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Developer Meeting Notes, July 15, 2012

39

Blender 2.64 is a tough cookie to crack - the bug count remains high and the release may be postponed until september.

Ton Roosendaal writes:

Here's the notes from today's meeting, irc.freenode.net #blendercoders

1) Blender 2.64 status

  • Bugs bugs bugs... tracker keeps stable around 300 open issues. We still need more developers to close & fix!
  • Campbell Barton suggests to disable some features before release. He'll come with a proposal for which ones later.
  • New Compositor and Masking can be finished up this month
  • Cycles has a lot of open issues, with Brecht on holidays now we might better need docs or some tooltip/widget to warn about experimental features. In general Cycles' status is better than in 2.63, worth releasing.
  • Ton Roosendaal proposes to postpone 2.64 until mid September, and in the meantime keep trunk feature-frozen (BCon3), with as exception approved/stable work for Mango - which is mostly color pipeline and grading features.

2) Other projects

  • Sergey Sharybin will do sequencer work, grading tools. Docs or proposal will be published in 2 weeks max.
  • Sergej Reich (and Daniel Genrich) proposes to remove the old "Continuous physics option - this now becomes default anyway. Will be done together with future merger of the Physics GSoC project.

3) Google Summer of Code

  • Google midterm results: out of the 16 projects, 2 students didn't pass midterm due to lack of results. That's the projects for Cycles Subsurface Scattering and Polygon tessellation. Fourteen students will now head at a successful completion of their work! Congrats :)

Laters,

-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.

39 Comments

  1. Thanks for keeping us updated and thank you so much for the hard work of all involved in the developpment :-)

  2. I'm glad they're holding off release. I've spent the afternoon using the new compositor(which I LOVE it's newfound speed), but when I render it freezes every 30 frames or so.

  3. Firstly big thanks to Ton and the Devs for the hard work they are doing. Personally I'm waiting for the upgrades that are coming with 2.64 for cycles. Please take your time and make a superb 2.64 version as you guys know.

    • One little thing I wanted to ask. Is it planned that in the future Cycles would allow like pathtracing ot photon mapping render methods?

  4. "
    Ton Roosendaal proposes to postpone 2.64 until mid September" -> SAD
    "
    That’s the projects for Cycles Subsurface Scattering" -> SAD
    Today is a bad day... I need a drink.

    • Ton Roosendaal proposes to postpone 2.64 until mid September" -> SAD

      Not sad - it means a focus on quality - Quality means for me stable and bug free (or close to). Thats important for profs. I am only hobbiest but i like it too if an application work.... so give them some time !

  5. I guess I'll be in the minority with my opinion, especially where the more experienced artists are concerned. It seems that Blender is being developed far too quickly for us novices to catch up with the developments. Half the stuff that's being mentioned about the new features etc have me stumped and the other half I'm just clueless with. It's like you guys are all talking another langauge as far as I'm concerned. I still use the 2.5x version to learn on as there are absolutely no 2.6x instructional books on the market due to, as I suspect, the redundant way in which the fast development of the software leaves these learning materials in the gutter. I could buy the instructional DVDs that are targeted specifically for 2.6 but as they are far more expensive than books, they still don't solve the problem of them being redundant as soon as another release comes out.

    Wouldn't it be better to simply release Blender on, say, a yearly basis with ALL the major and minor updates (complete with a comprehensive guide/book/DVD to instruct you on the new features etc) as opposed to a release with little updates every few months? That way, at least us new guys won't feel overwhelmed with the amount we have to learn and then re-learn it all over again and come back to square one because of the sheer fast paced development.

    • Nop. Impossible. Quality libre software requires frequent releases and the community help. BTW, you, as a novice user, could download Blender "every year" and that would be the same for you.

    • I agree with Chaos: more frequent releases (with correspondingly fewer changes) is of great benefit.

      However, I also understand your point about not understanding some of the new features - even though I have used Blender for 6 years. Rest assured, though. The hardest part of learning Blender is "learning how to learn" Blender - the very first steps. Just keep at it, and soon enough learning new features will be easy and a lot of fun!

      I always try to keep up with these meeting minutes and the release notes so I know the names and "topics" of new features. As a result, when I'm working on a project those features are available to me even though I haven't actually learned to use it yet (at this point, I generally go find a tutorial). But the short story is: staying up-to-date on a high level means you have access to new features without spending all the time to learn them.

  6. Mustard-getting Abraham on

    *tough cookie
    or
    *hard nut to crack

    "Tough cookie to crack", is too short through the corner.

  7. That new subdivision surface modifier is exactly what I was looking for! I was modeling a rather low poly hard surface creature for http://AncientBeast.com , to be more precise the Living Armor. The issue was that when I wanted to get the creature more smooth and detailed, but applying a subd modifier on it would just break it's overall shape. And having to add edge loops to reinforce the shape or use sharp edges weren't real options. Cheers!

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