Here are the notes from this week's meeting in irc.freenode.net #blendercoders
Hi all,
Here are the notes from today's LA 10 AM timezone meeting, #blendercoders irc.freenode.
1) Blender 2.77a release
- The release went out last week, all is fine with it. No showstoppers in bug tracker.
2) Blender 2.78 (or 2.8)
- There are a couple of ongoing projects we can do a new release for. No planning yet. (VR rendering, Headmounted disply support, Alembic, etc)
Main meeting topic was brought in by Thomas Dinges: where are the plans for 2.8!? Meeting agreed on not planning any new release before we (also) have a solid planning for 2.8.
A good way to get this started is to open a (first) 2.8 branch with all of the code we want to refactor or redesign removed. That could mean: no viewport code, no particles, no game engine, no sequencer, etc. It's OK if the branch is dysfunctional for a while.
Developers who then need to do even more radical work can fork this branch and work on their modules.
We did something similar back then for 2.5. In the end we just put back a lot of old code still - for the sake of having things work - but we could also fix a lot of design flaws.
Next meeting (18 April) we aim at having a 2.8 branch proposal for the meeting to agree on.
3) Other projects
- Kevin Dietrich has an Alembic patch ready for review.
- Mai Lavelle submitted Cycles microdisplacement code. Brecht van Lommel reviews:
19 Comments
De-noise branch to the official trunk please :D
That microdisplacement is awesome!
Holy crap, active Cycles displacement development! I think I just peed myself a little
The particles, BGE, VSE will come back in a later release, am I correct?
what's needed for new core is solid Object Nodes + State Machine + Behavior Tree design, I think. (crowds, AI, particles, effects, motion graphics...)
as far as I see current Object Nodes status, I feel 2.8 is too early.
If you're doing loads of refactoring, throwing out old code and writing new code... why don't you call it Version 3.0?
You're doing a radical amount of changes, you should recognise that on the version numbers.
Before we get upset (or happy) about the removing bizz, let's be very clear.
There are two types of "remove". One is a temporary remove (for refactor, recode or redesign), and the other is a permanent removal.
The first category will be quite easy to agree on. For the second category we can do a long review and insist on a wide consensus by the teams.
Sparkwood:
It was mentioned in the code.blender.org blog, about 2.8 plans. We will try to stick mostly to the existing core architecture and data design and we keep working on ideas developed during the Blender 2.5 project. It's not that big a leap as it might look like. The ambitions we have for recode are also quite a lot bigger than what we likely can be doing in the end. Let's first check what we actually do this year.
I'm dubious about seeing VR and headsets mentioned. A few years ago everyone was supposed to be excited about 3D, but (yet again) it generally fell flat. Relatively few people cared whether they saw the 3D version of a movie in a cinema, or if their new TV supported 3D. Blender devs spent time adding 3D features, but I wonder what proportion of users ever needed them? VR is the same all over again, but at much higher cost. Impractical headsets for an experience that many will always find nauseating. I think VR, for all the hype, should currently remain at the very bottom of the list of priorities, somewhere in the 'nice to have' section.
I disagree about VR. It's needed. Without VR support in our tools, it is currently really hard to feel what the final experience is going to be like, and I do mean feel. If we want to create animations that are not nauseating, if we want to make animations that read from this very different perspective, we actually do need support for this new perspective.
its more a question of how many people its useful to, compared to how many people use blender. VR is nothing more than an unproven novelty at the moment (this might change, and i hope it does)
Think of it this way, with the explosion (and possible decline*) of VR in the near future, there are going to be a lot of people out there looking for software tools for creating VR content, because there will be a bubble of demand for VR content and hence potential money to be made by artists who can create VR content.
If Blender has those tools, some of those people looking for software tools to create VR content, might choose to use Blender. That's a fantastic opportunity to get more users in Blender. Likewise, existing Blender users will be able to jump on the VR bandwagon and potentially get some nice commercial work making VR content.
Also, adding VR support to Blender should be relatively simple. Small amount of effort, large potential gain.
(*Especially if VR isn't a short lived craze and takes off in a big way for the next decade or so. Blender being some of the first software to adopt tools for VR content creation would make it a go to for many new users who would then stick with Blender probably for a while. That'd be fantastic for Blender!)
The "blender devs" who spend time on VR made a contribution to Blender, based on their own time investment and based on independent funding. No other projects were affected or postponed for that reason.
I can understand where reactions like this come from, the foundation can only support very few people currently. If you want a strong team working for the general benefits of Blender, then please join the fund! The 320 members should triple to become a 1000. https://www.blender.org/foundation/development-fund/
Any chance you can use fluid openVDB?
And openVDB import files?
Alembic also be spectacular.
Thank you very much.
denoise branch is needed! please put it in the trunk official
Dear blender DevTeam,
Blender definately needs more puppeteering tools like real SPATIAL KEYFRAMING. Defining your poses and control them for keyframe recording in realtime would make so many users happy. Thank You.
Hey, Ton.
Just wanted to list my demands here.
1. Please accept my thanks for what all you've accomplished.
2. Please take care of yourselves.
3. Please keep up the good effort you guys try.
4. Savor life as well as you can.
As a longtime user, I simply demand this of ya'.
...Though, you know, some layers in Sculpt Mode would be ni--um, anyways, thanks. ;)
Best wish list ever.
Does anyone know where a user might read up on the targets for 2.8? I've found lots of sources, but a master list of accepted targets has been elusive.
I'm extremely curious about the UI revisions and the node based work. I've felt like the UI is not particularly accessible for a diverse team, and node based may help with reference files.
The proxy system that Blender has has proven very temperamental, and for game development, if I make a change to a rig, all files that use it need to export the exact same output. With Blender's temperamental proxy system, this is extremely hard. I cannot go in and manually rerig every file that uses the same character. For me to consider Blender for game dev, it really needs a solid proxy system or the final product suffers. I hate staying with maya, but their reference system works almost flawlessly.