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Blender Developer Meeting Notes, July 17 2011

29

Well what do you know - an update to the knife tool is on it's way ;-)

1) 2.58 and next release

  • New design for managing keymaps is under review, Brecht will handle this next week(s).
  • Campbell is back from holidays! Next week more bug fixing, and Unity UDK/FBX testing. Note: Unity could refresh direct blend reader (like they had for 2.4), would be nice target for them to work on. Campbell can advice.
  • Daniel Salazar reminds the much faster "Mesh Deform" binding code should be in release. Daniel used it successfully for months. On Brecht's review list still.
  • Python changes discussion:
    • First off: all changes are being gathered in wiki clearly.
    • Proposal: from now on, critical changes get announced first on the bf-python list for review.
    • The Python API owner team gets expanded with two new team members, proposal is to add Sergey and Daniel S. Campbell will use them to give approval on API updating as well.
  • 2.59 splash committee: Sebastian K, Francois T and Daniel Genrich should appoint new judges.
  • Knife tool upgrade & fixing: under review/design still. Bastien Montagne gives it a try.
  • Bastien updated patch for Weight Group modifier. Campbell checks.
  • Nathan Letwory: Mike Erwin's SpaceNavigator branch is not ready for 2.59 yet, but they will try! Wiki page or doc with design overview is coming this week too.

2) Other projects, branches

  • Sergey: stripped the Carve "boost" lib (saves 6 MB). This needs a test in OSX (compile) and Windows (speed).
  • Question, how is Ocean Sim coming? Todd McIntosh or Matt Ebb know!
  • Note, branches ready for mergers can notify it here.
  • Nicholas Bishop updated skin and re-mesh patches with latest trunk.

3) GSoC

  • Most of the students made cool midterm videos, Ton will collect and post article.
  • Midterm passed: one drop out (fluids), one didn't make it (game logic), 15 continued.

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.

29 Comments

  1. Congratulations to that 15 students, as for the other two, I have no complain without knowing full story. I myself was warded 5 day for burnout, resign, and my night class / study went down drastically.

    So I guess I can't say much.

  2. They all tried, Floridajo. Some didnt make it. I dont think you should be rude.

    By the way excellent progress by blender developers. Keep it up.

  3. Ton Roosendal on

    Yes, and as you can see, we're going to improve the Knife tool as well. You will be able to cut in a line, snapping to a point or an edge. There won't be any need to select beforehand. This is coming in 2.59. Please let us know in these comments how happy you are about this. ;-)

  4. SpaceNavigator is comming back, Yea! I know this was not on the hot list, but I sure have missed it from the 2.xx versions.

  5. is that news on the knife tool for real, if it is than I am going to do when epic happy dance now if only bevel and all the options for loop cutting were back.

  6. Better knife tool!!! I love the sound of that, I find the current one is very cumbersome to handle in during the modeling process.

    I'm sure it's been talked about, but will it be possible to make the knife to add the vertices in a cut as well as separate the places it cuts into overlapping, but separate vertices? would potentially save a bit of time when trimming off geometry. or is this functionality already there?

  7. Thank you, Ton, for pushing a new knife tool! Lol everyone knows that there will bea drove of people that will still complain, but snapping with the knife tool sounds like a good plan :)

  8. Duarte.framos on

    YAY new knife tool!!
    I understand it is a bit of a waste of time coding this, since BMesh is supposed to replace all the current mesh tools, but still, since it has been so long, and BMesh is still not ready for merging, i believe it is a good thing to make a temporary one.
    Thanks TON and all the developers!!!! (and thst "pkowal1982" guy who made the video withe the feature request)

  9. So the "game logic" one that didn't make it is the nodal logic for the BGE, right? I'm hoping I've misunderstood... (pleaseohpleaseohplease...)

    BTW Happy, not only for the knife tool, but for all the awesome projects that *did* make it (retopo, bge animation improvements,camera tracker,dynamic paint,BGE bugfixing and polish...)

    Thanks for your efforts all (including the two people not continuing). I'm really looking forward to seeing the results?

  10. Does anyone know when sequencer functionality from 2.49 will be brought back to 2.5x ? Currently you can`y change image strips` content. I know it is first in the To Do List for Video Sequencer, but is it assigned to anyone?

    Blender 2.5x is really good. It`s great that all you devs imprve it every day. But it would be best to have the functionality from 2.49 and then go on with the new features. Now I have to work often with two Blenders simultaneously. 2.5x for animation, 2.49 for movie editing.

  11. Yes! I've missed the knife tool so much. It's the only reason I still keep a 2.49 version at work. Glad to hear it's soon here :o).

  12. No mention of QT here, is it solely windows blender that is effected or is macs going to be an issue?
    Can some one please gain feed back on this.

    Thankyou

  13. Greatly appreciated... the efforts of the 17 students. All this code stuff is hard work and creates wonderful headaches. Wonder how many analgesic medications they take. We should be supplying them.

    I hope the knife tool will really improve. The present knife tool is quite cumbersome to use. I will wait with great expectations.

    I would also like to watch those 'cool midterm videos'. Where are they?

  14. "Yes, and as you can see, we’re going to improve the Knife tool as well. You will be able to cut in a line, snapping to a point or an edge. There won’t be any need to select beforehand. This is coming in 2.59. Please let us know in these comments how happy you are about this."
    Happy? How about *elated*, *estatic*, *excited beyond repair*? This is wonderful news, Ton... means I can *stay* in 2.5x. And it sounds like it's going to be a much better tool than we had before, too. I will continue sending donations: you deserve more, of course! Wow, what an amazing product and development team!

  15. Awesome to hear that us Unity users won't have to directly export all our .fbx files anymore! This has been an issue for me for quite some time, so I'm a little bit EXTEMELY EXCITED!

  16. Very happy to hear that blend files will be read back by Unity. Today, it is only working by going thru hoops.

  17. I would like to make a donation specifically toward development of the knife tool, to help speed it along. Is it possible to make targeted donations like that?

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