Blender 2.5 Project Update!

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From Ton Roosendaal: For all of the curious people without the time to read all of the commit logs and the long-winded wiki documents, here’s a highlight summary of the results so far!

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    • Blade_Rain

      I’m loving everything I’m hearing :)

    • velogfx

      awesome!

    • Caligula

      I am so ready to try the new version out. I hope they work on a new cut tool soon too.. that knife just isn’t “cuttin” it… har har.

    • http://www.fireflypictures.org Cameron

      Sweet! So glad to hear about this! I can’t wait for 2.5!

    • Agaly

      I really hope they do more with the game engine.

    • miamia

      It’s 2.50 and not 2.5… or at least it should be ;)
      Corrrect versioning might be a rather unimportant thing, but it’s always fun to discuss :D
      Anyway, great Features
      cu, miamia

    • http://www.vrp.hk.to blender3dartist

      If you custom build it, you can get a preview of the interface. So far, it looks awesome. Keep up the good work!

    • http://micron.me.uk macduy

      Wow, I’ve been awaiting news from the new development for ages and now they finally come! Awesome stuff coming up, really looking forward to this release!

    • pera
    • xsinick

      Caligula i agree a new cut tool is in order here please Ton someone get a cut tool blender that doesn’t triangulate the mesh.

      Please!
      Please! with a cherry on top

      I read the post and I didn’t see it there can some one confirm if a new one will b there or not?

      One like softimage xsi ( you guys can check the xsi modtool) you click from one edge / vetex to the next. with no triangulation that make the supporting edge for the vertex. I can triangulate afterward or add the edges if I please.

      Please a quad engine for a good cut tool please.!
      I’m begging Ton you other guys please a cut tool.

      I must saw everything else looks awesome. Keep up the good work.

    • bob_b

      Will the Bmesh thing be included in 2.50?

      Will the window manager and UI elements be modular enough that it’ll be easy to use them to build another app?

    • http://www.taddmencer.com Tadd

      Sweet sweet sweet

      Not much more I can say. I’m excited about the new B2.5 – can’t wait to see the finished version!

    • vidrazor

      Will this require to re-learn how to use the program? It looks like a lot of stuff is being changed and reorganized to the point where standard, second-nature production procedures you may have acquired will be hampered.

    • http://home.deds.nl/~mp/ ysvry

      great, will 2.5 also include a svg texture node? and a bitmap to structured conversion node.I think blender realy needs it as do most other 3d apps does any body know an app that does alow use of structured 2d instead of bitmap for materials?.

    • roofoo

      Oh man oh man oh man! This is going to shake up the 3D software industry! :) Exciting times ahead!

    • BonE

      I feel like a kid who hears about its Christmas presents…

    • Agustin

      There is no way to say how much i am IMPATIENT for this release!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      But some big and excited quiestion left:
      VOLUMETRIC will be included, it is ready.
      Deep shadows buffer?
      Tha will be INCREDIBLE.

    • http://makesweet.com Paul

      This is very exciting. For those doing python scripting, this is a dream coming true. I’m very grateful to the development team for their hard work.

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

      Great news, I can’t wait to put my hands on all the new features.

    • MmAaXx

      wooooow!!!

      just wait!

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

      Christmas is either late or early… Or both…

      Either way, AWESOME!!! Can’t wait for a finished product!

    • EagleWing

      This is a big turning point for Blender!!! I can’t wait for 2.5 to come out!

    • mjordan

      Why floating panels?

    • http://freshsurge.com RH2

      sweet! to have “everything animatable” is going to be a very nice feature.

      Mutithreading? why would you want to change things while blender renders? the only thing positive that I see coming out of this feature is “screen-casts, making video tutorials more easy than ever.” and will probably spur tutorial production :) I was just wondering… if you were rendering something and you change something in the scene wouldn’t the render be slower and the modeling slower also? Just stop the render if you don’t like how it looks and change stuff. I guess this feature is for the users of other applications that are used to tweaking while the scene renders.
      Although there are situations where I render CPU intensive scenes and the screen saver kicks in then I have to wait for the render to finish to see it. then I wish that the image that’s rendering would be visible. However that’s just me.

      Then I look at the projected time period. How am I supposed to wait that long? I can’t wait
      My thanks to the developers… you guys keep me busy with constant streams of new features. I’m still trying to master all of your previous contributions from the apricot and peach projects. :D

    • http://www.ubuntu.com Socceroos

      Great to hear. I’m glad you’ve put in the effort to write this up Ton. The community needed this. =)

      I’m really looking forward to the next piece of news!

      On another note, it would appear that the menus are going to look a lot different…. are you going to implement a menu system like in the UI spec for 2.5 or are we going to have to deal with that raw RNA menu system? Fingers crossed you plan on implementing the former…

      Keep up the great work guys.

    • bob_b

      this is so exiting!

      What is the sculpt upgrade from the Google Summer project?

    • Jahmaica

      Oh yeah!!

    • Rafster

      No mention of a motion tracker?

      What happened to 4K rendering?

      Durian? Mango?

      I guess we’ll have to wait until after June. Can’t wait!!

    • http://www.svingo.com Christian Lehmann

      That was a great read. Thanks.

    • TxRx

      Nice update :D

    • avalon33

      “RNA” script and plug-in accessibility (including using built-in blender tools from script) is awesome feature!
      (I was hoping to see image based lighting build in ;), but hey, amount of work and progress made is already incredible!)

      Really looking forward to Blender 2.50!!! :D

    • smrgol

      This looks to fix just about everything that has caused me a headache over the last 18months! Well done all.

      Are we going to see a sneaky 2.49 release before the big one?

    • Tom (not Ton)

      OK, stupid question, but based on the forwards-backwards compatibility, will files created with this still work in older versions?

      I haven’t had a chance to keep up to date on this but it seems that so much is changing that there could be very large issues.

      Waiting patiently for this while trying to learn more on “old” blender things…dreading having to possibly relearn everything.

    • blazer003

      Wow, this is awesome. I’m loving the changes to the animation system already. It’ll take a little getting used to. The only thing I hope is that Blender keeps it’s same swift, smooth, streamlined feel and doesn’t get bloated drawing UI, but knowing where Blender’s roots are, I’m sure that won’t be a problem.

      And Tom, I doubt that files created in 2.5 will open in 2.4. But the reverse will, I’m sure, be available to some degree, if not completely compatible.

    • RNS

      release 2.49 instead keep working on 2.50 for a Dec release.
      make 2.49 a texture and bug fix release,but its the developer choice
      and my respect go to them without their work my dreams will be still be in the 80s.

    • Qwesto

      “release 2.49 instead keep working on 2.50 for a Dec release”

      I hope that you’ll realease a 2.49 :) sooner!!!

    • http://www.blender.org ton

      Thanks for the cool reactions. Here’s some answers to topics people brought up:

      - Game engine: there’s several developers active there now, but it has no relation the the 2.5 targets (events/tool refactor).
      - Better mesh cutting, Bmesh: that’s also well progressing, but an independent project.
      - Relearn Blender? Nah, don’t worry, it’ll be just Blender but better :)
      - SVG texture nodes, shadows/volumetrics, 4k render, motrack: all cool stuff but independent projects!
      - “Why would i want to edit while render”? For compositing and material previews that’s totally pleasant. Also being able to zoom/pan the rendering while render, or browse layers/passes is nice.
      - Sculpt: the Google Summer results are already in the 2.5 branch.
      - Compatibility: backwards compatiblity will work nearly 100%, the other way around only limited… the new UI won’t load (of course not), and animations will get lost too.
      - A 2.49 is being seriously reviewed by the developers atm.

    • http://www.blendernation.com wimdb

      Thanks for the update Ton. I’m really impressed by this overhaulin’. Python 3.0 hit the road last december. Have you already made a decision on using it for the 2.5 API?

    • Kinduun

      Dope sheet?

      Very dope.

      What about a synoptic? Will we ever have that?

      Anyway, i am very glad i belong to this community. Did ya’ll see we’re number 1?

    • http://www.dynavisionfx.com Bart Robinson

      Great news and progress. I don’t know if anyone was listening to my requests, but it sure seems like it. Thanks for the great answers! Can’t wait to see this “next gen” come out! I love the way python gets an integrated live console and all the modularity. Looking forward to putting it to work at Dynavision|FX.

    • Olaf

      Awesome! But from I know it seems more like an evolutionary update, not revolutionary like the UI proposals from William Reynish.

    • Nemesis

      A great project. I am looking forward to 2.5 and beyond.

    • Reece

      This is very awesome stuff. However I don’t see anything about fixing the broken sound support for Intel Macs :-(

    • Agile

      The UI issues are extremely important from the user perspective. From my experience the interface is confusing
      and what is more important there is serious lack of something like “self documenting menu” – Some time ago I used program called “autodesk animator”, which I have learned directly from try-and-error style, which unfortunately was not possible with Blender. I understand that for in-house tool the meaning of menu is clear, but for new person , not introduced earlier this may be a serious bottleneck that can really retard learning of a program.
      The other side of all that is the fact that without reading the documentation one almost never will get what specific button is for. And documentation is sometimes too much redundant in covering the basics and more advanced features are not described.
      My postulate: Please! make menu as simple as possible and make buttons for every hotkey.

    • Aden

      Upgraded graph editor? Animate everything? Central event system? RNA?

      …I came.

    • Stamem Worlslmore

      What is the Google Summer Of Code sculpt update? Is there a 2.48 branch with whatever this is?

    • Stamem Worlslmore

      Oh wait i figured it out – Multires as a standard mesh modifier, so the lowest level can be edited. http://www.blendernation.com/2008/07/15/blender-gsoc-multires-screencasts/

    • http://thinkmoult.com/ Dion Moult

      Looks really awesome! I can’t wait for more updates!

    • TxRx

      Here, here! Thanks for the update Ton, I kind of suspected (but hoped it wasn’t too detached/removed) that the independent projects are on a different time-line from the core build :D

    • MBC

      So cool… cant’ wait, great work to all involved.

    • banor

      Very nice. :) Go Blender devs!!!

      Two features I would like:

      Tons of NURBs modeling support,
      Advanced text features, including smallcaps and more.

      Thanks!

    • banor

      Oh, and another thing that would be great: grouping/organizing. :) Being able to put objects into a set order or align multiple objects with eacother, or distribute them. Anyhow, maybe I should toss some of these requests over to Blenderstorm. :D

    • Brian Treacy

      The updates look fascinating. I’m really looking forward to this.

      Is there any possible way, Ton, that you guys can extend the coordinate planes? I ask because I work on very large (geospatially large) projects in CADD and I always have to move them before imorting to Blender. Not fun, because the files (in CADD) are still being developed, and there’s quite a lot of them. What’s more, moving the files from Blender back into CADD means trying to move them back onto the project datum. I typically deal with coordinates (in CADD) in the x=12 million range, y=3 million range.

      I’m pretty new to programming and Blender’s “old” code, so please pardon my ignorance, but wouldn’t it be as simple as changing the way the data is stored from type float to type double? (or maybe long double). I have a C++ book I have been studying and it mentions that most C++ compilers convert the type float into a double anyway.

      As I said, I’m very much a newbie to programming, so if anyone would like to correct my assumptions, please do.
      Have a nice day,
      -Brian

    • http://www.osysi.net Bmud

      I can’t wait to make Blender more pretty, and even more integrated in to my workflow. Adobe and Autodesk can suck eggs for how completely scatterbrained the software options have become. Blender is becoming ever-more completely integrated with itself and turning in to a super-software. I love it. :D

    • Agile

      OH, I almost forgot to thank all involved in Blender development! This is no place for complains:)

    • http://www.free3dmodels.fleshsoft.eu iulian

      when we gonna a see a version ?
      this month … is it a chance ?

    • http://www.seanjmacisaac.com SeanJM

      I have no doubt in my mind that this will be another monumental release that will see a lot of positive change. As long as change is in the right direction it is always a good thing.

    • http://ww.denniskranz.com Sean4000

      This is astounding news. Put is this way, with every new release of blender it gets harder and harder to open any other app. Houdini is the only other program I open now, mainly for particles and keying. That’s it. 3DS, Lightwave, Maya, and C4D are dead to me.

      Linux in general is really stepping up to the plate, Ardour 3 was saved from financial destruction and now has native VST support. Now Lumiera is on the horizon. Commercial apps better start wearing depends, opensource is coming on strong.

    • jadhav333

      print ‘I am impressed.’

    • Guto

      AWESOME!!
      Some update for BGE?

    • newone

      @jadhav333
      print(‘I am impressed’) ;)

    • http://yagapayanata.wordpress.com yoga

      !!!SUPERB!!!
      !!!SUPERB!!!
      !!!SUPERB!!!

    • http://www.blender.org ton

      Brian: we’ll have to look into that later; just replacing coordinates with doubles sounds simple, but it isn’t that straightforward if you have to go over all of Blender’s code to check if that works everywhere. :)
      One way to bypass this is to allow mapping of coordinates; which will add an extra multiplier or divider to the blender unit to make it appear in the UI everywhere as nanometers, nautical miles or parsecs. :) That is one of the specs of the UI project.

    • http://www.renderplace.com AntonG

      Great news so far!

      On the other hand, I’ve read a lot of questions about opencl support in blender already, but without concrete answer on that topic, though … for now I would be happy if Ton and other great blender coders want to think ahead while do the major redesign now. OpenCl is the future for the blender type of application, I’m pretty sure all platforms will support it beside OSX (with Snow Leopard ) sooner or later. OpenCL recently became standard, and all major graphics card will support it. E.g. Nvidia’s CUDA is not an option, while opencl is on top of that.

      Hope you won’t miss great opportunity to make blender’s internal renderer opencl ready from design perspective.

      -AntonG

    • Brian Treacy

      Thanks for the reply, Ton. I’m not surprised that it is more difficult than I think. I’m sure that as I study C++ more I’ll be able to dive deeper into Blender’s source and understand it better myself. A special thanks to you and the rest of the developers. BTW, having the extra multiplier to convert values to different units (thereby reducing the scale so that the whole thing fits on Blender’s design plane) sounds like a nice idea. I wonder if that would adversley affect the GE and Bullet, though? Anyway, thanks again! Even if there isn’t a solution to this one in Blender’s near future, it’s still an incredible program. Have a nice day,
      -Brian

    • http://ThankyouTon xsinick

      thank you for answering my mesh cutting question I feel better and it is being looked at some where.

      Good work TON and staff.

    • GoodTarget

      AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH:

      GGGGGGRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTT.

      I LLLLOOOOVVVVVVEEEEE UUUUUUUUU BBBBBBLLLLLLEEEEEENNNNNNDDDDDDEEEEEERRRRR

      THANKS; DANKE; MERCI…………………..

      F O R T H I S W O N D E R F U L L P I E C E O F S O F T W A R E