The Blender Developers review the Blender 2.66 release, and look forward to Blender 2.67.
Ton Roosendaal writes:
Hi all,
Here are the notes of today's session in irc.freenode.net #blendercoders
1) 2.66 release review
Some showstoppers have been found already:
- A change in how textures use alpha (option moved to Image block), required a do-version patch which crashes for library linking in cases.
- Compositor: File Output node missed socket input menu.
- Dynatopo crash in some cases.
We will check next sunday again, then do apply fixes on the release branch and call for an 'a' build...
Important note: let's not do cleanups of code now please, except when approved by all involved module owners!
2) Targets for 2.67
- Freestyle, no real news, but final review can start soon.
- Sergey Sharybin worked on (motion tracking) Bundle Adjustment, should be in svn soon.
Proposal for release planning:
- March 10 bcon2 (= targets are defined)
- March 31 bcon3 (= targets are in svn)
- April 14 bcon4 (= only fixes, test builds and/or RC)
- April 21 bcon5 (= release imminent)
3) Other projects
- Antonis Riakiotakis works on subsurf drawing speed improvement.
- Ton Roosendaal suggested to work on replacing GL_SELECT (OpenGL select feature, used for object mode). Too many problems are arising with it now. Could be simply replaced with using back-buffer color codes. Alternative is to do brute-force raycast tests. Might even work surprisingly fast.
26 Comments
Another week with no real news in sunday meeting...
... again hope in next one.
Obvious troll is obvious.
we cant have showstoppers every release. It would stop our shows. the last update should give you enough new tools to master until they open the next pandoras box of new features. Im still busy figuring out the ray length node.
Right after a release, I would say no news is good news! Congratulations devs!
...Forget you unappreciative folks out there who expect a blockbuster release with every announcement about this development done by a small team of developers but who forget that the world doesn't revolves around you.
can't wait for SSS and volumetrics X3
guess I have to wait a bit longer
To be honest, I don't know what much of this means.
I'm not a programmer and so when Ton Roosendaal suggested to work on replacing GL_SELECT (OpenGL select feature, used for object mode). Too many problems are arising with it now. Could be simply replaced with using back-buffer color codes. Alternative is to do brute-force raycast tests. Might even work surprisingly fast.
I have no idea what the means. Does the Flux Capacitor need to be replaced or not? Can we get back from the future???
As I understand it, Blender uses an OpenGL function to select objects in the viewport. If there are many hi-res meshes in the scene, selecting becomes very, very slow. (I don't know what the other problems it's causing are though.) Replacing the OpenGL function with a different method can greatly speed up responsiveness when selecting.
Considering GL_SELECT has been deprecated for 4+ years perhaps they update their code base.
https://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/showthread.php/163846-Geometry-Selection-using-glRenderMode%28-GL_SELECT-%29
GL_SELECT creates problems with selecting objects in big scenes, especially for AMD and intel cards - big delays (up to 20 seconds) when selecting objects in big scenes in viewport. This is one of the greatest problems of my workflow with Blender now. A fix would be much appreciated.
I guess a blog entry called "Developer Meeting Notes" kind of suggests its is meant for developers.
But most people that use blender are artists and enthusiasts, so a few explanations from the write of the blog wouldn't go amiss.
can someone tell me why the new ridged body buttons dissapear after a couple of minutes. is it suppsed to be that way. when i hit the add button on the tool shelf i get some optins in the physic's panel. havent seen anything about it on the bug tracker. havent checked in a couple days. just wondering if im missing something.
They shouldn't disappear, but are you sure they're actually disappearing?
yea there gone cant figure out what im doing wrong. mabye an addon is causing it. dont know.
Please don't forget also the pie menus addon. It was a 2.67 target and it improves the workflow. Thanks.
Pie menus may be cool but for me (and not only me I think) it's just somebody's habit. When I started using Blender (after Modo) some features seemed to be "really strange", hot keys were "wrong" and etc. :)
Region overlap is a real breakthrough for me! A "solid" view while you're modelling is much more important than pie menus.
The feature to setup any hot key to almost any command with different type of window's contexts - is a real goodie in Blender. I like to compare this to 3ds Max which doesn't have this and "hot keying" there is really ugly :)
Some real addons that really speedup the workflow:
LoopTools
F2
BSurfaces
Motion Trail
The face snapping feature itself is mesmerizing! (in complex topology cases it let you save a lot of time and get smooth surfaces without a headache - using "reference surfaces" for any others)
Of course the new Bevel tool is much better and makes me happy :)
so... beyond these monsters the pie menus addon is good.. but not as a lightning.
P.S. Didn't wanted to sound offensive of so.
No, you don't sound offensive at all, I understand your point of view. For me, with pie menus navigation seems more unified in general and faster especially in sculpt mode. Using this type of menus is a common habit in Modo and Maya users. Anyway, Pie Menus will be added as addon. So you can disable it, if you prefer the previous workflow.
Yeah, you're right. I'm looking on things from my "tower". And currently I'm not sculpting.
I say what I think. Problems?
There's no malice in my words.
If you think I'm a troll ignore me instead of say something stupid.
Do I have to say something that I don't think? I guess/know many people think that in 2-3 weeks we had no real news about dev because focused on 2.66 release. Now it's released and there's just bug fixing as news. Shut up. I say what I want and I don't deserve to be called troll.
Forgive him (if you're not "t"). Being in anger I called Michalis "troll" in BA forum :) He's strange but not a troll I think. But that was my reaction to his words about Devs (what I've thought that he doesn't respect them).
So... if you tell something offensive relatively to Devs of Blender's developement... Expect something offensive for yourself.
P.S. People, don't blame me - it's not a flame but I'm just explaining.
The new about working for a better selecting feature is a BIG new for me.
Selecting isn't fast on good videocards also.
It is funny, but every time I read that the development team have found some "showstoppers", I get excited for a second as I imagine they might have discovered some great new hidden features that even they had not known about.
The term "showstopper" originated from a performance or segment of a theatrical production that induces a positive audience reaction strong enough to pause the production, so it was a really great thing to have at least one showstopper in every show.
Although it is now slang for a bug that makes an implementation effectively unusable, in my opinion, in the true original sense, all of the amazing new features in Blender 2.66 are showstoppers! ;-)
JUST STARTING TO FIGURE OUT THE NEW RIDGED BODY STUFF. THIS IS F-N FANTASTIC AND REAL TIME R U KIDDIN ME. CANT WAIT TO SEE SOME TUTS ON THESE NEW TOYS. IF ANYBODY KNOWS OF ANY SPREAD THE WORD. BLENDER IS GREAT BLENDER IS GOOD.LOL :))))))))))))
found out what caused those pesky ridged bodt buttons to disapear ha.apparently if you have the destructabily editor enabled it makes those buttons go away for some reason.
Impressive Release. Great Job guys!