Developer Meeting Notes, August 14 2011
Even during SIGGRAPH, Blender development marches on!
Here’s a short summary of what was discussed on today’s meeting:
2.59 release, plans for 2.60
- Note: tracker up to 206 open reports! No real showstopper reports in though.
- Release cycle proposal still needs a formal approval. Ton will help finishing proposal.
- Long discussion on how to manage a ‘freeze’ after release. Some like to have crucial fixes ported over to the the release-branch, some prefer a period (week) of commit-only-fixes. Debate can continue over the week.
- Agreed is that the short freeze period around release should also get a formal “unfreeze” notification on this list.
- Branches mentioned that could get included for next release:
- Joshua Leung’s work on animation system
- Benjamin Cook’s work on motion capture input
- Joerg Mueller’s audio/speaker work
- [these] will get further reviewed or decided next week.
Other projects
- Note: buildbot now does Win x64 builds too.
- BMesh progress; Campbell is ready to work on it, will work on a planning for it. We have to define when it’s ready for trunk (i.e. how much can temporarily not work yet).
Google Summer of Code
- “Pencils down” soon, we’ll update students with requirements as soon Google tells more details
First!!
Great work from everyone. I like the wonderful projects that are being developed and hope that the GSoC will together with the developement that comes from the next movie, make Blender even better.
What do people think about a auto-update function, so your always with newest blender?
Crashing on launch isn’t a “showstopping bug” to report? Heh, it’s an easy enough fix though since it was just the 3DConnexion driver.
Has anyone else tried to open user preferences on the file menu? Does this work for them in 2.59?
If it does not work for them too then I’ll see if I can find the bug tracker, if not I’ll create one.
Why not a seperate branch for each new feature, no matter how minor? That’s how we used to do it at a company I worked for. For the release it’s just a matter of selecting which branches to include and to merge them.
@Chrome Monkey, realize when you’re the one getting the crash on startup that it seems very much like a show stopper, but when you consider all the OS/driver combinations blender supports. Having old drivers crash is sometimes hard to avoid – we have this with Intel/ATI a bit too. Ofcourse these *should* always be fixed but AFAIK this only came to our attention after release, and has since been fixed, but upgrading the driver fixes too.
@Olaf
They work exactly like this.
No more development on Cycles at all? I was really looking forward to that.
@n-Pigeon: than I don’t understand Brecht’s email where he states that developers are being held up. Unless the branches are all depedent on one another., which I doubt.
Working on a release schedule is not a bad idea I just don’t understand the reasons for switching Brecht is giving.
@ideasman42
The Blender devs and testers do indeed do amazing work. Testing on multiple platforms has got to be the most thankless task out there, and it’s one reason why I abandoned the idea of trying to be a software developer. I got scared off after seeing some code fail in college, code which the prof wrote as part of the final assignment of the term. It worked fine on the machine he wrote it for, but on the college machines, it consistently returned a pointer with data already in it when asked for a new pointer to be created. I never learned how it was even possible for that to have happened, because the code the prof supplied was encapsulated elsewhere. Anyway, that’s why I just write little database programs now. SQL is challenge enough for me. The Blender devs and testers are miracle workers by comparison.
When will we see the VRML97 exporter?
Basic B-mesh is working fine with the 2.59+Bmesh build on GraphicAll. Basic bmesh should be rolled into the trunk as is. Its such a boost to modeling. Everything not working in bmesh is far better than no bmesh. Of course as long as it does not impact other Blender functions and stability. I have not noticed any impact in the GraphicAll build.
2.59 is very well done guys!
Rick
@Bobby, we’re only doing x3d export now, its possible (in 99.99% of cases) to convert X3D to VRML2 since its mostly a different syntax and interchangeable, VRML97 is quite an old format, why do you need this specifically?
I hoped to use the exporter for a game that uses this format, but I’ll try to go trough other means.
Anyway, thanks for your answer !!
What about Cycles? The renderer is the most important thing!
I am with Crash, I am so eagerly awaiting more development with Cycles. Between open-cl support and hybrid CPU + GPU rendering I think I would go insane. I am not 100% sure if cycles works currently with SLI / Crossfire cards in an array. If so I have huge plans for my next system… But any way,
Blender 2.59 is amazing and very solid. I am hoping by 2.6 we might have some Cycles in some Trunk? lol
Either way, good to hear everything is only getting better.
And I do have patients, but its like Skype-ing with your wife 5000 miles away, just cant wait to be there. haha
xnL
No news about Cycles? for me it`s the most important feature! even if it was CPU only, I need GI!
CYCLES and movement toward good GI
GOGOGO !
amazing work guys!
Great work everyone! Your hard work and talent is very much appreciated.
will camera tracking be included in 2.56?
For the love of all that is holy, please give more support with BMesh.
8 week release cycle is still very fast. Many companies would drop their pants for this rate of development.
It just will ensure that new projects and important merges are already well tested, only means better tools and less likely “show-stoppers”,which, I´ve never experienced one of these thou,
lucky me.
I will always prefer useful, small and simple real-work ready tools to half-baked-one purpose-buggy-wow factor-bells and whistles.
I was in awe when years back when they(BF and elysiun) told us that there was available (not in order) raytracing, game engine came back, yafray integration, proportional editing, SSS, nodes, then sculpt tools, then grease pencil…and so on and on… Now camera tracking, dynamic paint tools and many many more…
Younger people may take them for granted, but it´s a joy to see new and newer applied ideas, brain power and love into Blender. Just for the sake of it.
These are special times for me, Blender is growing better and better, my home machine is growing old to it. As a user it in some way scares me, imagine to those who are not into it ;P ,
I can´t thank enough you developers and user Blenderheads alike, never though before that a piece of code could cause such much joy.
I just want to voice my thanks and encouragement. You guys are the best!
Let me first say a big big thanks to Ton and all the Devs who work so hard. I think sincerely that Blender is just an awesome software and that you guys just rock :).
I’m downloading 2.59, but even 2.58 was just amazing. Please continue the good job and hope that all your projects are gonna work well. Like many others I’m really impatient to have under hand 2.6 and really hope that cycle would be there :).
Good day to Blender passionate and please continue to amaze us as you are doing.
i mean will camera tracking be in 2.59?
Unicode text please. Want to label stuff using native language. May use UTF8 and classify all characters 0x80 + as letters. Great work guys, 2.5+ interface very nice and usable!
Unicode text in blender would be really cool. I agree on that one.
This is the problem with some developers whether they have the time or they ignore some issues with blender,for a sample for years weight quaternion at first it was a wonder!,but after 2.47 it change to a degree that I need to scale the mesh beyond the grid size to armature with quaternion.The practical system like hair after 2.46 version hair simulation change too, Thank god I have kept the legacy build. Ton don’t let history repeat it self with blender were development and support stop due to issues and complaints.
The Blender Foundation is such an example of brilliant organization and valued productivity. Way to go!!
Would like to know when the AC3D importer will be reinstated in 2.59 or later. I’m hoping it is for 2.60.
wow. trooping on in the face of siggraph too. thanks for the update. as far as the development and the state of it, what can be said? it’s pretty explosive in comparison to most open source projects. whatever happens, it can be said the the blender foundation is headed very well. Open Movie projects that push development, insightful users, developers that actually use the software etc. i’m always excited when i talk about blender with other people
2.6 already!!! wow. things are moving really fast. :) Blender will always be a favorite for me even though i use 3ds. Still love Blender. Can’t wait to see the matchmoving tool and cycles in an official release. :) Great work blender developers :)
I would love to see with the mango project approaching if they could borrow the code from Gimp for the seamless cloning(aka adaptive cloning)
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/project/google/gsoc2011/lightningismyname/6001
Also when Blender.org will use flattr as an option for payment, I love to flattr Blender LoL
http://flattr.com/
Not for the shop just for the website, I don’t want to buy anything, I just want to give them money without having to worry about how I will divide the meager resources I do have.
wow, blender 3d audio possibly part of the next release!
thanks for all the great work of all developers out there!
basementdweller,
> I just want to give them money
Look here:
http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/donation-payment/
@Sanne:
That is exactly what I don’t want to do, because I have to keep track of all the projects I want to donate to, and keep deciding which one will get what I also can forget to contribute.
With Flattr there is no mental cost, I just put the money there in one place and it gets distributed to all those that I Flattred :)