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Developer Meeting Notes: First official Blender 2.5 test build today?

40
By on Blender Development

codeEveryone is getting ready for the first official Blender 2.5 release. All indications are that this will be later today, or maybe tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Ton Roosendaal writes:

Hi all,

Most of meeting was about getting ready for the first official 2.5 test build, which should be released monday or tuesday.

Test build todos

  • Special request from user: put back "emulate numpad" option. (Suprise at end of meeting, Brecht committed it!)
  • Blender game player: is being patched with a 'stubs' C file, to solve all unresolved symbols because RNA API is using Editor and Windowmanager code. Needs solid solution. For after release.
  • Meeting discussed open bugs. No showstoppers, but still enough work!
  • Note: Campbell proposes to improve Python UI API names, they currently use too much of legacy C code conventions.
  • First test build name: 2.5 alpha 0. After long debate! But there's a wide consensis to call it alpha, which is important too. :) Technically the release code is 2.50, next will be 2.51, hence the '0' or '1' behind the names.
  • Builds are made by:
    Windows 32 and 64 bits: Nathan Letwory
    Linux 32 and 64 bits: Ken Hughes
    OS X 10.5 PPC 32 bits: Jan Devera (devroo):
    OS X 10.5 Intel 32 and 64 bits: Jens Verwiebe

Pending todos:

  • Splash code (Campbell tries, Matt monday if needed)
  • Splash design: A durian gfx is underway, will be last commit as usual
  • Matt finished release notes

Other projects

  • Brecht will commit tomorrow a new multires system, dumping levels as external files to the disk, freeing up a lot of memory. (And yes, bmesh future proof!

-Ton

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

40 Comments

  5. Mpu.Bater on

    great news!

    I forced to use blender 2.50 test build because blender 2.49 is broken in Ubuntu 9.10.
    and now I really fall in love with this release!

    Behold! Blender 2.50 is coming!

    Reply
  7. Tenchiken on

    Will there be turntable? I haven't found it in most recent official SVN, and modelling in trackball mode is a serious trouble for me. Perhaps looked in a wrong place :)

    Reply
  8. madturtle on

    @Mpu.Bater wrote
    "I forced to use blender 2.50 test build because blender 2.49 is broken in Ubuntu 9.10."

    ?!?!?! I also updated my maschine to ubuntu 9.10 and my blender 2.49 is still alive!
    Only a few smal things cracked by this update like nautilus, naev, Rhythembox my mumpad on my keyboard my brother scanner is gone - but he - i saw harder days in my live!

    But - we are close to an offical 2.5 alpha, test, be carefull, mayby and so on release...great!

    Reply
  12. Trager on

    New computer - New Blender - put off quite a bit of modeling time learning the new interface and patiently waiting for an "official" release, maybe I can finish off some of my projects now!!!!

    Reply
  16. Loolarge on

    Awesome times! There was a lot happening recently, 2.5 feels very usable allready. My most anticipated yet missing feature is pyConstraints. Good work devs!

    Reply
  17. Gryphon on

    Ton wrote:
    "First test build name: 2.5 alpha 0. After long debate! But there's a wide consensis to call it alpha, which is important too. :) Technically the release code is 2.50, next will be 2.51, hence the '0' or '1' behind the names."

    Call me obsessed. I apologize for beating this horse, but I'm still curious.

    If this release is going to be an alpha version, then why will the next release (which will also be an alpha) have a different version number? Why release 2.50 and 2.51 and call them alpha 0 and alpha 1? Why not instead actually release 2.50 alpha 0 and 2.50 alpha 1, with both of these (and all subsequent alpha and beta releases) acting as testing versions for 2.50 final?

    Is there some reason why each release has to "technically" have a higher official version number, even if it's just behind the scenes? I thought that was what the revision numbers were for?

    Don't take this too seriously... I'm not trying to complain or change anybody's mind, I'm just curious. It seems weird to go from an alpha of one version to an alpha of the next without an officially final release of the first version in between.

    Reply
  21. shawn kearney on

    This is great!

    But please tell me someone has fixed the mouse release bug in the image editor. I really need this fixed. If not, please, please please fix as soon as it is practical.

    Reply
  23. tmr232 on

    Woohoo!!!!!
    Can't wait to start using it. I am already trying SVN versions, but an official test release would simply feel better!!

    Go Blender 2.5!!!

    Reply
  27. Indee on

    finnaly the Emulate numpad is back =D
    now we/ I need the space function.... shortcut for add .. e.g node editor adds a menu with all optional actions when u press the space button..

    Reply
  28. ton on

    Gryphon: the version numbers are included in .blend files and in binaries, it allows version patches to solve changes in code. It is part of the file spec even, so you can retrieve versions from files. (in unix or mac terminal, try "file xxxx.blend").

    Reply
  31. Gryphon on

    the version numbers are included in .blend files and in binaries, it allows version patches to solve changes in code.

    So... this isn't a problem between SVN revisions with the same version number? Or it doesn't matter because these are generally much smaller changes in code? Thanks for the reply! :)

    Reply
  34. Bobster on

    I have been downloading svn versions and building locally (I have a script that I run that automagically syncs files with the source directory, then builds blender, and moves the completed build to a desktop icon. One command to rule them all, one line to ..ok you get the idea. My version is usually newer than what is available on Graphicall, but for the last few versions, menu items have been blank (the Graphicalll versions are not). Also, when modelling, etc., occasionally I find things that are not finished. Perhaps thats why this is an Alpha release? Overall though, 2.5 is already much easier to use than 2.49b. I thought things would be finished when we get to release 25000 (we are at release 24820 or thereabouts).
    Bob

    Reply
  36. Campbell Barton (ideasman42) on

    @Bobster
    Sometimes the installed python scripts get out of sync or messed up, blender will copy the scripts to an installation directory but if there are some files there it can get confused... you could try remove the install dir and rebuild.
    This isnt like a full rebuild since it only needs to do the copy again, should be 1min or so.

    or... If your rebuilding your own often, I find the best way is to run blender from the directory where you do "svn up" and have dirs like source/ release/ etc.
    this means it always finds up to date scripts in ./release/scripts and you can disable the installation copy for SCons or CMake
    (WITH_BF_INSTALL / WITH_INSTALL), this way building is faster too.
    The only disadvantage is you can zip it up as easy and give it to someone else.

    for this to work youll need to symlink the final blender binary, command in unix looks like this...
    ln -s ../build/linux2/bin/blender ./blender.bin
    Now run blender from your build dir.

    - Hope this helps

    Reply

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