Blender Developers Meeting Notes: June 19, 2011
A long list! Highlight: Blender 2.58 release scheduled for this week :)
Hi all,
Short summary of today’s topics: (check at least the 2.58/9 proposal!)
Blender 2.5 Development
- Via python (and custom properties) scripters can now define own ‘update’ calls, to trigger dependencies on other data. A document example for boolean is here. See also the current change log. Feel free to arrange/organize, but don’t add new items (is being handled by Campbell & Mario)
- Question from Dalai: BGE fixes in GSoC branch can go to trunk anytime, if maintainers agree of course.
- Open release targets still (ton goes over todos and keymap issue with Campbell/Brecht to make a final target list):
- Keymap saving/load, add-on key changes
- VSE: correct frame interpolation for ‘speed’ effect strip
- Group-linked cloth fails still
- According to Dalai there are already new icons for Game Logic, Ton mails Jendzrych to check
- To respect our bimonthly release schedule, proposal is:
- call for a 2.58 this tuesday, release 1-2 days after (no real freeze needed)
- define August 1st as last day of “bug fix & 2.5 targets period” and release 2.59 for Siggraph.
- Then starting in august, branches and patches can migrate over.
- The removal of “texture face” part one proposal is nearly ready.
- This gets a review for 2.59. It doesn’t remove the per-face assigning for Images yet!
2) Other projects
- We still need a good 2.6x migration planning for branches, but a lot of good patches are awaiting anyway (nodes, weight modifier, FBX import, camera sensor, texface removal)
- Status of BMesh? Can Joe report about feasible deadline date to move trunk & release?
- Ton also proposes to review Brecht’s old “remove from Blender” list again for the 2.60 version.
- Update from Ton on Mango: announcement of project has been postponed to be september earliest, this to accommodate for long Blender & Foundation todos as well. Project start then is late 2011 or early 2012 soonest.
3) GSoC
- Motion tracking: libmv works on 3d reconstruction now. Might see first tests work in 2 weeks.
- Ton will collect all student’s wiki progress pages, for everyone to easier browse student’s work
Thanks!
-Ton-
Really exciting news. I was not expecting 2.58 as soon as that. So we may expect 2.6 to be release in Oct 2011 right?
Really a big big thanks to all the Devs that are working so hard and Ton for his vision for Blender.
Just a little thing. I’m actually working on projects that needs to be exported for 3D Max. Seems that for 2.57 Collada is not working. Though Autodesk.dxf is working fine except that you must relink the textures. Is there still some Devs working this? It would be great if Collada could work again.
Again lots of thanks to everyone for such a great software.
Good news, thanks for the update!
Cheers,
_______
JG
any updates about Christopher Neal?
Well… I miss the “unlimited clay” project :/
go ahead blender team!
Greetings
I don’t get it… so when will final stable vesion come? On blender.org is written about june -.-
to hear of a feasible BMesh date would be really great
Great!! Love the tracker work!! I can’t wait to see it working in 3D! ;)
2.58 this week? Nice!!!
Keep up the good work people!
Greetings
@flagus: Collada fixes are coming. Some are already in trunk and thus will be in 2.58 :)
How come we don’t here much about cycles renderer these days. What is the update on cycles please?
@flagus: you can always use .obj to import it in max, i always do this and it works. just make sure that you checked the import material box so the materials will be imported also.
Collada can handle a lot more than obj (animation, skinning, advanced materials, etc.) Anyway join us on IRC in #blendercollada to discuss more :)
@pjoe thx for answering
@Akira thx for the tip. I sure its gonna save me a lot of time :).
In the same area. Do you guys know if when you export a scene to another program like 3D max. Does it support like, parent_child, groups of objects and more importantly animation done in the new Blender? Those area might become important soon for me. I know its not the right place but would be grate if anyone could confirm me those little things.
@flagus: there is a GSoC project to improve collada animation import/export: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Phabtar/Project_Proposal_for_GSoC_2011
I believe currently animation export only does linear interpolation for all keys.
Blender will never be taken seriously until the modeling tools are updated. I really want to like blender but the lack of ngons and basic modeling tools (i.e. edge bevel) make it near impossible to give it serious thought. I really wish the next open project would focus on modeling tools and sculpting tools. Perhaps “Project Kiwi” focusing on creating a wide variety of highly detailed open source characters.
One could wish…
What about the cleanup and merge of Mike Erwins 6-DOF release? I heard it was aimed for Siggraph this year – is this still true/doable or are there different plans in the meantime?
If so I have to start digging out my Spacenavigator again, soon :D
Zombine, Blender 2.49 had a proper edge bevel tool, but for some reason it hasn’t transferred over to 2.5x yet. I’m thinking they’re waiting for BMesh to become complete, because then nGons will be available and so forth.
On a personal note, nGons are kinda rubbish in some ways. Everything’s just made of triangles internally anyway.
3d Camera tracking! Already! I think we really have to thank the libmv developers for giving us such a huge head start in camera tracking.
Tynach, the only people who don’t care about having ngons seems to be Blender users. Sure, you can model without ngons, but it is more efficient to do so with them. With Blender anything is possible, just not efficient. Time is money.
@Zombie
Blender will always be taken seriously. Even your point about modeling tools work is noticed.
The modeling tools have been worked on so much this year and last!
Work is still being done on them! Did you read this week’s meeting minutes about Bmesh above? That is going to take care of ngons, beveling, and so much more, dude!
Besides being the sickest open source program ever made, Blender comes with a community that is f!@#in’ amazing, right everyone?
Zombine:
Agree that good poly modeling is essential and that Blender 2.5 is lacking. The BMesh project people are talking about is a rewrite of the poly modeling, and it looks to be much better. There’s a dev progress blog here:
http://bmeshblender.wordpress.com/
When this work is finished and merged into Blender, we’ll have proper mesh modeling. Hope it’s making good progress!
“Well… I miss the “unlimited clay” project :/”
It’s still in Wip.
And it’s heading in a good direction.
“I don’t get it… so when will final stable vesion come?”
Never. There is no such thing as “the final blender”.
And if you mean only “stable”. 2.57 is labeled as the first stable release.
If you mean 2.6, it’s coming after 2.59 … so ~4 months?
“How come we don’t here much about cycles renderer these days. What is the update on cycles please?”
Cycles is doing well. But all the work done is not really visible to the artists atm. Bug fixes and etc…
New features will not be added any time soon.
“Blender will never be taken seriously until the modeling tools are updated…..”
They are in the works. Check out the Bmesh branch.
Expect blender to have all those problems fixed at 2.6, maybe even 2.59 .
“Blender 2.49 had a proper edge bevel tool, but for some reason it hasn’t transferred over to 2.5x ”
Bevel is already in the blender Bmesh branch.
“On a personal note, nGons are kinda rubbish in some ways. Everything’s just made of triangles internally anyway.”
No, on the contrary. Under the hood they are Ngons, but they are displayed as triangles.
And Ngons are essential for box modeling.
“Agree that good poly modeling is essential and that Blender 2.5 is lacking.”
Blender is the best/fastest tool I used for modeling ever, because of the quick hotkey driven workflow. And yet it’s going to get even better when bmesh is done…
“When this work is finished and merged into Blender, we’ll have proper mesh modeling. ”
Actually, Trunk will be merged to Bmesh, not the other way around.
Yeah, that’s weird, but hey, that’s what I read.
“Hope it’s making good progress!”
It sure is.
“Well… I miss the “unlimited clay” project :/”
Raul has told me that there’s an update (re: Unlimited Clay and 3d coat) coming soon. :) I honestly have no idea what the update is though…
I tried Wings3D which has nGons and hated it, couldn’t do anything with it. Tried clicking an edge, and it selected half the edge. Took me a while to realize that this was due to nGons. How can people work like that? Box modelling, with efficient selection tools etc. is much clearer and faster.
Well done to the Blender team!
@Hate nGons
You’ll get the hang of it, don’t worry. And when you will, you will see the benefits.
Humans fear what they don’t understand.
I read many of comments about the missing of bevel (available in 2.49).
Others of 2.49 missing features is planned to be reintegrated ( reactor particle for example )?
Btw , continue your good works guys , your works always impressed me.
This week! Well good new,
We have SVG import, Local Solidify, the wonderfull looptool for 2.5.
We just need the local edge bevel and I guess we are ready to switch the Blender 2.5.
It will hopefully be this week.
Thanks for your hard work guys.
I have to read up on the removing text face, i hope I still be able to assign a seperate UV texture image map to each face I desire thus being able to reuse textures.
“Ton also proposes to review Brecht’s old “remove from Blender” list again for the 2.60 version.”
Hmm I remember what a can of worms that was dear Ton. The feeling I got from the list was a coder’s decision to remove useful features because it was ‘to much work to maintain’ as an argument seemingly disregarding the usefulness to artists.
Please handle with uppermost care. Please!
I really appreciate Brecht’s work on Blender but the list felt a bit overkill.
Concerning features… is it me or are some GSoC projects not included. I’m kinda wondering about the input devices support, mainly the 3DConnexion I bought a few years back exclusively for use with Blender and till now I kinda used it for Google Earth mainly. And Wacom tablets, my tablet also support touch for rotate and zoom, migth be interesting as well
Hi, I’m kinda new to blender, started with 2.5, can someone tell me what the edge bevel tool is and what it does? google didn’t give clear answers.
Also, I read that n-gons are very useful for box-modeling but, when I saw some modeling videos in maya, they always wanted to “clean up” the character afterwards by removing not only triangles but all polygons with more than 4 vertex, so why is so important? I only understand that is very useful for architecture, right?
@SEbastian
Bevel is a bit hard to describe. The only good explenation I can think of without giving pictures is a kind of smooth for edges/vertexies. beveling an edge creates two edges, the face between them is half the orientation of each.
You never want ngons in animations, but they are very useful as a tool while you are working on your model. There is a reason all those maya tutorials cleaned up and didn’t model clean in the first place. In architecture and non-animated stuff ngons make life MUCH easier.
what is the current state of sph particles surface generation ? hope devs tackle this one soon
Mango!! [Well, now I know, that I shouldn’t disturb Ton until September :)]
2.58 this week, oh yeah! Thank Blender team. And I want to thanks Sergey for the camera tracker
Great! can’t wait for the camera tracking to be out. Very excited about 2.58. Wonder what 2.6x will be like?
“can someone tell me what the edge bevel tool is and what it does”
Same as the bevel modifier, only as a tool in edit mode, used on selected edges.
“so why is so important?”
Edge loops!
I am hoping they get on with support for NDoF support. I eyeballed a 3dconnexion mouse a few months back and saw that it would work in Blender…but that was 2.49. Now that I finally bought a NDoF mouse, I have to downgrade to 2.49.
According to 3dConnexion support, they are leaving development for a plug-in in the hands of the Blender crew. (FYI…they do have an SDK). If only i knew anything about python…. :-(
Does anyone know when the Surfacing will be ready for Particle fluids? I have a Huge sewer system project with small and large pipes throughout and nothing works except Particle Fluids for simulating.
The only thing missing is a surface mesh for it. Metaballs or cubes look like Goo and not water and solid balls look like a bunch of bouncing bubble balls.
Thank you all for your hard work on Blender !
I told my business partner I can do everything in Blender for our clients then I get this big sewer job.
I don’t want to use anything else. Love it too much!
Scott
Стыжусь писать на английском, по этому простите меня.
n-gons это необходимая вещь, при моделировании декора, узоров, некоторых сложных вещей только полигонами с четыремя углами очень затратно и не всегда хорошо. Вся надежда на BMesh