TL;DR: Blender 2.78c should be available tomorrow, Filmic Blender will be included in 2.79 and Google will tomorrow announce which organizations will participate in the Summer of Code.
Ton Roosendaal writes:
1) Blender 2.78c release
- There were build problems causing more delays, final tests and checks happen now. Tomorrow the binaries should be available.
- Change log for 'c'.
2) Targets for Blender 2.79
- We move to BCon2 (targets final) this week. The target list.
- We still need to solve how to add the 'Filmic Blender' configure file in a way it's compatible. Maybe via User Preferences? Need someone to pick up this task to solve.
- New target: Datablock ID Properties.
- Mai Lavelle's Cycles split kernel work is almost there. There are some regressions for nvidia OpenCL. Sergey Sharybin reviews and checks this before a merge happens.
- OpenHMD is almost ready. Julian Eisel and Joey Ferwerda will finish working on it in Amsterdam next week.
- The new 'Surface Deform' modifier can be added. Go for it Luca Rood!
- Bezier Tools GSoC patch, urgent call for reviewers.
- And, call for coders of patches for OpenVDB render (Kevin) and Action Tools (Joshua) to speak up if their work is ready!
3) Blender 2.8 projects
- Discussion about custom properties code: let's not all implement own but stick to one system in Blender? Dalai Felinto and Bastien Montagne will contact about it. Also UPBGE seems to use own property system.
- There is Development Fund budget to support a 2.8 GE project as well.
There's still time enough to talk about this.- This proposal for 2.8 GE work by Mitchell Stokes is still valid.
- Further not much news, aside for Campbell Barton coming back to help us with it!
4) Other topics
- Tomorrow Google will announce which .orgs will be participating this year.
- Blendercoders IRC meeting had a record of 215 people attending! Luckily, most were lurking!
Thanks,
-Ton-
4 Comments
Is there any document out there for the final UI approach of 2.8?
There were many ideas floating around, and the most recent documents I've seen were actually mutliple proposals. I have not seen what the team finally decided
Regarding filmic: Don't the idea of a switch in the user preferences - that is effectively two incompatible versions of Blender, that break files of the other type, and is a fundamentally terrible idea. At the very least it should exist alongside the current set - its easy enough to edit the ocio config file to achieve that, and you just have to accept that some combinations of options don't make sense (though the concept of not making sense is questionable - if the artist likes the result then how are they wrong?). Still the wrong solution - it should be a tick box to add the 3D lut cross-channel sturation hack, with the filmic looks and current looks combined. Though the look list probably needs categorisation - it's well past unwieldy.
That's big and scary but mostly exciting news about the GE.
If BGE stands for Blender Game Engine, don't do it. Dedicated game designing teams who have experience in developing game engines still often fail. The market has also never been so competitive for cheap and user friendly engines. This could have made sense 10 years ago when the only options were idtech and Unreal, and those licenses were expensive, but now.. don't do it.
At most, document how it might be made into an engine, and use that money to support groups with xp and interest in doing so.