Blender developer meeting minutes, April 18, 2010

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This week’s update on Blender development.

Ton Roosendaal wirites:

Current projects

  • Campbell mentions that he has added several animation functions to the Py api, like for adding and removing keys and drivers, and direct fcurve editing.
  • Durian render branch progress: first commits showing image cache WIP (only loading used mip map levels). On the todo is tiled images too. This saves a lot of memory overhead.
  • Raul will continue his work on particles in a new branch.

Blender 2.5x project

  • The next release target is still to get the first official beta out, with minimal 2.5 recode related specs finished, and ready for documentation and authors. The release target after that will have as focus to stabilize, to bugfix and bring back sufficient 2.49 functionality as well.
  • Wiki roadmap page in progress.
  • Python first roadmap target is for import/export and for the Blender UIs. Additional targets are for after this summer earliest (when Campbell is free from Durian!).
  • The outdated roadmap page on blender.org will get updated. It is currently unclear what the moment is that we get a 2.6 version. What we know at least is that the “2.5 series” will get a usable and documentable 2.5x version too, which can be used professionally, and included in books. Once we have our 2.5 trunk a bit stable, we can also better define beter which targets we still want to complete for a 2.5x build, and which will be moved to 2.6.

GSoC

Within three days [as of Sunday April 18th, BN] we have to propose our final ranking to Google. Three-four days after students will be contacted, and we know who are the happy students who will work for us! :)

-Ton-


  • ZareOne

    Great to see things are progressing!

  • Marcus

    The Roadmap says:

    “Mesh tools

    We have a problem where many of the mesh editing tools have limitations, missing functionality, or bugs. It would not be too wise to spend a lot of time fixing this up, particularly with bmesh on the horizon. What we can do for now though is at least to define clearly what is supported and what isn’t, and leave improvements for bmesh system.”

    I don’t get why Blender Institute hired Joe to work on Durian related development, they should let him focus on Bmesh instead, because he is the only dev who works on this project.

  • kijja

    Thank you all Blender Developers for your work hard.
    Wait for beta out!
    2.6 – I like Stable, Simple ,Solid performance GUI and render rock!

  • Symphony

    =) me to!

    tank for your progress!

  • alalo

    @Marcus Oh well. What most people do not get is: BI hired Joe to make fixes, because he is highly qualified to do so. Will be a good experience for him. Also, his contributions will make BMesh integration easier. Just merging BMesh now would probably bring up a bunch of bugs and missing functionality, which would be bad for Durian team’s workflow, as well as delaying the “production ready” factor of 2.5. BMesh is not a target! That is where the “what should be done to the current mesh system to make it stable” dilemma comes from. It does not intrigue me at all.

    I, for one, am looking forward to bmesh. But I respect the careful decisions of Ton and the other main developers. These things have to be very well planned, and the 2.5 progress is a proof of care and professionalism 8)

    Cheers!

  • http://www.vimeo.com/meshweaver MeshWeaver

    cool :D can’t wait to see what that stable 2.5 will be like :D

    GO BLENDER FOUNDATION!

  • RNS

    I agreed a 2.50 stable version is better.

  • qxfx

    Thanks for your work!

  • http://www.jarred.co.za Jarrhead

    The new animation functions make me happy!

  • caddboss

    All Blender developing team does GREAT JOB! Just keep it on going!!!

  • http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com Kernon

    An official and stable 2.5 release (before calling it 2.6) is great news! Thanks!

  • http://apostroph3d.com/ Deloince jp

    Ton,

    For version 2.5 or 2.6, there will be there for GLSL improvements:

    Lamp producing shadows, LOD mesh and texture, fade alpha transition between
    the 2d and Filter Remove Filter, GLSL a faster activation of shadows worn.
    The menu will be created with a parameter for video textures and other recent
    techniques in Blender. I wonder for the future of the game engine, I fear not
    complete making impossible the development of the most successful games.

    Ton, I dream that one day, working with all the tools available and functional is
    possible.
    I’m working with Blender since version 225 and the passage of time is really long.

    Thank you sir Titan Ton for your Thy works.

  • http://3dtinkerer.blogspot.com 3dTinkerer

    The important thing is that we know they are committed to BMesh.

    They have their reasons for going their current route.

    Bmesh will come. We just have to be a bit more patient.

  • jeo

    thanks from me too!

  • txrx

    Thnks for posting the updates here!

  • MmAaXx

    thankyou for your work :)

    I’m just waiting modeling tools, and I’m fine :)

  • http://www.ionsim.com xsinick

    Again this is to show that Bmesh is defernately the star here.

    I look forward to it more than the Durian aniamtion project.

    I believe the best work from blender will come from bmesh , mesh tools and animation enhancements.

    Keep up the good work.

  • mamoru

    Looking forward to seeing the GSoC list, always good stuff coming out of that.
    Best of luck to all the applicants :)

    Also really looking forward to the documentation ready 2.5.