Blender 2.71 is coming up, and Apple is frustrating GPU-based OpenSubdiv with their OpenGL support strategy.
Ton Roosendaal writes:
Hi all,
Here are the notes from today's 1600 CEST meeting in irc.freenode.net, #blendercoders.
1) Blender 2.71 release planning
- Test build was released yesterday, another one should be made mid next week. A first release candidate build could then be announced after next week's meeting.
- Ton Roosendaal still has to establish a splash committee. Will be known in few days.
- Bug tracker still has too many open issues...
- Bastien Montagne points at huge and old list of patches that wait for reviews. Ton suggests to do a massive amnesty for patches after the release, provided the submitter is enthusiast and capable to be involved as part of a module team - responsible for maintaining his/her work and fixing bugs.
2) Google Summer of Code
- Not every student has submitted the weekly report. The Nurbs coder Jonathan deWerd (nick jjoonathan) reported he will do soon.
- All students (and mentors) should now work on refreshing and reconfirming their proposals for work. Get connected with the module teams and artist stakeholders too. If in doubt, just always involve the GSoC admins Campbell Barton or Ton Roosendaal.
3) Other projects
- Ton will post a report about the last week meetings in BI with developers.
- OpenSubdiv: Apple OSX refuses to mix OpenGL 4 with older OpenGL functions (= all of Blender). That means we cannot release GPU-based OpenSubdiv for Macs soon, but this is still under investigation. For Linux and Windows this isn't a problem.
- OpenSubdiv code now has runtime opencl/cuda detection (so it also links dynamically).
Thanks,
-Ton-
18 Comments
in Jonathan deWerd we trust. We need NURBS.
MacOS sucks as usual :D
Meh, when it comes to software development, I can list quirky issues with Windows and Linux, too. This time, the issue just falls on Mac. This issue will be resolved with time.
NURBS for sverchok yeah!!
Macs: the reason they 'just work' is because they don't just kludge solutions together. Yes it takes longer to develop things that way, but that's just how it is when you don't cut corners. That said, it's a great time to own more than one system!
Forgive me but the reason Apple doesn't "kludge" solutions is so they can resell systems over and over again to a captive consumer base - Apple's solutions might be "elegant" but they regularly force a user to "kludge" her workflow beyond Mac - it's true, aesthetically, Windows often seems more intrinsically kludged but the end result is largely the same, with less pressure from the Windows side to rebuild systems and workflows every year - our studio has used both platforms for decades and have discerned no benefit favoring Mac - we have, in fact, taken a lot of costly hits due to Apple's philosophy and have thus steadily reduced our Mac footprint - the most productive setup has proven for us to be a mix of all platforms used with the view that "kludged" systems are really "wonderfully customizable" systems - the more closed a system, the less productive it has been for us in a real workflow.
I like the way you think. I wanted to say it more like that myself, but the more words it takes me to say something, the more skittish I get about whether I'm expressing myself well or not. So I over-correct in the opposite direction much of the time.I like the way you think. I wanted to say it more like that myself, A well-managed mix of platforms is a very good thing.
[EDIT: Just fixed a copy-paste editing error I made in my previous reply. I'm really bad at this!]
Hmm... OpenSubdiv is not co-operating with Mac, and yet everybody at Pixar uses Macs. The irony. I really hope that blender gets better NURBS support. So far the functionality of blenders NURBS surfaces is so incomplete, its not even practice to use for modeling. the one place were blenders modeling tools are not up to speed with other 3D software.
They probably use a farm of Macs running on CPU mode... or else they have some other custom GPU solution that sidesteps the problem in the first place.
Well, Ton doesn't say that OpenSubdiv is not co-operating with Mac, he's saying that Mac OS won't allow you to mix OpenGL versions, which is a problem because Blender uses versions older than 4. If it's true that Pixar only uses Macs, no doubt their in-house software makes use of only OpenGL 4... Otherwise, them developing OpenGL powered OpenSubdiv would be a bit pointless...
I wonder how big of a job it would be to update Blender to only use OpenGL 4...
Heck, it's possible that Pixar created their own in-house version of OpenGL to suit their needs.
Actually, not everyone uses Mac at Pixar. It depends on the role and the artist. I've watched plenty of behind-the-scenes look at Pixar, and I've spotted Windows-based machines and even some Linux usage. Typically, it's the folks who deal with color-heavy jobs who use Macs at Pixar, since Apple makes nice displays. But even their lighting artist used a Sony machine on The Incredibles.
Well, not being totally sure what software Pixar uses to make their animations, it's possible or even likely the software they use is OpenGL4+ so they don't have a compatibility problem. Like, I don't wanna sound snarky, but maybe Blender needs to up their OpenGL version. I say that like it is as easy as snapping your fingers, but maybe this is the sign that it needs to be updated.
Macs? Really got any source on that, because on most "inside" videos they use Linux workstations. Their own piece of animation software: Marionette runs on Linux. And in most Hollywood CGI studios they use Linux workstations. Maybe because of their relation with Steve Jobs in the past, but it would suprise me.
On topic: Well maybe opengl wont work for now, but for Nvidia based Macs, CUDA should work fine, no?
Yes, CUDA works great on my iMac with a Nvidia GTX 780m GPU.
Wicreag is correct, we use Linux boxes for most production work. A few folks have macs for photoshop or zbrush but Presto for animators/rigging/layout/sim etc is all on Red Hat linux - that is where we run OpenSubdiv-equipped code in the studio.
OpenGL Core Profile can be a pain on OSX, requiring folks to dump fixed function OpenGL code (older stuff) to use new functions like tessellation shaders in OpenGL 4. The code ends up being nicer when moving to all "modern" OpenGL, but the transition can be a lot of work for legacy software. Definitely our internal code still uses fixed function aspects of OpenGL.
I think Sergey is aiming for an implementation using CUDA or OpenCL for uniform subdivision where the OpenGL stack is just drawing quads- we use that often as well. The bit that sounds difficult for OSX Blender is the adaptive tessellation of patches, which requires tessellation shaders. You'll still get fast GPU accellerated subdivision for high performance smooth surfaces. This also matches the Maya 2015 implementation, I don't think they are using adaptive tessellation yet (for different reasons)
-Dirk (Pixar hacker)
(Apple user here) Wow, so much Apple hate here. It is easy to blame Apple for not supporting older versions of OpenGL, but let's look at this for a moment. Maybe instead of blaming Apple for not supporting older, less efficient, versions of OpenGL, maybe Blender needs to up the version of OpenGL it uses. I say that like it is as easy as snapping your fingers together, I know it's not just that easy. Maybe this is a sign, that to keep up with competing products, that Blender needs to update its OpenGL version. I know it won't be easy, but it may need to be done. Oh, and to answer some of the people above me about being a captive buyer; We buy Apple products, not because they are cheap or are available in every store on every street corner, but because they are extremely high quality products.
I work at a reasonably sized institution with a mixed fleet of Apples (iMacs and and MacBook Pros) and Dell (Optiplexs and Latitudes for the most part) - about 10k machines in all. The failure rate of the Apples is almost exactly the same as the Dells so I'm afraid I have to call shenanigans on the "extremely high quality products" statement.
And Dell ProSupport leaves Apples support in the dust, though I can't comment on Dells consumer support (never used it).