Lots of work going on: preparations for 2.58, Summer of Code and of course Cycles!
Ton Roosendaal writes:
Hi all,
Blender 2.5x project
- Bug tracker went up to 169 open issues. All efforts to bring this back are welcome. We still try to work on stabilizing first. Target would be a 2.58 release within 6-7 weeks (end june).
- Question was how to define which small features or patches can be added now. Suggested strategy for this is:
- maintainers/owners need to approve first
- should be fitting in roadmap for code, and be well maintained & stable
- try to only do this in May, to keep June as testing period.
- "Dynamic Spacebar" script: discussed was if this could be default active. Ton prefers to have the script behave different first; it now just hacks the Search Menu operator, disabling access to it at all. Ideally it should be an own operator. Having the 'search button' in top of menu also responds weirdly to direct keyboard input.
- Windows Installer still has several reported issues, needs more work! Preferably not postponed to week before release.
- Testing and RC cycles: we should try to enforce more and better code reviews... especially in RC period having more people check commits would prevent errors.
- Janne & Genscher: check on Joe's commit for cloth collisions, could this go back? Joe: a short log or doc about the functionality and/or with test cases would be welcome to help them.
- Sergey updated FFmpeg for linux, needs tests.
Current branches
- Lukas Toenne has 'paged particles' code waiting, Janne checks
- We need general coordination between all projects that (will) utilize Nodes: game logic, shaders, compositor, modifiers, particles, constraints.., Brecht will coordinate.
- Also openCL usage and APIs would need to be well aligned among branches.
- Nurbana: still on the list for Sergey to check further on
- Other branch devs and ex-GSoC students, please report back!
Google Summer of Code
- A proposal is being reviewed to have students share branches. Small teams of 2-3 students could work on same branch, provided code won't conflict for future merging back in trunk. Benefits are that compile issues or trunk-syncs can be solved together.
- Ton says: use veggie names for the branches! :) (carrot, parsnip, onion, potato)
- Another idea is to use a "staging branch", which means to have a trunk synced branch where the gsoc projects merge to regularly. Either weekly, or on moments a student likes to get official testing.
- Dalai proposes to use the review tool extensively as well. This is being reviewed. Brecht mentions that for branch commits it's not much required either...
- For students: commit rule #1: only when it compiles + runs Blender fine!
other projects
- Cycles wiki
- We've opened a temporarily mailing list for people who want to be involved with design and implementation.
20 Comments
Thanks for re-posting this here. Awesome work everyone! :)
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So what happens now with the Render Branch? is it abandoned in favour of Cycles?
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I've tried Cycles (the no Cuda win 32 CPU build) and I'm impressed! I'd love to see it to the final 2.58.
Thanks for the hard work people!
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good work gentlemen!!
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Dynamic Spacebar is very useful but it definitely needs work on its reliability. I have to reset it all the time just to get it to work.
DJ
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"So what happens now with the Render Branch? is it abandoned in favour of Cycles?"
Yes.
"I’d love to see it to the final 2.58."
That's no way possible.
Cycles will be ready for trunk in at least a year.
Or they might add it to 2.6, which would still be lacking a lot in features. Of course BI is not going to be removed till Cycles can do everything BI can.
"I have to reset it all the time just to get it to work."
File/New. Turn it on, press Ctrl-U.
When dealing with addons, always do that on a new file and save it as default.
Thanks for the hard work and keeping us updated :-) it's great to have Brecht back and working on Cycles, but as I don't understand everything, i was wondering how all that can be compatible with the compositor redesign by Jeroen Bakker? pardon me if it's a silly question ;-)
"how all that can be compatible with the compositor redesign by Jeroen Bakker?"
The compositor deals with renders as images. You can stick anything in it.
any news about unlimited clay ? patch was released by raul
hope dev look at it and keep it alive . save unlimited clay
@ FreeMind
I know it's far for complete atm but even with the very first windows build I was able to open some of my (simple) scenes change the materials and render. The render times was disappointing (CPU based) but it all worked without any trouble.
I'd love to see Cycles in 2.58 even if it's considered to be at 'experimental' state.
BTW the results are breathtaking!
"BTW the results are breathtaking!"
In comparison to BI, yes.
But everything looks good with GI. It would look completely the same in any renderer with GI, luxrender or yafaray, vray etc. Might aswell use those, as they are more complete.
Cycles is really promising, but please, don't remove BI ever! is very useful if you don't need realistic lighting, don't have a powerful computer or don't have a cuda or openCL video card, or just want quick renders.
I've been waiting two years fot GI, with Sintel being rendered with GI, as a big showcase of the new Blender features and it will never make it into trunk, and now I have to wait one more year at least to have GI. I wanted to leave 3dsMax+Vray forever, because I like Blender much more but sadly I just can't, I need Global Illumination. Yafaray? is great too, but I find it terribly slow.
So Blender will not have Global Illumination until 2012...
The Blender team keeps amazing me at every turn, I can't wait for the cycles project to finish up and GSoC to yield it's results once again! I've never seen any other freeware program being developed so fast, professionally and most importantly; successfully.
I'm also interested in the unlimited clay though, it would be a great addition to Blender and it would certainly be required to keep the sculpting more up to pace with the other sculpting applications.
So despite Sintel using GI, still no GI in blender at least until 2010...
I mean 2012, can't edit