The first Release Candidate for Blender 2.44 is now available from blender.org!
From the release log page:
The upcoming 2.44 release is an upgrade for 2.43, with mostly two months of fixing reported problems and a couple of nice new features, of which two are worth mentioning now:
- 64 bits safe code and files
- SSS subsurface scatter render
After this release, the big event/took/UI code reconstruction project will start, leading to the 2.50 release.
From the download page it seems like while they were preparing RC1, some issues came up that forced the immediate release of RC2 already. You'll need the RC2 build to get the SSS patch; at the time of writing RC2 is only available for OSX/PPC, Linux-64 bit and Solaris, but I expect other builds will soon appear.
By the way, is there going to be a 2.44 Splash Screen Contest? I checked BlenderArtists.org but couldn't find it anywhere..
54 Comments
It's 64bit only?
Hello I think its great, so I've checked and I just see a PPC Release for OSX, is ti an Universal Release for Intel Base Mac?
Tiger
@Pitel: no, I don't think so
@Tiger: no Intel builds yet, but you should be able to run the PPC version on your Intel Mac (it won't be as fast, of course)
Bart: I guess the linux build is.
[pitel@mana2 blender-2.44-RC2-linux-glibc236-py2.5-x64_64]$ ./blender
bash: ./blender: cannot execute binary file
Can this ver run in 32 bit ?
or for 64 bit only ?
@Pitel: ah yes, I see it now. I guess we'll have to wait for the 32-bit Linux version as well..
[quote]64 bits safe code and files[/quote]
Thats great, but is multithreading not more common used these days?
Re: Splash screen....
Well.. the woman rendered with SSS is more impressive than Tomatoes, but Tomatoes make a better Splash screen I think.
@Pitel... nope. Afaik, OSX is still limited to 32 bits ATM for graphical apps ... (*ssh*... don't tell apple's marketing department)... I still love my mac. *he hugs the precious*
@tiger: ppc only atm. Sounds like it's Rosetta for you :P I think there are some devs using Intel macs so when they wake up, you'll have a faster build.
Windowed mode available for linux, khewl!
64 Bit safety was one of my wishes for 2.44, so many thanks to the developers! SSS is an awesome addition also, great fun and very useful.
7uc0, windowed mode was always available in Linux when starting Blender with -w. The change is that it's now default, which is better, I think.
I'm glad that Brecht's SSS implementation made it into Blender 2.44 - that's a really great addition.
Thorsten
@7uc0
Windowed mode for linux was already available: blender -w
But now it's the default behaviour (which is a good thing IMHO).
Great news! Hopefully today they will release window$ build.
Hah, it's there!
They all are great!!
Yup! The Windows RC2 is there too now!
Sorry :o(
The RC2 Windows build doesn't work for me :
I only get a pop up window with a warning :
Application error Oxc0150002
Tested on Windows XP Home Edition Sp1.
will ffmpg finally make it into the 2.44 build for the M$ Windows platform?
@ROUBAL: You may need to install the VC 2005 runtimes, as noted here:
http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/blender-244-release-candidate/
I vote for the woman vs. the tomatoes for a splash screen, she is so realistic its mind boggling
and as for SSS in general: thnx brecht, you tha man!!
how about a splash screen contest for 2.50?
I'll never catch up with all these releases.
Ok I've checked and it works well on a Mac Intel, (I just had 1 crash at first render) then it is working normally, and now I can see the selection box when I press "B", he he, :p thanks Blender Found, and congratulations to every people who make blender better and better day by day
Tiger
Wow, it seems like 2.43 was just released, and yet we now are going into another
new one (though it is still in testing).
Thanks Brecht for the SSS shader and the programmers and everyone
who helped!
(I vote for the tomatoes as splash screen xD).
This will be a minor but very very awaited release...
I also vote for the tomatoes as a splash screen... It reminds the oranges...
stopps working on Vista before splash screen :'(
I have just installed the 64 bit version for Linux and the new sss panel appears to be missing. I have tried the builds for Windows and Mac on other machines and sss is included. If it has been moved, does anybody know where it is?
64 bit linux is being rebuilt...
please check again soon
One problem I do have with the SSS example we see on the human model is that its not very realistic. The female looks more like a zombie then a living breathing human. Testing out the parameters its very flexible.
Im with fraek.
Start a splash screen contest for 2.50 now so people have more time to come up with something AWESOME. Its a major release so i think its worth it...
I installed it and the splash screen still says 2.43. why? is it realy 2.44 and they did not chancge the inro screen?
also how will i know it is 2.44?
@Thomas Braun : Thank you for the Information about Visual CC, I hadn't seen it. It was supposed to be for Win XP SP2, but fortunately it works on my SP1 !
AWESOME!!! I've been playing with different SSS methods, but I've never had results this good! And now I can safely switch to 64 bits!
Man this is great stuff, can't wait to play around with sss
It's a good news for us to see that Blender is going better and better.
I took a look at E-Shop, and thought "The Essential Blender" looks good. However, until I saw this message on this post:
"After this release, the big event/took/UI code reconstruction project will start, leading to the 2.50 release."
I couldn't help wondering if I buy the book,"The Essential Blender", after severals months when Blender v2.5 is released, this book will become useless because so many things will have been changed.
So should I wait until next Edition of "The Essential Blender"?
@Bill: i dont know how much the reconstruction affect the upcomming actual blender UI setup but i do not think that ton would be crazy enough to change blender in a way that all users have to spend two weeks to relearn the UI. besides that, "the essential blender" gives you much more insight into the tools that will stay unaffected, not the UI. If you need/want a kickstart right now, you should buy it because the next release of blender will be in arround 5 or 6 months (or more, we all know software development allways takes it times and release schedule exspecially in the open source field are often much longer)
personally i expect blender 2.5 around spring 2008 but im not omniscient ;)
and till this time you are likely know blender good enough for the upcomming changes (blender was my first 3d modelling application and it took me without help arround 6 months to get familiar with most of its functions and the 3d concepts so with such a nice book i think its more likely that you can get familiar in one month)
@Kreon:
Thanks for your explanation. That's good to hear.
I guess that v2.5 will mainly focus on the improvement of the GUI of file browsing system, as it has looked like old MS-DOS file browsing system since long time ago. Anyone will hope that it should be more user-friendly.
So, I ordered two books and one DVD on e-Shop just a few minutes ago.
They are "Essential Blender" and "Character animation", and "Elepahnts Dream". That's what I can do for Blender Foundation. From a beginner's point of view, I also expect there could be some video tutorial DVDs for novice to pro available on E-Shop in the near future.
@bob orilee RC's have the same number & splash screen.
The full version will have 2.44 & a new splash screen.
Doesn't run on 64-bit ubuntu just yet.. I have my fingers crossed for the official release.
What's the problem you're having there bmud? I'm running it without problems on 64-bit Debian Etch, so I think it should work for you too.
Yeee!
I've waited for something like this for ages! :-D
Am I the ONLY ONE who hates this stupid thing where the camera slides around everytime you switch views? I thought Blender was designed for speed, not annoying features like this that slow you down.
What are you talking about? Doesn't do that to me.
Pretty sweet, the SSS presets are quite a nice touch.
@Fuzzmaster:
You can turn that effect off in the preferences. And I for one quite like the effect ;)
Quite astonishing that some claimed blender windoz version 2.44 RC2 as 64 bit. On contrary running latest version of process monitor from MS is showing 2.44 as 32 bit application. And I'm sure the win version is still 32 bit apps. AFAIK
Does anyone have a non-zipped version for windows posted at this time? I'm currently at school and they have now decidede to block zipped files :-(. I don't want to wait until I get home to download RC2.
Thanks
I guess the way forward when it comes to UI changes is to make the UI based on some layout files (kind of like firefox/glade works), then ship it with 2 skins - one that looks exactly like it does now, so people stop whining, and one which actually looks like what new users expect a 3d tool to look like.
Sounds like too much work. LOL
I agree, the switch view delay was drove me crazy until I found how to turn it off.
"Smooth View" is not a very intuitive name for the settings name. It should be something like "Switch View Anim. Speed"
and the default should be 0... then what would be the point?
Why add time to the workflow? Blenders interface is supposed to be fast.
Ok, let's get an intel mac version up there!
Heh, i'm just going to wait for the 'final' release.
@AZ, ...: didn't knew about this SMOOTH VIEW thingy. Who needs it?? But as long as it is there shouldn't it work for ALL view buttons (0-8) and not only for 0,1,3,7?
I don't want the interface to change!! (in 2.5) I just finished learning how to use it!
Hey! I suggested the view smooth function almost a year ago! Glad to see someone finally inimplemented it. Sorry if some of you don't like it, I find it quite ...well...cool. Maybe I'll get sick of it after a while, too.