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Blender 2.66 Release Candidate Available

37

Blender_logoThe first release candidate for Blender 2.66 is now available for testing!

Ton Roosendaal writes:

Hi,

The 2.66 release is being expected within a week! To ensure it's stable and well tested you can get the Release Candidate build from blender.org here.

As usual, bug reports can be submitted at blender.org too.

Most important to test is to verify if everything that worked before (in 2.65a or before) is still fine. We don't like regressions!

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.

37 Comments

  1. 2.66! Oh the humanity! I have been loving the new bevel enhancements. Its strange integrating it into my workflow especially since it requires some planning before use. These updates get better and better! Keep up the good work devs.

  2. Yes, that's why I would love a bevel modifier. Select edges and vertices, mark as bevel, and select Bevel modifier (with new code).
    It would be good to have beveled borders in render, too. I think there was a patch for cycles somewhere in blenderartists.

  3. It is funny I have been using blender for many years ,now these days I truly do feel love for it . Well, thank you every one who has done their part on this magnificent tool.

  4. Always the same bug for me in cycles preview...Hit F12 it works ans cuda memory error in viewport rendering (since 2.65) with à 590gtx
    I have to use the intel gma for display and it all works fine

    • @ninja7 i had the same problem as you with gtx690. solution to your problem is the newer drivers from nvidia they will not work downgrade your drivers. i am using 306.97 had no problems at all.Another solution would be to just select 1 gpu for rendering in blender user preferences system cuda device. i had to select just my top gpu to be able to render in the viewport with the newer drivers.

  5. It will be nice to save view-port cycle rendering and bring back view port rending Curve setting instead of a modifier in composite video. I hate making panels it slow down my pipeline work.

  6. Started out learning 3D with blender... Something am beginning to think wasn't such a good idea coz now am so addicted to blender I can't seem to try Maya or the others.

  7. I'm really happy about the collada shape export. Nice!

    On a related topic I'm wondering: is there a reason why it's not possible to apply the mirror modifier while there's shape keys on the mesh?

    It seems to me that it shouldn't be difficult to figure out how to propagate the effects of the modifier into the shapes.
    Are there situations where the user doesn't want the shapes to be mirrored as well?

    • It's the same reason why in Blender 2.49 you couldn't add vertices to a multiresolution mesh in edit mode. While it might seem trivial to do, attempting to code it will show just how non-trivial it actually is.

    • At any rate I should have suggested the way to do what you are attempting. As you know from working with shapekeys, it's best not to add any geometry as it will make things very unpredictable, even if it is just choosing W-Subdivide on the default cube. That's just the nature of things... shapekeys are meant to be used on the mesh in its final state so it should be the last step of the workflow after generator-type modifiers are applied.

      Though I'm not actually clear on why it's necessary to apply your mirror modifier, I completely get that something in your mesh setup makes it so. When you are faced with that situation, using Mesh Tools X-Mirror is the way to work when you know you will be using shape keys. This allows you to do mirrored editing when you need to and still work with your shapekeys. Also it's one less modifier to keep track of in your stack order.

      • (If you aren't familiar with that tool, you use it in place of the Modifier version of the mirror tool. Start with a model that is already symmetrical and with no mirror modifiers in your modifier stack. Enable Mesh Tools X-Mirror using the checkbox in the toolshelf panel on the left side of the 3D viewport. Be sure that your symmetry is along the object's Local X-Axis as that is what Blender will use.)

        • Yes, I am familiar with x-mirror. I used to use it all the time.

          The mirror modifier is way better however, in that it allows for proportional modelling, and that it is impossible to break symmetry. With x-mirror, It's sometimes very hard to repair damage to symmetry and allow x-mirror to work again.

          I don't know how often you've tried building faces with face shapes, but proportional modelling is a go-to tool for that task, and x-mirror can't be activated while it's on (this is actually better than it's old behaviour: it used to appear to be on, but did nothing).

          Anyways, I don't use x-mirror anymore. I keep the mirror modifier applied, build the head and the shapes, make duplicates of my head (one for each shape), "blend form shape" each shape onto the basis of each duplicate shape, remove all the shapes from each head and apply the mirrors, and then "Join as shape" the duplicates back onto my basis head. If this causes the vertices to be re-indexed, it happens in a consistent way because I'm still able to use "Join as shape" and get the right result.

          Believe it or not, my work around is actually faster than simply working without proportional editing. I intend to script this workaround because I don't want to rely on x-mirror.

          Symmetry breaking is another big problem. If I ever accidentally bump some vertices, this can break symmetry and x-mirror will never work again for that set of vertices. Sometimes I can fix this by turning off prop modelling, activating x-mirror, selecting the affected vertice, and then "grab"ing them without moving them. This causes the vertices on the mirrored side to snap into place. This doesn't always work though ... and I don't know why. It might have something to do with breaking symmetry on the basis shape.

          Asymmetry can be a good thing in a face, but I'd rather have a symmetrical basis and only use a shape to create asymmetry.

          • Well I'm not sure where to go from there. Maybe it would be a simple code fix to propagate mirrored changes into shapekeys, or maybe not if there are significant under-the-hood barriers that make it non-trivial, but it does appear to be a real issue.

        • Altenatively, it would definitely be worth getting x-mirror to work with prop. editing. That would remove most my problems. Symmetry breaking is an issue for me, but I can usually fix it, and when I can't, there may be something I'm doing wrong.

          • One idea I just had... proportional editing would need its own "clipping" option to work with X-Mirror. Another idea... maybe it's something they were putting off until the new Mesh architecture was in place, like they did with Bevel and Knife, and still have yet to do with "clean" Booleans. Maybe the new Mesh engine will make all these things easier to re-engineer.

  8. I like to see one day blender in every website with 3d content .
    it grow every day and better better .
    thanks all people that create Blender at first version to now .
    its one of bower full software in open source world .

  9. Uhmm I noticed a problem with this blender 2.66. I was working on a model and placing the material nodes and suddenly blender rudely exits. No visible errors. No complaints. Jst... poof! Again and again. I had the viewport set to materials view and the new cycles material preview on (if that helps). I use an Intel core i5 hp Pav. dm4.

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