Bringing back 2.4x Stuff in Blender 2.5
Ton happily reports the Durian team fully uses 2.5 trunk now! It goes sometimes with pains… but reports have been greatly tackled by Campbell and Brecht
– Missing features and todo items should still go to the 2.5 todo:
Tom and Campbell will fill in the wiki todo for mesh, sculpt, sequencer
Mesh retopo: Angela (Durian team) missed it in 2.5, used 2.4 to make a first character remodeling. The retopo snap-to-Z feature is still much wanted. Nicholas, who coded it, rather not just moves the code over, too horrible. Martin checks on having it as a Transform Snap version.
Macro-ing operators still needs work. (like for extrude, loopcut). Is on todo list.
Meeting agrees on sticking to 2.49 compatible hotkeys in the hardcoded (C code) keymap, at least for the first 2.5 beta. Some exceptions exist, but will be kept minimal.
We also make a shortlist of 2.5 features to not enable in the first beta build. Some operators are only for test (“split region”), others are unfinished (“duplicate window” lacks proper local context).
Once we have the detailed picture, a date for the beta build will be picked. Currently unknown, and quite uncertain if that’s around Blender Conference (2-3 weeks).
Topic comes back next meeting and on mailing list.
The 2.5 project work itself
Note: Python scripts for menus or buttons should strictly use the Operator names themselves. In case the menu then becomes ugly, like with 10 items starting with Select, we’ll either solve that in code, or with an additional Operator feature.
This is important to keep it all fit for future interface translation work.
Primitives; Tom Musgrove did a proposal for gathering custom materials, meshes and rigs in Blender. He will work on this with Jason van Gumster. Idea is to first collect good examples, and then work with a developer on the best integration code.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=168911
***** Other Blender projects
Nicholas Bishop mentions Sculpt speedup progress, testing VBO support.
Arystan proposed to add his first test with rigid body support (via Bullet) in svn. Meeting preferred him to use his own branch first, and also make a nice doc describing proposal of how Bullet will work with our physics and animation system. Very promising!
Damien reported (via email) that a Blender Cocoa 32 bits version is nearly done. Port work to 64 bits has more issues still, but mostly related to getting the right libraries compiled.
Test build is available already on GraphicAll
-Ton-
I’m looking forward to a functioning 64bit 2.5! Thanks to all the dev’s hard work!
You forgot to use quotation marks, Tim.
I’m hoping to play back an animation (wheres the play button, has anyone seen it?) in 2.5. I can render galore, but to actually see what the computer did? Nada!
Sweet! Looking forward to VBO and anything else!
Lots of awesomeness coming out this year: Ubuntu Karmic, Google Wave and Blender 2.5! And probably one or two early alpha game prototypes from FreezingMoon.org made with blender/bge :D
Very appreciated changes and features. I hope the final builds will be faster than they are at the moment (New GUI seems much more resource-demanding).
2.50 is too complicated to have a stable beta in October.hope that there is a 2.49 bug fix soon,while waiting….
The subversion build runs very nice here! It also seems to run faster than the old versions here. I also like the new interface very much. Thank you so much for all your work!
Wow, the sculpting runs like 10 times faster…
Alex Blank, if the new interface feels slow, try to upgrade the driver for your video card or try another display method in the user preferences.
Ok, I’m confused. Will the Retopo option be available in 2.5, or not?
Urenze
I’ve been hearing a lot of this beta/final talk, and I understand it. But what “final” are we talking about? Final version of 2.50, final version of Blender, or both? And how much of the 2.4x stuff will be fully functional in the beta?
@The Oblivious Prattler.
It means the release version of Blender 2.5. It’s not the final version of Blender.
@the oblivious prattler
Its several beta versions of 2.50 each will either bring back missing functions or new ones until it reaches a stable version where the will be nothing but bugfixes than a release of Blender 2.60 around july/august 2010 there is a helpful road map that was released a couple of weeks back that outlines everything.
It is a different way of doing things, because normally its just a release canidate and than a final release. But, am speculating here, 2.50 has been such a major overhaul and probabley more complicated than most release its safer to take things slowly
Wow, this is absolutely amazing. I plan of following this progress closely, so thanks for the updates guys. To all of the developers for Blender, I would like to express my thanks. I really appreciate what you guys do.
As I remember it Ton was talking about a blender3.0 5 years ago.
Meanwhile blender has gone to a subdiv version number system nobody can understand. 2.49b.6 ?
A whole new overhaul and yet still a 2.x ? Maybe developers working on the code can understand it, but from a “marketing” point of view its way too weird I think.
Where microsoft is releasing a winDOS 7 and Apple a 10.6 ( with no new features from 10.5 ) it’s pretty weird to be having microsteps in 2.49 and undefined nano steps in 2.5. ( I was at a blender conference and I’m sure 2.5 will have mix-ups with 2.05 since they are both called two-point-five. )
Maybe 3.0 is too mystical for Ton? Or is 2.x reserved for the foundation and 3.x be his next company? :P
I liked the adobe system where the .5 releases where bug fix releases, I guess they didnt like the drop in sales for the .0 releases once people realised that.
And I do not like the “meeting deadline” releases where software is pushed in the world with emenent bug fixes in the next day or two because it was released with too much rush. I know we all have broadband now, but it still costs fossil fuel to power the internet.
But great to see so much power being ported to a wonderfull 3d product, I’m really anctious to get my hands on this product called 2.5 and hope I dont need to wait to 2.56 before I can stop yelling at it.
@tyrant monkey
Can you please post the link of this roadmap? Really it’s hard to understand what to expect for blender 2.5. Many documents at blender.org aren’t updated since some time ago, so I feel falling to the buzz.
If I can’t expect in 2.5 some features that worked well in 2.49, this mean that perhaps I’m not going to use blender 2.5 until july/august 2010? No problem by my side, but I would like to know this.
Another question is that middle user don’t cares about trunks, svn’s and so on with this slang. I think Blender Foundation should do an official communicate in a (more) understandable slang, in order to clarify just this, and no messing about Durian tests, beta builds, developper reports and this kind of things. What (and when, approx.) to expect for the first release of 2.5 series, and for the following ones too. Sorry if this is done already, but I’m not able to find for now at blenerartists nor blender.org pages. My point of view is that not only blender-developping geeks, also plain users, should be able to understand its progress.
And thanks to the developpers. First impression about 2.5 is so promising!
I second Raimon’s request for clearer information. I, for example, would like to know with certainty what will be included/missing in/from the different 2.5 beta versions, and when.
So, I guess that we will be using 2.49b (c? d?) AND 2.5x until there is a stable version in 2010. Not optimal, in my opinion, but if that is the price to pay…
Here’s the current timeline for 2.5 BETA development:
http://www.blendernation.com/blender-developers-meeting-notes-7/
@Kemon
thanks, much more explanatory. I was on Formentera, near to Eivissa, september 21, and passed over this post.
So, in order to clarify even more, can I expect all 2.49 functionality for the beta 0 release of 2.5?
According to the timeline the answer is yes, but buzz turns me deaf about ! :) ….
thanks,
Raimon
Outliner must have Drag-and-Drop feature .
Also not sure how you do the code,
but it must be very well structured and organized
plus hint explanation for others to acknowledge whats going on .
On a not well search about it ,it are clear seen that things still mess up,
therefore to not even know where to start with phyton thing .
Blender.org must to be completely rebuild ,as it an Open Source business ,
and with the software running good, who cares for competition its propaganda.
Must have a better base for Open Source,than to update the software .
A law must to protect the Open Source from become a private project .
A feature must to be created for give on simple objects ,
automatic curved corners and borders,
that for real time exemplify where its gonna effect .
Perhaps a updated feature for a mix with the
Smooth feature with the cut feature
for automatically creation for the areas with curved shape in set .
@joeri67
its because the software are still the same about its engine,
only with features that and maybe only little updates that keeps it basically the same .
Available at time but not on a full package with lots of new features .
ok.
I really love the way this development model works,something pushes the development and state the requirements really awesome, that what makes blender one of the best Open source software.
Keep the very good work guys.
Thanks
The retopo tools from 2.4 are amazing and highly necessary. Glad to see that’s being prioritized.
I wish that they would fix the hair particles to work with curves like it they did before 4.46.