BMesh Status Update and Possible Sprint
From Joseph Eagar’s blog post, it seems that BMesh is nearing completion and that he’s aiming to do an intense testing sprint in near future.
BMesh is a new mesh system for Blender that will make it much easier for Blender developers to manipulate mesh data. One feature of BMesh is n-gons, which was explained to be just a side-effect of the system but I guess almost everybody would love to have that.
from the blog post:BMesh is nearing completion. I’m currently doing another merge, and I’m aiming to do an intense testing sprint in the near future. My life is rather hectic at the moment, but hopefully I will get bmesh production-ready as soon as possible.
I’m currently in northern Utah for health tests. I’m planning to head back to northern California (Sacramento) in a few weeks. If anyone knows of competent blender modelers in travel distance of Sacramento, I’d appreciate very much if they could leaves comments or email me so I can start making contacts (don’t post email addresses though).
I’m not sure of an exact time frame for completion (some unpredictable things came up) but hopefully bmesh can be merged into trunk sooner rather then later.
First :)
Great to hear an update! Can’t wait for the new mesh tools!
Having Bmesh will be nice.
Getting everyone to stop complaining about not having bmesh will be nicer. :)
Thanks for your work!
Isn’t this a bit deja vu, I am super skeptical of this because on that same blog there two or so post from months back stating something in a similar manner. ‘ Its almost done, it will be in Blender xx months time.’
Having played around with a build its pretty unstable atm. you didn’t have to try super hard to make it crash. So am taking the almost done statement with an not a grain but an ocean of salt.
A few users on blenderartists tested and played around with the some bmesh builds and we were listing bugs in this thread http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=192498
There is no shortage of people willing to test and hunt bugs so hopefully if updated builds start appearing am sure that thread will pick up steam again.
I am a tiny bit hopeful that this time, this is it and bmesh will finally appear but something always seems to come up that dashes those hopes.
ah the old bmesh when i first saw the idea i thought it was wonderful but i wonder if it will ever make it into blender it will make things much easer that’s for sure but it’s kind of well you know, tardy for class as far as i know blender is working on stabilization now so any way i wish you luck but i am not really expecting anything this release by the way i am just a nosy artist so don’t take me too seriously but i had really hoped for bmesh i will check out the new build and see what you’s got
bmesh for blender is like gegl for gimp…
Looks interesting ;)
Will you be able to switch it on and off or will it replace the current system?
Hope it comes quite soon…
Will the n-gon feature still create those horrible smoothing artifacts or are there also improvements to the shading and/or subsurfing tools that will address the artifacts that n-gons and poles always seem to bring to shading smoothers / geometry smoothers?
While mister “First” was being “First”, the rest of us were being productive. ;o) Just kidding!
Finally!!!
“BMesh is a new mesh system for Blender that will make it much easier for Blender developers much easier. ”
Ok, calm down ;) -not sure I’m the only one who caught that. -just debugging some grammar :D
on another note :D -this is great! I’m just hoping this will not lead to bad topology, but if the results are good, who cares :D
something must be done with “BMesh is a new mesh system for Blender that will make it much easier for Blender developers much easier.”
B mesh would be a great addition. Hope it would work well with other Blender functions. Watch your Health!
TLOZ: Why would you want to switch it off? It will be a total replacement of what’s currently in Blender and it’ll improve already existing features as well as add a lot of new ones.
Blending BriGuy: I’m pretty sure, that behaviour improves too :) – Still, it’s best to keep all quads but smoothing should still work better then. There already where some cases on normal problems which where resolved by bmesh
More important than the n-gons is probably the big update on retopology possibilities, making it very easy to rearrange poly flows and such…
Yay, finally a bmesh update :)
Not sure why this improvement is not more supported by the BF since, a) it is so core to Blender’s main functionality and b) holds such promise for the “easier” stuff to be enjoyed by future devs and users alike. If it really is all it promises to be, why isn’t there a whole team of devs devoting their skillz to this effort, and getting it done (“Git-Er-Done!”), rather than dinkin’ around for the, what, 2-plus years that its been dragging along now?
I guess its really not that great of a thing, eh? The core dev team doesn’t think enough of it to throw their weight behind it.
Honestly, can’t folks get serious about this and put it through, already?
I’m crossing fingers for better modelling tools like a proper knife and edge based bevel tool.. and some more, based on bmesh :)
The ability to support N-GONs with Bmesh is cool and it could speed up modeling in certain applications, however modeling with only Tris and Quads for beginners is a good way to learn modeling. When I taught Maya, a lot of students are just abusing the NGONs and in the end created models that have horrible topology. Modeling with Quads will force you to be more disciplined in keeping good topology. While I support having Bmesh and I have donated to Joseph’s effort, it doesn’t really matter to me whether I have Bmesh or not for now. Still its a good feature to have.
I must also applaud Joseph’s effort so far in plodding along with this project since he is pretty much the only guy working on this right now.
Bmesh…. Im waiting for that from years ago! :)
Thankyou!
@mzungu if it wasn’t a big thing or joe didn’t have the talent they wouldn’t hire him to fix bugs at the blender institute during the Sintel production… . It was clearly stated on his blog that he was hired by the blender institute and that bmesh would suffer delays (seems logical)
My bad, thanks guys!
Good to here! I’m very excited for Bmesh, it’s gonna make some things that suck to model, much easier. I have played with a few of the SVN branch B-mesh builds and B-mesh is, in my opinion, a far more sensible way to model.
Only thing I can recommend if you can mannage it, is try to avoid making any “like lightwave” decisions. The thing that makes Blender a great tool, for me, is that it isn’t like llightwave, stupid, clunky, barely usable by artists, lightwave.
As someone who has learned modeling utilizing only quads and tris, can someone give some examples of times and places where n-gons will greatly improve workflow? I’m not skeptical, as obviously it’s a huge deal to many people, just uninformed.
@Amar: You say that Lightwave is clunky? If you’re talking about “one in two” aspect of LW, then I agree. But Modeler is great for making models. I wish Blender had such possibilities one day. Layout is also good for certain tasks. Only the fact that there are two separated apps is really bad (and Hub is just not suitable salvation).
Well, BMesh is my biggest hope for comfortable modeling in Blender.
There is a lot of situations, especially in technical modelling, that CANNOT be made in current Blender otherwise, than very sluggish way! I still prefer to bring my models to Lightwave or Wings just to make some correct insets, bevels, extrudes, etc. Sometimes it’s really time consuming and inconvenient and definitely needless!
For me it’s time to donate! It’s a shame, that I still didn’t. :(
THANKS, Joseph, that you didn’t drop this significant task!
But also watch your health! Nobody has backup of it! ;)
Lack of n-gons always annoyed me…
Get well!
Gather ’round, yung-uns! In my day we didn’t even have quads yet, everything was triangles and we made our own tri-fans and alternating tri-strips, with explicit planning for the gore-rowdy light shading, in the snow, uphill both ways, only getting forty rods to the hogshead. An’ we done LIKED it that way, booyah!!
Oww. Typing in dialects gives me the worst headaches.
Am I the only one less excited about ngons, and more excited about the other aspects of Bmesh? Like the developer said, ngons are just a happy side-effect.
Will this bring back the bevel tool into Blender? The modifier isnt really what most modellers will need.
I’ve lived without ngons for so long, I’m not sure how much difference having ngons would make other than helping to clean up crappy geometry after a cut in the wrong place. I export a lot, and because some programs still don’t like ngons, I’d likely still continue with the quad and occasional tri thing.
I’m aware of some of the other advantages, but if all bmesh does is add flexibility to the bevel modifier, I’ll be very happy. :)
i’m seeing a lot ppl getting their hopes up for bmesh but what does it do exactly, aside from ngon capabilities?
http://www.pasteall.org/15227/python
an add-on that brings it back temporarily,
but i have to agree – i’m more excited about getting all of the long awaited modelling tools back (and some new ones) rather than ngons. Though ngons coupled with intelligent (not like the current ctrl-f fills) triangulation or better quad based remeshing would be incredible.
@snowcovered
http://blenderlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/09/bmesh-tour-1.html
Matt Heimlich, pretty much anyone doing CAD/arch stuff will love n-gons, as the associated photo hints. using tris/quads only you would often have to compensate detail by either adding vertices or edges. n-gons would keep it “cleaner”
with N-gons, a square wall with a round window can be ONE FACE.
I don’t need ngons in my workflow, but if Bmesh means we get a decent bevel tool again (one that can bevel without triangulation)… bring it on :-)
Blender + Bmesh > 3dmax in modeling ;-)
then only render part have < in Equation…
farewell autisticdesk.
I used Modo for about a year and I want to say that I just got accustomed to it’s mesh system with n-gons. It’s true that making complex CAD-like forms is really “pain-in-ass” without n-gons. B-mesh is a really good way!
Keep going, Joseph! And really care about your health.
@kijja Farewell it already :))
bmesh much the wait. I confess with shame do not have time to try all this news. But if it works well it will undeniably interesting.
Go hop guys and girls, I will eat a cake with apricots with a cup of coffee!
I am really happy that youre going to make this ready, but more I’ll hope that you’ll get your health back if there is some problem. :)
So please don’t live too hectic, there is in the churchyard already tons of priceless mens and women who worked over of their limits… :/
Sorry if I sounded like a mother/father or smthg.
Maybe the reason why the development of Bmesh is dragging on, it’s because of all of those recurring monthly cash donations.. If Bmesh would be complete the extra monthly cash-flow would stop too! :P