be in 2.46

    • mike

      I could n’t wait till March/April so I download what seems to be “Peach Blender” for SVN.That particle gui gives a shock every time i look at it !

    • CrazyJack

      mmmm blender 2.46, mmmm free, mmmm Ultimately Ultra Cool.
      Thank you mr & mrs Blender developer Guys. Wonderfull

    • RNS

      Thank you Ton and developers,now I can start sketching my project.

      Now let bring Hollywood to blender !!!

    • Ivan Paulos Tomé

      I couldn´t find Tangent space Normal Mapping in the build…
      The Button disappeared….

    • Ivan Paulos Tomé

      I´ve found it, now is in the render baker functions. Excuse-me sirs…

      http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/changes-since-245/render-baking/

    • http://www,seanjmacisaac.com SeanJM

      Looking forward to using these features, thank you.

    • http://rexprime.com rexprime

      the pose library is great.

    • http://www.mbproductions.biz Mike

      Yeah you can try out almost all of those features now if your interested.
      Just compile a SVN or goto graphicall.org.

      @ johantri: You can already get playblast-esque movies by holding down control and
      pressing render window in the 3d viewport.

    • http://advanced-lemon.blogspot.com/ epat

      For all those that have pointed out stuff:
      There’s quite a lot of stuff not mentioned in this list – this is just the stuff that’s on the http://www.blender.org site! There are loads of other fixes and improvements etc…

      @Schnappi:
      Blender 2.5 is being worked on as a seperate branch, but because of the new features in SVN and the expected release date for 2.5 being some time in the future still, the developers decided to release the stuff in SVN as 2.46! Also, quite a lot of the stuff in SVN may have to be recoded for 2.5 anyway so as to fit into the new tools API!

      ~epat. :)

    • Tokka

      Hopefully ndof (SpaceNavigator) support will make it in the release….I’m really missing it since the 2.44 version.

    • Tokka

      argh…should have read the link in the news first…looks like it’s included…sorry guys…

    • boh

      Imma do a project that uses ONLY these new features!

    • http://www.hammerdave.com dave

      so how will this apply to the latest SVN Trunk build? is it some of the same features? will the characters i created in the trunk version (with hair and “bone heat”) work properly in 4.46? if not, no big deal. i’ll easily sacrifice a couple more hours of work for the new version of blender! yaaay! high five!

    • LetterRip

      Be aware that the feature list is far from complete. PyNodes, Image editor, lots of improvements by cambo and brecht and many other items aren’t listed in the above.

      LetterRip

    • LetterRip

      dave,

      svn trunk and 2.46 should be pretty much the same except 2.46 will have fewer bugs.

      LetterRip

    • Tony

      Thanks to LetterRip, and to all all the devs who worked to put this release together! I’m especially pleased because it means that I will be able to release my book on physical simulation sooner than I had expected. The book will be released to correspond with 2.46, and it will be out as soon after the release as humanly possible. The new simulation features in this release are truly amazing.

    • http://www.qso.com/carlautta/colin/Beta/ Tynach

      Um… Why isn’t the new B-Mesh system meantioned? It isn’t under 2.50 OR 2.46. What happened?

    • http://www,seanjmacisaac.com SeanJM

      B-Mesh indeed, I hope it makes it in!

    • http://www.smickworks.com smick

      Hey Tony, can you elaborate on the simulation features you are referring to?

    • freen

      So um…
      Hows about a splash screen contest?

    • TX_RX_FX

      Tokka, Same here would love to have that in the final 2.46 release as well!

      NDOF trunk seems to have some recent activity on it of late (Mac OS X update I think)

      And all these new features!?! Wow. :) Never ceases to amaze me how clued up the devs are on what works and what should be in there.

    • Wereaser

      Tangentspace normal map baking are something I’ve been waiting for quite some time, much less hassle than with third party tools and export scripts. Also the new particles will probably keep me busy for quite some time. Thanks to you dear Blender developers for making Blender better and better, keep up the good work.

    • tom

      Tynach,

      BMesh isn’t ready due to far too much integration work needed, instead there is a new mesh upgrade plan that is more incremental in nature so that the ‘rewrite everything’ approach doesn’t have to be taken.

      freen,

      this release is specifically meant to correspond with the Peach movie release and will ship on the DVD, so no splash contest this time, the splash will come from peach.

      LetterRip

    • O oh

      absolutely awesome! Love the fact how fast sig proposals make it into blender, looking forward to play with it. Kudos to all the developers and testers!

    • Tony

      @smick, mainly particles (including hair, which is awesome of course) and cloth. Working with hair is just… a world of difference from how it used to be. And the cloth modifier really is a great improvement over using soft bodies for cloth. That said, soft bodies themselves have also improved a *lot*. If you ever tried to get multiple soft bodies to interact with each other before a few weeks ago, you’re in for a very nice surprise.

    • http://www.smickworks.com smick

      Thanks Tony! I see now why you chose the word simulation for those features. I wish I could say it is funny how dull my brain is sometimes. This is the year for Blender. Did you all hear that AutoDesk reduced Maya’s price another 2 Grand for the complete version. Don’t think that Blender doesn’t have something to do with it. Companies have a right to charge whatever they want, but enthusiasts also have a right to find and create alternatives when existing tools aren’t within their reach, or are too closed off for adaptation.

    • torri

      @tom
      “instead there is a new mesh upgrade plan that is more incremental in nature so that the ‘rewrite everything’ approach doesn’t have to be taken.”

      So does this mean that BMesh is in the bin? And what is this new plan all about? Do you have a link with more information?

    • Saint Theo

      Will this new release be optimized for MacMinis or MacBooks (NON-Pro) with Leopard (those with Leopard built-in have little to no success downgrading to Tiger)?

      With all the new progress to blender’s features, this is a SERIOUS setback for the few blender users (myself included) stranded on a buggy operating system without ANY developer acknowledgement to out troubles (from Apple or Blender).

      “http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12620&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0″

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    • Gianny El FuegO(ABA)

      I m so excited, to see it soon, i think we gon creat at time is it real world Haaaaaaaaa