Blender Internal renderer removed from 2.8
After 25 years, the Blender Internal renderer got removed from the 2.8 branch. This will help development, but I can’t help but feel a little sad.
Blender Internal (render) just got removed from the 2.8 branch. Bye bye, you served us well! #b3d pic.twitter.com/4ixOZ8JmcX
— Ton Roosendaal (inactive)? (@tonroosendaal) April 19, 2018
Adding new things to Blender gets much easier that way. The Blender Internal code started in early 90s. Over 25 years old! Functionally, Eevee can (and will) completely replace it.
— Ton Roosendaal (inactive)? (@tonroosendaal) April 19, 2018
If it makes their developing work easier, then I support it 100%.
R.I.P Blender internal!
I will not missing.
RIP lol
I’m still one of the holdouts that uses Blender Internal most of the time as I usually don’t need PBR. And for instructional purposes, which is my main use for Blender, I think it’s better to use the legacy renderer for beginners and switch to Cycles later.
Also, this is likely to break compatibility for files using Blender Internal. Has it stuck around long enough that it needs to go? Maybe.
There is still the option to use an older version of Blender… which I do all the time for certain things. Critical work can then be saved without BI materials and opened in 2.8 — assuming of course there are issues with compatibility.
The new eevee render is making blender internal obsolete. It can do anything the internal can and better. You don’t have to use pbr in eevee. (i personally think it’s good practice anyway since it’s more useful in almost any industry)
Also I don’t think the legacy material system is better for beginner’s as it is very confusing to use. The node editor is way more intuitive, and the basic stuff can still be done from the side menu.
e.g. you have a material output node. and you drop in a texture node, and connect the two and done.
I think it’s better to bite the bullet and just take the little time to remap your brain to the new system. Because in the end it’s going to make your life easier then it’s now.
And yes it will break compatibility, but there is always the older version available for download.
The node editor is more intuitive? Hmm, not for me! I am the artistic type, I am not good with nodes – they are not my way of thinking! Sliders … that would be more intuitive! You don’t need all that technical background, just slide … and you see the result at once! That is intuitive – from my point of view.
Until now I have always avoided using Cycles. The Blender Internal was much more understandable for me. Much more accessible and easier to use, and also much faster. Okay, Evee is super fast, but Evee also works with nodes, just like cycles. I will have to retrain myself a lot now. And actually I don’t like spending a lot of time there in that real. Yeah, personnaly I regret it a lot!
But we have to move forward, I guess? Hopefully I will soon get used to it …
The node editor is made for artists. otherwise you would be typing python code.. nodes are not at all technical. it’s just as you would tink. you have a material node, you have a texture node, connect them up with a line.
In the old system you have to know which bars have influence on what. because it’s not clear. in the node editor you have exactly a visible representation on what influences what.
But even besides that, you could just use the side bar like in blender internal. Click on new material, click on the little grey icon next to the color and select image texture from the menu.
Don’t confuse difficulty with difference. anything that is different from what you’re used looks difficult at first. But you had to learn BI once, now it’s time to modernize and learn the new system. I’m sure once you’ve put in as much time with the new system as you did with BI you’ll look back and say to yourself, why didn’t i switch sooner, this is so much easier.
also if you can’t bring yourself to move on, then just stick with the old. But art wise you’re going to be left in the dust. at some point if you get better, you’re going to realize you’re not satisfied with what you make anymore, it just doesn’t look good enough, doesn’t look how you wanted. This is when you realize the old technology is holding you back, limiting your potential. Better to just get it over with and profit in the long term
The node editor is an industry standard today, it is in every major software and the reason for that is because it is easier to use while being more powerful. Of course someone can create an incredibly complex node material, the sky is the limit, but a lot of things are not possible with the none node based material editor.
If people here give it a solid try I am sure their point of view will change.
Who started the Node craze anyway? Was it Blender?
@BIGPILOT Definitely not. Programs like Houdini 3D were using it for general procedural logic and shader tree programs like Mental Mill were around before Blender had the GLSL nodes. Nodes just are a common way to represent tree and graph datastructures where the evaluation of one items is dependent on other items – and you can represent that in a UI with modular blocks. For programmers, and engineers who work a lot with diagrams (like UML or SysML), I don’t really think it’s something that has to be seen and known about ahead of time to get the idea for – it’s the logical/obvious answer for a UI that needs unlimited configurability.
I was trying to explain how to create a leaf texture with transparency in Cycles. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out the correct way to wire the nodes.
So why not just use principal bsdf shader? It does already all the work of combining transparent and diffuse shaders?
When I first saw nodes I was certainly a little dubious. One tutorial and a few sessions and I had it down pat. It’s really not that difficult.
Principled shader is basically the one stop shop, just like BI materials panel.
But if you want to explain it:
Create: Diffuse shader, transparent shader, mix shader and image texture. Diffuse and transparent into the mix shader, and transparency texture into factor. Granted it’s not as simple as BI, but way more powerful.
A solution that has been propose do is a hater basic materials panel, so you could work in there instead of node editor.
Blender internal had material nodes before cycles was even a thing. Without that node editor developed for BI, cycles may never had nodes itself and could be using the old material system maybe even today.
Funnily enough, most of the cycles nodes are usable in the internal renderer despite not being able to access them directly. Maybe they didn’t want the game engine to make use of them? I can only speculate why they didn’t make them available to everyone and instead slowly let BI use decline to the point where they could remove it without much drama.
It still required a considerable amount of coding and testing, blender code base is giant and a lot of the systems were outdated. Not to mention blender internal did what Eevee does but on a much slower level. It just made sense to dump the internal, it is a big chunk of code to keep updated. I have never seen blender internal render that looked realistic, Cycles takes care of that part. The game engine is returning to Blender, with nodes and mostly rewritten from the ground up. Why? Because game engine code is outdated and why it has been left unimproved for so long.
The mode editor is more intuitive? What?! I’ve been using Blender since 2.3 and I refuse to touch the node editor. If I need something to have more color or contrast or whatever, I just shrug and use GIMP or DigiKam and maybe work in layers if I have to. You may have more control with the node editor, but it’s definitely not easier. It’s like if Blender required JACK (as in one of Linux’s audio servers) to work. Young developers need to stop ignoring perspectives and venture out of their coworker niche to get a better understanding of how the rest of us prefer to do things. If they took a vote, the material editor as we know it would stay. If you’ll notice, people seem to only be in favor for this if it “makes the work easier for the developers,” which makes me doubt how genuine those comments are. What about the users? Don’t we get a say? Their target audience is clearly no longer the average person, which was what got me into it to begin with. Can you see students using the node editor in a public K-12 school? Not everyone can do the amazing things that are show-cased on this site, but I guess if that’s the targeted group, it makes the project look better, which is the primary motivation going on here.
If you’ve refused to use it out of principle, then you’ll never learn it, and you’ll never experience how handy it is. And yes i see students using the node editor. it’s the stuck-to-the-old guys that dislike change that are the ones complaining.
And yes you do get a say, it’s an open-source project. But you are wrong about saying that most will want to make it stay. Most people in the community actually quite like it. (besides some UI improvements that always can be suggested)
also the target audience for blender was never just the “average person” It has always been a complicated program, if you want average, there is sketchup and windows 3d studio.
Also blender 2.8 will come with a blender 101 version for all the people who need it a little more layed-out, and want less features
I agree with MRTHERICH. Seriously . . . the expansiveness of using node-based systems far exceeds any sliders IMO. And I absolutely see students doing circles around us old guys with nodes. Only speaking from my experience but the caterpillar of BI has long been ready to emerge as a new and fresh butterfly with something such as EEVEE. I really encourage you to spend some time to learn how the node system works. Don’t create a new project to do this. Use an existing (simple) one. That way you can focus on understanding the nodes. They really will work for you. Plus . . . you don’t have to learn all the intricacies of every node to start getting amazing results. I don’t know all their power even but we in the community help each other. We will be with you every step of the way.
dude, it’s really not that difficult. I was afraid too. Still with BI you had to use the material panel AND the texture panel. With cycles you only have to use the material panel. If you just really want to fine tune the material then you have to open the node editor.
“The new eevee render is making blender internal obsolete.”
Well, no, no really. EEVEE is a new option (and more of us are preferring it), but Blender Internal still sees things like easier use of Freestyle and (in some ways) it’s still a more straightforward set-up process than EEVEE.
Not griping here. I just don’t see the point in “obsoletism” all the time. EEVEE is simply a newer option, with its own great share of perks.
I personally love EEVEE, and it’ll probably become my second turn-to (after Cycles), but I’ll keep a copy of Blender 2.79b around, anyways. ;)
Believe it or not, I still find handy uses for Blender Internal. I myself still use it for fast pre-viz and some quick paintovers in concept art. There are some Blender add-ons I use that still rely on (or work better with) BI. It’s fast, easy setup, and, sometimes, you don’t need a fire hose to kill a fly.
Oh, and I use about seven different programs that rely on nodes (World Machine, Substance, Houdini Indie, UE4–so many nodes!).
Sometimes–just sometimes–the artist side of my brain (right-brain) just prefers to not deal with the logical (left-brain) nature of nodes. ;)
But I do welcome the EEVEE era, and I don’t blame Blender Foundation for this long-anticipated move.
All those things you just described you still use BI for, eevee will do, and probably better. hence, it makes it obsolete… suure somethings become 3 clicks instead of 2 and some become 2 instead of 3. But that doesn’t take away that eevee will take over any task that BI (and viewport opengl) had before this. (except leaving some more advanced heavy calculated stuff to cycles)
I didn’t ignore what EEVEE offers. I know what it offers.
But you’ve ignored my point about nodes being absolutely everywhere in DCC tools–and how that’s sometimes not the most artist-friendly way. That’s still a valid point. A trade-off worth noting.
In any case, I wish you hadn’t acted like I didn’t state my last sentence. I didn’t knock EEVEE or deny its offerings. I welcome it.
Be careful in trying to alter people’s opinions. I welcome opinions, but there’s nothing’s worse than an overzealous evangelist.
I know this comment is old, but… I think the opposite. I was tought the scanline renderer on max and while I wasn’t new to rendering but not experienced either, it screw my understanding of materials for a while. It doesn’t have roughness, it doesn’t have fresnel, reflection size and intensity doesn’t go by hand on the internal render. If you wanna teach something, the PBR Metallic/Roughness workflow is the easiest thing to understand, and eevee renderer can use it and is fast.
I am still curious if there is a way to replicate the cone line effect from BI in Cycles (now perhaps in Eevee). Obviously, Eevee is now going to have some rather large shoes to fill, though from what I’ve read and seen – it’s not really a final rendering solution anyway… I would love to see that speedy OpenGL rendering option enhanced with a build-in rendered-mode view that Eevee offers. But I am also hoping Eevee brings out features that BI had that may have been more technical that weren’t as readily achievable with Cycles. EeVee – it’s up to you now!
Not sure how I feel about it too. Still use BI and it’s pretty good for quick non-photorealistic renders.
eevee can do non-pbr just as fine, and is almost as fast if not faster.
Maybe you’re over-evangelizing EEVEE just a bit? lol
I don’t think anyone so far is condemning or denying what EEVEE can do, or protesting this move. Just personal sentiments, so far.
If someone still has their own personal uses/preferences for Blender Internal, that’s fine, right? ;)
Besides, the fuller potential of EEVEE is how it’s largely node-based. I like nodes (sometimes, but I do realize that not everyone’s wired for nodes (pun intended).
@MRTHERICH are you saying eevee will be faster than BI… ** on the same hardware **?
That could be difficult, as eevee primary scope seems to be realtime rendering… have you any comparison pages to share?
I know 2.79b will still be around but, eg, new Grease Pencil features will require 2.8+… users needing BI and new features will need to switch back and forth between 2.79b and new releases…
What about really soft shadows? Will EEVEE be able to do that? in real time?
Rip, BI!
You was our father, brother and friend.
I hope you are in better place, where there is no fireflies and no need in samples…
When every render engine got best hardware…
Where there is no stupid users that don’t know what they are doing with you and pressing F12 all the time…
We will miss you!
:D funny… but also a bit sad :(
I am just very curious about how the old files using the texture stacks will be converted, and to what texture system in EVEE (node or still texture stack)? Will my Blinn/Phong materials will get converted to PBR? And what amount of re-coding my addons will require to export all this to a custom run-time format.
Will eevee ever be able to do accurate reflections and retractions like blender internal? The screen space reflections look nice but get artifacts as object move in and out of view.
Blender Internal was a weird hacky mix of raytracing and rastarized rendering (the way game engines do it) which meant that BI is not fast enough for real-time, but not accurate enough for photorealism.
Accurate reflections are really, really expensive to calculate. If you watch the UE4 reflection demo of this year you can see they are pioneering, with creating real-time reflections.
With eevee the focus is rendering speed (real-time), and accurate reflections is one of the first sacrifices they made to make that happen.
So the two main render engines split BI options to give the best one for each situation: you want photorealism, use cycles, but sacrifice real-time. You want real-time use eevee. Maybe somewhere in the future, when pc’s get even more beefy we get some raytracing back in eevee, like in the UE4 demo. Who knows
Thank you for the response. It really helps understand why there are certain sacrifices made.
What about baking. Internal seemed so much easier and less glitchy. this is a bit worrying. I always use internal for baking because of this.
eevee is going to be the new go-to for baking probably
Doubt it. Even beyond Blender, there’s no real-time renderer to date that handles baking better than traditional methods of baking. We’ll get there soon, but we’re not there quite yet.
i really do not understand the point of removing blender internal. It was simple and efficient. This type of rendering is still used widely not only in other 3d programs but its still used in games. Who cares that it was unrealistic? Do you complaint for zbrush viewport? Its almost same.
Don’t worry, 2.8 gets something better in return: eevee. this engine is based on the newest game engine technologies, so it’s exactly what you ever wanted. this is why it’s removed.
It was stated in the article. It was old code and everything new had to be adapted to fit outdated code. If it was easy to just have hanging around in Blender, they probably would have. Lots of other outdated features hang around a long time. But it was taking away resources from the future of Blender, so I’m all for it. I think Eevee will be soon able to do everything internal could do, and way faster. And, as always, anyone can stay at 2.79b for as long as they like.
Glad to see it go! I switched to Cycles as soon as I could, and on the few occasions over the years I found myself accidentally back in BI mode, I couldn’t believe how arcane and complex all the material settings were. Cycles and the Principled BSDF make so much more sense.
haha same here. Ever since Cycles came out I stopped using the Internal. The only thing I use internal for is fast volumetrics rendering, but Eevee appears to head in the right direction on that.
If you are mainly aiming at realistic workflow, then BI may look complex. But when you work in non-photoreal, BI is very close to the workflow in any raster painting software. If you don’t paint or draw in Blender, BI’s strength might not be clear to you. I’m not saying BI is good, it is very broken and never been fixed.
Add an anime character with painted background in BI and animate a little, you can get anime living in the viewport. BI is already realtime (60fps).
I have no animation in current Mac 2.8 versions? Anyone can confirm this problem on other platforms?
2.8 is in the middle of production still, so loooots of bugs, so just wait some time and they will fix it later.
Of course I know it is in development. Despite this I use 2.8 in production. I use a middle february version – it is the only one usable for me. I’m just wonder if lack of animation is about all platforms or just Mac.
Isn’t 2.79 going to be archived for some time to come? Couldn’t users still use both 2.79 and 2.80 until Eevee (or some other work around) completely obsoletes every lingering need (or want) of BI? I’ve even thought having an old Blender 2.79 installer saved as a backup somewhere would come in handy if I ever lost access to the internet (like while moving). I’d bet that that Eevee will have a lot more functionality that what has been seen so far in the beta builds of 2.8.
2.79 will always be there for anyone, well at least in the foreseeable future you can actually download blender from decades back if you want. they always keep the versions available for download. (i think they will stop featuring it prominently in the download section once 2.8 its field tested and battlehardend
Yep, every Blender version back to something like 1.79 is availble. I joined the Blender community at 2.23. I have it installed on my computer just for nostalgia’s sake.
Just preserve an installer for 2.79 for those who cannot afford a brand new computing machine. The important thing is the result of what you are creating. Not the tech
You never know with Open Source. Gnome2 was dead, and now it’s not.
Someone will perhaps fork the old Blender render and release it as a add-on for blender.
I hope they make baking better in Cycles.
An addon will porbably not be easy, they are changing core aspects of the code of blender that makes the BI incompatible from now on into the future. but well, old versions of blender always hang around so you can still use those…
I wont miss it, only for baking normal and displacement maps.
Blender 2.79 is maybe a crossroad for a new Blender retro fork, who knows.
I’m only saying:
POV-Ray
AmigaOS
FreeDOS
OS/2 Warp => ArcaOS
Old games
Vinyl
Mandriva => OpenMandriva Lx…………..
“Jazz is not dead … it just smells funny.”
-Frank Zappa-
Each time, they make it heavier. By having the default scene (a cube, a light and a camera), the scene takes much time to do everything it needs. The internal renderer is more compatible with less powerful machines. By using Cycles / EVEE without a dedicated video card, it is no longer a software of light resources. They are becoming elitist.
This is an interesting point Juan – how will Eevee function without a GPU? I would guess it it relies on GLSL OpenGL stuff. But the new “clay mode” (sorry, I forgot what it’s called) is essentially just a matcap view, which is where I expect to be spending a lot of time, since it is the most basic view…
Blender 2.8 will require either OpenGL 3.0 or 3.3 as a minumum (I can’t remember which). So you are probably be going to want some sort of video card to get the most out of it. This means you might have some difficulty with cards older than about 8 years or with not so recent versions of MacOS.
I definitely disagree. The minimum requirements to work in Blender are still very low. I still use Blender Cycles with a 7 year old computer as a backup at my house (when my main computer is rendering) in cycles. I haven’t messed around as much in Eevee, but a little, and it seemed to work fine. If you feel that not supporting 10 year old hardware is elitist, I feel that your standards are quite different than the average person.
Yes you are right about the old BI to be better with old machines, but if your machine is old, it’s not weird to say that you should also be limited to older versions of blender (mind you, older versions will not dissapear)
Currently BI is holding progress in blender back. Progress meaning implementing newer, more advanced software, that utilizes the advancements made in hardware. Blender’s requirements are still very low if you are just talking about cheaper gpus. a modern day intel or low end nvidia drive will be able to handle the basic features of eevee just fine.
If your pc is already struggling with loading the default scene, then maybe it’s just time to save up for a pc upgrade. Stop comparing blender to the past, compare it to the competition (max, maya etc) those programs need massive machines to run properly. Blender still runs from a USB stick, isn’t that amazing?
and if you can’t or don’t want to upgrade hardware for whatever reason, then just stick with the old versions. You can’t expect get all the new features but stop upgrading hardware….
“Stop comparing blender to the past, compare it to the competition (max, maya etc) those programs need massive machines to run properly.”
Eh, about competition…
I still think Blender needs to listen to more professional feedback, rather than being more directed “for the community” (which is nice, but not how industry-leading software generally prioritizes development.)
Blender Internal may hold some things back, but it’s not Blender’s problem, regarding “competition.”
or is it elitist to have a 7+ year old machine and expect software developer to maintain backwards compatibility?
I just download 2.8 and the EEEVEE race space ship by Alessandero Chiffi model last week.
On my 16 GB i3 6157U Intel Iris 550 I can happily orbit around the model, with a bit of lag, completely acceptable for my way of modeling-still faster then waiting for a render of a comparable quality.
Playing video’s happens at 5.3 FPS.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the results get better over time, when EEVEEE/ 2.8 matures.
Very happy with the results on this low end laptop, keeping in mind I don’t need to play play video’s at full FPS.
Cycles and eevee could never replace BI, I render smoke sim in BI cause it is way faster, i can have 1000 sprite object with transparency to simulate smoke and it will render in 5 secondes, and will not even mention NPR and short animation where I can render high quality noiseless animation exponentially faster. but I guess we all have to stick to 2.78-ish as 2.79 has some bugs that did not work for me
so? this is exactly what eevee is going to be able to do exactly and probably faster than BI. not currently of course, because it’s in development stage, but once it’s done…
I am so anticipating smoke simulations in Eevee! And the other simulations too, but smoke simulations!
I tested Cycles for NPR and it renders 3 frames per second using GLSL and 0 noise classic cel shadder look
(The following 4 points are for design purposes, not concentrating on photo realisim)
There is only 4 problems from what I can see with Cycles for NPR
(NPR doesn’t just mean Manga style rendering lets not for get motion graphics a massive part of the industry that Blender seems to always fail at finding adopters for)
1. Cast shadow colours can’t be controled in viewport on a per object basis.
2. Colour in GLSL mode is not the same as the render; significantly different. I think EEVEE has fixed this though not sure.
3. The ability to choose which objects are lit and which objext aren’t with a light.
4. Draw order is a massive problem
Again these are from what can see in a “Design Perspective” and focusing on feesability for TV shows and motion graphics.
I haven’t tested EEVEE yet, but I am sure rewriting the toon shadder to be “what you see is what you get” won’t be hard.
Let’s also not forget Cycles can use OSL which is probably the direction Blender studios should be really considering if they want to stick to render farms.
OSL has alot more developers adopting it now because of Autodesk adoption which means more materials.
Does someone need to teach the community to write OSL Shaders?
Anyone want to expand on this?
Link to OSL:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Shading_Language
Well, that pretty much solidifies that I will be running 2.79 for a long time, even if I have 2.8 running along side it at some point in the future when it doesn’t crash by switching into edit mode.
Aside from a few other reasons (still waiting on a proper sane wireframe mode for 2.8 and a way of quickly switching between wireframe/solid/rendered mode while modelling) the lack of displacement map baking for Cycles means I can’t ditch Blender Internal completely. Why wasn’t that ever ported from BI to Cycles?
If you look at one of the open stage talks of the blender conference, you can see that a guy made an more amazing wireframe mode. It will probably be added to 2.8 alongside clay and eevee as viewport option
Thanks for everything, Blender Internal. You were a friend, in a strange software sort of way. (Though, I’ll still keep Blender 2.79b around for quite a long while.) ;)
(Oh, and thanks for everything, Blender Foundation.)
It probably can’t be helped. But there are features in Blender Internal which aren’t possible in Cycles or Eevee yet. On top of the major backwards incompatibility in scripting, this will ensure a repeat of the Python 2.8/3 or Perl 6 syndrome.
Ah Blender Internal. It’s been a long journey. Anybody else remember that magical day when Ton casually added in raytracing, as if it was nothing? Must have been around version 1.9. I’m sure you remember, Bart.
I’ve got quite a task ahead of me to pick up the new systems, as I’ve only really dabbled up to now. But it’s true that the materials panel still works as a simple access point, plus the Principled Shader makes things easier to control (it’s essentially a floating Materials Panel). So once Eevee is fully featured I can certainly see it replacing BI for my purposes at least.
If Evee will give (as one of posibilities ) the same precision of rendering simple lights as BI its OK! Obviously as realtime renderer it will be “enough fast” :-)
Also for BI lovers someone can construct Node that will mimic BI Material sliders functionality :-)
Well, as long as core changes are being made, how about bringing mouse button conventions into line with literally every other program ever written by anyone for any purpose? Ten years of use and it still feels awkward and ass-backwards to right-click for select.
You know there is a setting for this right? I’ve been using left select for years now. I think they’re planning to change the default though
As tribute to BI i wand to recall this piece of art which was created with Halo Rendering one of the only BI features i might miss one day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsYTgQEeN_E
To be honest It is a little bit of a shame. Cycles is not fast enough and can’t be optimized enough to even come close to the speeds of BI.
cycles is missing a few important work arounds that BI had, ?
Oh well guess EEVEE will be a solution to some degree.
if it speeds up development then great, just focus on EEVEE and CYCLES,
I started my Blender adventure with BI and it did serve me well. I understand Blender can no longer be as it was in the late 80s/90s. Still, a good compromise between nodes and sliders IS needed. If EVERYTHING is done with nodes, as, among others, Gleb wants it, even a relatively simple scene may be barely readable. We all know how complex and big a node tree can be. So, for the sake of clarity, don’t turn everything upside down. Or make yet more powerful nodes.
The cool thing is . . . that even though you can end up with some wild looking node arrangements you can easily group nodes to maintain more sense of things.
If you want to use relatively simple material options (1 texture per material slot) then the current material editor (not the node editor ) will get the job done without being too complicated.
If you want to get more involved I think requiring the node editor is a reasonable compromise. I also think that having a descent material library system will be of more value to users for which node editor is intimidating.
on my PC with only GPU (intel HD400) on CPU i can’t use EEVEE at all.
few months ago i tested a prerelese of EEVEE and could’nt use EEVEE on my PC :(
was it because of the ongoing development or is it in general not supporting the intel HD 400 GPU on CPU?
so i have only the choice to use cycles or upgrade to a proper graphic card?
Probably because of ongoing development, not everything is fully supported and bugfree yet. so it might not yet work on your system
Eevee isn’t presently working on my Intel HD 4000 system in Win 10, even with the latest Intel drivers installed. In Fedora Linux on this machine with the latest Mesa Eevee works with 8K images but has problems with 16K HDRI’s. The devs are aware of Intel graphics problems and will hopefully fix them soon. Rendering with Eevee is impressively fast and quite realistic.
What will this mean to Freestyle rendering? Will that be ported?
Wouldn’t it be great to have realtime Freestyle rendering in EEVEE?
blender 2.79 has already freestyle in cycles available, but i don’t know if it has all the features as in blender internal.
I’m happy they finally did it. It means they won’t have to worry about any bugs/issues with internal render and concentrate on 2.8/Eevee.
But like most of you here, it sure brings back some good old memories
Was it ever covered that the Blender Game Engine is slated for removal from 2.8 also?
No.
Blender Render has been dead since Blender version 2.5. Many people hope that Eevee will be a replacement. But from what I see, there is no timeline or proposal to make Eevee with features of Blender Render, only talk. Talk is cheap. We from the Blender NPR group have been talking to the devs for so long (since Oct 2012). The result… nothing. Blender Institute and the core devs don’t care about NPR. I would be very happy to be proven wrong.
There are so few of us in the NPR community who truly understand how to build a good NPR render engine. Core devs, Talk to us please. You guys have been ignoring us more than 5 years. Don’t repeat the same mistakes.
My personal opinion is when people name NPR in relation to blender, they specifically mean crappy BI renders with textures and stuff (toon/low poly) The thing is you can do all these things in both eevee en cycles and of course they won’t look the same, but better.
Both engines can do a lot of hacky stuff, if you combine with nodes and render layers. But i’m personally glad those ugly badly done BI and open gl viewport stuff is discouraged now.
On a side note: Blender is not owned buy the institute. Blender is owned by the community. The institute is not required to do any work on blender inf they don’t want to. Their business is animation and they hire programmers to work on blender to improve the tools that they use.
If you want a good NPR renderer, pay (or ask) some programmers to write one for you and hook it up to blenders system. The new 2.8 is going to have a very modular render manager. which means you can easily hook up or create lots of different rendering engines that you can just switch to with a click.
The core devs don’t care about NPR because their focus lies on the core code of blender. all the behind the scenes stuff, which is hugely important but not always noticeable. so they have priorities.
But really, blender is no commercial software, which means there is no commercial company behind blender. The institute is nothing like Autodesk, where you buy software from and can expect customer service in return. The institute (soon to be called blender studios) is an animation studio that hires programmers to do work on blender, so can do anyone else.
You want a feature? pay someone to make it for you, or make it yourself, that is the beauty of blender and open-source. Sadly if you can’t program, and you don’t have money to pay someone, then you’re at the mercy of others, and all you can do is ask and wish.
Welcome EEVEE <3
Comprehensive documentation about how exactly Eevee features are going to replace BI features would serve both to help and reassure diehard BI user and as a reference for Eevee development; the abstract promises of feature parity and obsolescence made throughout this thread are credible, but not sufficient in practice.
Agreed.
Great to hear that.
Blender Game Engine must go to trash too.
I wouldn’t say trash, since the game engine will get a boost from implementation of Eevee. Also the game engine does not have an alternative (inside Blender) and there are many uses for it outside of game creation. Definitely disagree with you there.
Blender teams spent time for new features(like eevee) but most of old parts are not optimize or complete !
I agree that blender is becoming heavier…
I use BI because it work on every machine, with no care about GPU, O-GL vers. etc… :(
Ok, so you can always continue to use 2.79, or go back to an earlier version even. If you don’t want to adapt to the times, that’s fine. Older versions will always be available.
“If you don’t want to adapt to the times, that’s fine.”
That’s a rather passive-aggressive way to brand his opinion, wouldn’t you say?
What’s with this subtle hostility around here? :/
It’s okay if some folks personally express different views than your own.
It’s not like their view is going to change Blender Foundation’s whole agenda now.
It’s just a comment section, and some people are just expressing a preference.
There’s room for it.
Fully welcoming EEVEE here.
What about the fluid simulations like fire? does eevee simulate fire as well as blender internal renderer?
Blender internal is a renderer, and as such it can render the volumetrics/particles resulting from the simulation, but do not simulate anything. The simulation system(s) will stay untouched.
Actually the simulation systems will change also. For example flip fluids and mantaflow and fracture modifier are coming. Also the modifiers will be programmed again from scratch. Updating the old renderer to support all that new code would be long and stupid job, because only very rare people uses it anymore
I was curious about this, so I pulled up a scene in 2.8 beta that had some spaceship engine exhaust, and I was impressed, the viewport was relatively fluid (albeit somewhat less realistic), displaying my fire, with volumatic materials assigned to it. Of course, switching back to Cycles with GPU rendering gave me better viewport realism. This also cleared up another concern I had – volumatic lights. Eevee does this *fantastically* well (not to mention includes additional base lamps)! Blender Internal is completely irrelevant to me now. OpenGL is an excellent baseline to build on, and Cycles can than be invoked at the final stages of a project for more immersive photorealism.
Don’t know how useful a metric this is, as I am noob-ish, but I’ve been using 2.79b to edit a video from an old family reunion, 720×480, CPU rendering on a mid-2009 Macbook Pro (2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo, 8M RAM, SSD storage). Under 2.79b, I rendered a 400 frame sample with BI selected, then Cycles. Both took 1:14. Downloaded the latest 2.8 build just now, and did the same test with EEVEE selected, and then Cycles. EEVEE took 0:29, and Cycles took 0:36. There is some UI lag when I switch options here and there; don’t know if that is buggy or just my old hardware. And EEVEE crashes Blender most of the time (Cycles works fine). So I’m happy with the render increases. Will be very happy to see performance and stability at release. I’m happy enough that I will probably finish up my work in 2.79b, then do my final render in Cycles in 2.80, as this is just video with a few motion graphic overlays.
It’s not very useful. The VSE uses ffmpeg for encoding, not BI or Cycles. Apparently, BI does some anti-aliasing, but otherwise the rendering is done by the encoder or a video engine.
Good to know, thanks!
I was trying to explain how to create a leaf texture with transparency in Cycles. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out the correct way to wire the nodes.
If internal render is removed , Than want about the game engine? Still the game engine will use internal or new engine?
The game engine is also being removed.
Really Reavenk. This is really a bad news for me and game developers who’s is using blender game engine . What is the reason to remove the internal and game engine. Do any one know the reason??
The reason is those features use old, old code that was holding Blender back. The game engine hasn’t had much work for a while, as far as I’m aware, since Yo Frankie. As far as I’m concerned, nothing is changing except it’s now official that the Blender game engine in its current form, will not get any more work in the official branch. Of course you can continue to use 2.79, and Blender is open source, so you can program your own new features.
As far as game development in general, I don’t know the last time, if ever I have seen a truly good or even decent game from the Blender internal engine. It’s a fun little toy to play with, but again, that’s not changing, 2.79 will always be available.
Indeed the game engine is truly outdated. Not only that, but in recent years there have been some amazing new game engines. Ue4, unity are the biggest. But I found for smaller projects Godot to be the best choice.
Having a game engine again is still on Tom’s radar, but far in the future. There are more important things to be worked on. There is no infinite amount of developers available.
So yeah, it might be a step back for you. But if you take a little time to learn any of those free engins you’re helping yourself in the long run. Those engines have way better online support and allow you to do more easily. And it’s not at all hard to use your blender models there.
Old code, too much time to update to work with new features.
Use Godot game engine If you want to stay open source.
As a person who only used the Internal Render for 10 years, now I have to do research of this new engine replacing it and how it will affect this project of mine. Right now, I don’t have any expectations towards it.
So you are finally going to do the same job every else did years ago with cycles.
Not happy with this being removed at all. The new render system is node based like cycles, and i absolutely hate the node based system with a vehemence, i spent months trying to understand it with cycles and never got it, plus it seems that Eevee has no texture bake, leaving you to struggle with cycles which is not very good when it comes to texture baking. Also i can’t work out how to show the texture on the model as textured mode seems to be missing.
So keep using 2.7x.
You can keep using 2.7x but eventually you’ll run into a ceiling. Blender Internal has a limit to what it can do. At some point, no matter how much more skilled you become artistically, you’ll run in to things you want to achieve but can’t with internal. This is because the settings are set in stone. there is only so much sliders you can tweak, and if you want to change something where there is no slider for, than you’re stuck.
This is why there is a node system now. it allows you to go as advanced as you want. Really the only limit is that your pc can’t handle the calculations anymore.
I’d love to help you out with understanding the nodes if that is the problem! Once it clicks in your mind, you don’t want to go back, i promise!
“You can keep using 2.7x but eventually you’ll run into a ceiling. Blender Internal has a limit to what it can do. At some point, no matter how much more skilled you become artistically, you’ll run in to things you want to achieve but can’t with internal. This is because the settings are set in stone. there is only so much sliders you can tweak, and if you want to change something where there is no slider for, than you’re stuck.”
That would depend entirely upon the artist’s particular needs. For some people, Blender Internal is sufficient. For others, EEVEE looks like a breath of fresh air.
“This is why there is a node system now. it allows you to go as advanced as you want. Really the only limit is that your pc can’t handle the calculations anymore.”
It’s also a logical input system, that (depending who you are) can break you out of “artist” mindset, if you start to get a complicated web of nodes.
Sometimes the dislike for nodes is simply preference–not necessarily just a resistance towards something new(er). Nodes are useful, but they simply won’t be for everyone.
Most people will simply adapt to Blender’s nodes, whether they personally prefer it or not, but we’ll still have some folks who just simply prefer a more UI-based way of tweaking things.
And that’s okay. Their opinions are not hindering or dictating Blender’s development. But it’s nice to be heard, anyways. That’s how communities work and co-exist. :)
The Blender developers force me to stay with 2.7x for a long period of time. I don’t want to sound harsh in this criticism, event if it may sound that way.
Essentially they refuse to finalize the Python API until very late in the release process. They also straight forwardly refuse to document the existing Python API changes. They certainly have their reasons for this. But for me it means I can’t update my scripting, and the developers of the other add-ons I depend on can’t update their scripts either. That even applies to most of the add-ons shipped with 2.8, ironically.
What is this for ungrateful comment. Blender developers create blender voluntarily, and anyone can be a blender developer. You’re not paying anyone to work for you. And no-one is forcing you to do anything. No one is refusing as no one is obligated to do anything.
This is the basis of a community made open-source program. If you want something changed, hope someone will do it for you, or do it yourself.
Sure there are rules in place for the main version of blender that is shipped on the website. but these rules are made in good discussion with the most active developers.
But no one is stopping you from making your own blender version.
It’s like saying people are forcing you to walk to town because they refuse to build you a car….
also this “refusal” as you call it, is because you are not the only stakeholder for blender. Millions of people use blender and everyone for different reasons. The fact that you are angry that needs of others came before yours, and that developers decided to put their precious, voluntary time into things that are important for other people than you, is childish and ungrateful.
I did not want it to sound ungrateful. But the statements I made are facts and they are entirely the result of choices of the core developers. I had hoped that my qualifications made it clear that I recognize their right to do so. I don’t agree with their reasoning on not documenting or fixing scripts in the interim, because some add-on developers like me are willing to work with WIP APIs, even if it means fixing add-ons multiple times. But we are prevented to do that. And that incidentally means that many addons, even those included in current 2.8 builds, just won’t work until much later in the release process. I don’t agree with the idea that it is better to avoid add-on developers whining about API changes more than once. Again, I disagree but recognize the decision has been made.
That doesn’t change, however, the consequences which I laid out. I do not expect anyone to change their decisions because of these statements. I only tried to voice my opinion.
And regarding making the changes myself… Well I could fix certain scripts if I knew how the API worked, but the way Blender development works right now makes this entirely beyond my reach. Again, this is the right of the core developers, and it probably stems from a desire to develop 2.8 as fast as possible.
And again, I was only explaining why I have to stick with 2.7 for much longer than I’d like, considering how awesome the new 2.8 features are. I don’t like the idea that criticizing an Open Source projects policies is off-limits just because many developers are unpaid. People complain, and sometimes they have a point. Get over it.
@ANDREAS Ignore MRTHERICH. He’s being a self-appointed comment police around here.
Guy thinks everyone has to align with his point of view, lest he reprimand them.
I have no idea what complicated tutorials you have watched than. The material nodes are super easy in the basics.
– You have your material output node. you choose a shader node. In most cases the Principle BSDF does the job perfectlyY
– You connect your image texture node and choose a texture.
– It uses the default UV map. If you want to use another there is a UVmap node.
– Tweak the slides of Rougness (shinyness) or metallic (how much it looks like metal)
Thats all.
if you want transparency, add a Shader mix node in between the output and principled shader. and a transparency node to the mix node. your alpha texture controls the mix factor.
Baking might be something to come to eevee in the future.
To show the texture you go to material mode. Texture mode was a weird in between mode that showed inconsistent results.
As I’ve stated several times here on this page, nodes aren’t for everyone.
Granted, I do advise Belidos to just keep using Blender 2.7x. Still, I can somewhat relate to his frustration.
Personally, I can use nodes, but I use nodes in several other software. The only problem with nodes-everything being everywhere is that nodal systems are very left-brain ways of working, and art is, well, very right-brain.
As a programmer, I can deal with nodes okay, while doing 3D work, but sometimes you do want a more visual (that is, UI-based) way of working, without turning on your “logical” side all the time, battling with your “creative” side.
Oh, and the problem isn’t that nodes are complicated–it’s that nodes can GET complicated, if you’re working with large oodles of noodles, if you know what I mean.
Basic node usage isn’t the problem. It’s when you start getting into more complicated models and larger scenes, that your eyes can sorta get MEGO staring at the web of nodes you’ve created (even when you use groups and labels and whatnot).
Again, I’m not making a case for Blender Internal to remain, but I hate this idea that everyone has to conform to this idea that “nodes are perfect” or “nodes are for everyone” some folks here seem to be promoting.
(To the point that any and every comment expressing what Belidos has expressed sorta gets this immediate policing by the EEVEE fans…)
No method is perfect. Every input method human beings have ever created has its advantages, its drawbacks, and its risks.
It’s okay if some folks express that, for themselves personally, nodes aren’t their favorite thing. It’s better to vent a little, even among the community.
It’s okay if someone doesn’t prefer nodes or particularly agree with one’s way of thinking about EEVEE, guy. It’s all a matter of personal taste and preference.
Some folks are just going to be disappointed, as with all significant changes. It doesn’t mean Blender Foundation’s taking this to heart and changing their minds.
It just means the comment section is being freely used, for a little venting. In other words: No correction is needed, for every opinion expressing disappointment. ;)
All i wanted to point out is that for 90% of the cases not more than 5 nodes are needed in a very basic structure. No logic needed, just remembering what goes where.
plug principled into output, plug image into Base color You can even easily do this from the right settings menu. Sure it’s different from BI but it’s not more complicated. just different. I’d even say it’s a bit more intuitive since there are no inconsistently named things.
On the your argument about left and right brained (besides this being an outdated simplistic idea) Nodes were invented to make logic more accessible for less logically thinking people. Nodes are created as an alternative for code. It is a visual representation of what is happening. Hence making it more intuitive for visual orientated people.
Right side of a node gives an image results that flows along the line into the left side of another node. The node changes some settings and then gives it on.
Tell me honestly if this:
https://imgur.com/a/t7euYsc
Really looks more intuitive and clear than this:
https://imgur.com/a/BfUzpCm
Objectively the first is a jungle of buttons and settings. most of which you never need, all there dumped upon on your screen. The second is an organized graph with only the necessary settings showing.
I feel that there is another issue here: that is preference to familiarity. Lots of people who have been working with blender for a long time, especially if they started in the old days, have gotten used to this cluttered mess of sliders and buttons. It’s like feeling at home in your room while it’s a total mess. It’s a mess, but it’s your mess, you know where to find everything. Then your mom came along, cleaned everything up, and suddenly you couldn’t find anything anymore.
But after a while of living in your new clean room, you start to see why having a clean organized room is so useful. (I can’t believe i’m saying this, my mom must be proud of me)
This whole thing has nothing to do with logic. As long as you are not doing fancy procedural calculations, barely any math is involved. For anyone “left” or “right” brained, the node system is objectively more intuitive and clear. This has more to do with a willingness or ability to let go of something familiar and daring to learn something new to better yourself.
This was why I talked about the skill ceiling. I have no stake in anyone using nodes or not. I could care less, but i don’t because I wish everyone to get the best out of what they have in them.
Most people forgot the struggles they had to learn something, BI once had to be learned too. Sure there are improvements to be made to the UI of the node system. I remember the first time i used it, i couldn’t find the right nodes, and the search menu didn’t help me, since apparently there are two separate search menu’s there… So maybe a more visual list with icons would help.
But it’s a difference between finding the right tool from a menu or finding the right tool in a jungle of buttons and sliders.
I’m trying to force people to do anything, i’m just urging them on to try something new to broaden their horizon. In the end, it’s all just tools. And what I do is no different than suggesting a cushioned ergonomic chair to a straight wooden one because it’s better for your back.
Dude i think you’re confusing folks into thinking nodes are the backbone of cycles renderer. Na !
What makes cycles cool is its realistic RENDERING – not the UI.
BI still hangs about with the old fashioned slider way of things, which means you gotta create all materials from scratch. Cycles on the other hand allows you to make matrials from existing presets. As badass as it can be:
Diffuse shader (with textures ) + glossy finish = polished wood.
Hence on the conceptual level, cycles is way too easy to understand and work with ’cause it puts the workload onto the performance of your system. But practically ,nodes come first in cycles.And thats not everyone’s sort of thing. THE UI !!!!
But BI’s got easy-to-understand UI,enhanced with material and texture slots,capable on average hardware, and is fast.
BUT THE RENDERER SUCKS !!
If you’re not planning on improving Blender Render, then at least let it stay. Some people, like the NPR group, actually NPR is gaining popularity like the MMD, and how Anime studios are leaning towards more 3d jobs, so it’s better if you keep internal as is, and if the devs aren’t planning to improve it, at least it’s available for the users who need it. Just like how maya keeps their internal renderers intact.
Personally, the internal renderer does it’s job perfectly, even better than cycles in the NPR department. Plus, you just get work done faster using it. In NPR it’s either Blender Internal or Maya Software for me, software has the better anime looking render, like really good, but BI works with lighting like a charm. Mental Ray well,,, it’s quality is good might be better than BI, but it’s just slow. BI is the way to go for NPR designers.
Eevee can achieve the same quality of results for npr rendering, in my opinion, and at a fraction of the time. The few areas that can’t be covered by eevee I think soon will be.
With the redesign of Blender, it would have more than doubled the amount of work to recode the internal renderer. Why put forth that effort when there’s something that achieves the same goals, but faster?
There will always be some small percentage that will need old features for this reason or that, but the fact is, they can always use 2.79. For the vast majority, they’ll take a few lumps learning the new system, and then never look back.
I’m sure evee can do the same.. Actually I was talking more on anime-ish cel shading results of BI and how it looks great, cycles can’t achieve that in my findings. I haven’t seen any evee rendered anime models yet, since it’s new.. and my pc won’t work with Evee, can you link me to some samples, that could maybe reach this quality? These are mine..
Blender Internal
https://imgur.com/a/jbSOEmL
Right. The codebase has changed to the point that I have no doubt that BI would have been broken had it remained. Yes, it was simple and easy to learn, but it was easier to build a new renderer than keep fixing an old one. I’m sure people will continue using 2.79 as others use 2.49.
And for NPR, there’s Freestyle. It gives a lot better results than BI’s Toon shader and is much more popular.
I’m sure evee can do the same.. Actually I was talking more on anime-ish cel shading results of BI and how it looks great, cycles can’t achieve that in my findings. I haven’t seen any evee rendered anime models yet, since it’s new.. and my pc won’t work with Evee, can you link me to some samples, that could maybe reach this quality? These are mine..
Blender Internal
https://imgur.com/a/jbSOEmL
Unless they bring back internal render, I refuse to get 2.8, infact I’ll pretend it never existed.
Maybe someone will recode BI, but right now the devs have other priorities, and there isn’t enough interest.
I mean, you’re only doing a disservice to yourself… your principles are not helping you… I get a tiny bit of the argument when we are talking about cartoon style stuff. But most art that came out of BI just looked ugly, and most artist that complain, aren’t very good. But worse, they don’t seem to improve. They cling to their old well know tools because it seems like they are scared of loosing the little progress they made over the years.
True art isn’t made by it’s tools but by it’s artist.
No one will recode BI, and not because they have other priorities. But because it’s stupid. If you want to use BI you still can and ever will be able to, by using older versions of blender.
It will take massive amounts of effort and bug fixing to get BI working with the new blender because everything internal drastically changed. It’s like putting an modern car engine in an old Ford 1… Maaaaaybe some hobbyist will do it at some point, because they hate themselves, and like to torture themselves for fun.
You guys act like the new engines (cycles and eevee) are a downgrade, while in fact they are an upgrade, but you just want to stick with the old and the known. Which is fine. but i don’t get the complaining: “They NEEED to put the old engine back in” “The devs are stupid/lazy/assholes/nazis (fill in) because they don’t do this”
and holy fuck, why do i keep replying to comments here XD
To insult members of this communities artwork apparently. It’s not cute.
yeah you are right, but i regret nothing… not trying to be cute, trying to be helpful… Just trying to disillusion people who are convinced it’s the tools that make them good. I’m not saying i’m good. I’m all the way down there, loooooots to learn. but disillusionment is the first step to improving.
Or inspiration can lead to improving… Improvement doesn’t always begin at the bottom of a dark hole… After all, we’re artists right – we suck in inspiration like weightlifters do carbs and protein!
‘A little sad’? :D
As soon as I noticed it I reverted to 2.79. Thanks but No Thanks.
i understand removing blender internal, but does anybody know if i can download it separately to use with blender 2.80, because i want to use the new features, and eevee, but i would like to still have blender internal so i can quickly render a rough draft to see about size or color or lighting, because my computer is a little older, and slower, i am not entirely sure it will always work with eevee and i would like to have blender internal around just in case
No, BI was removed because it would need to be rewritten to be compatible with the new codebase.
okay, that’s what I figured, thanks for the heads up, I will probably just download 2.8 and keep 2.79 in case I have compatibility problems
Turns out Evee can get similar results for anime-ish renders. Here’s the render.
https://imgur.com/a/Jm68x9m
Why cant it be around in the open as some add-on (deprecated) available to separate download for those who want it?? (cycles engine is also just an add-on)
oops sorry, this question by J has been answered already by Dramaking
oops sorry, this question by J has been answered already by Dramaking
The BI is still great for non-photorealistic rendering AND baking. It provides more expressive styles and is an artistic preference.
Sadly Cycles is the only option now for baking, it would however be favorable if Cycles could replicate the BI for rendering / baking. Maybe this can already be achieved!?
There’s no question that Cycles is great, but who wants to only create photorealistic renders all day.
Uhm a lack of features does not equal more artistic value. It’s like saying a kid is a better artist because he doesn’t know how to paint yet…
You can make amazing non photo realistic art with cycles, If you have seen any blender work from anyone lately, it would prove so.
I mean like whatever engine you will, and in terms of user interface or speed, like others said, I can see that point. But don’t spout nonsense like, BI gives you more possibilities, because it objectively does not.
If you don’t like indirect lighting, just set the number of bounces to 1 in the render panel, and voila, stuff looks like BI again.
Maybe the problem is that there is a lack of non photo realistic tutorials out there, that people think cycles can’t do that..
Blender Internal objectively *does* give you more possibilities. Blender 2.8 currently lacks the ability to bake a diffuse texture with alpha. Eevee cannot bake, and Cycles does not support alpha.
This is essentially a removed feature, and anyone who does texture atlasing *will* miss it. I guess it’s the Blender 2.79 life for me.
Lol, since when is a hypothetical 100 – 2 + 50 objectively less than 100????
Lacking at some tiny points but adding massively on almost any other point… how can it be objectively less. I can name you 50+ things Cycles can do that BI can’t do (well) and only a handful vise versa.
Btw you can bake alpha in a separate pass (temp connecting your alpha to an emission node and rendering emission), It’s a little less convenient but still possible. The fact that workarounds like this are even possible to consider is a testament to the massive amounts of freedom you get with Cycles, as opposed to the ridged narrow purposed, node lacking BI.
Your loss if you stick with 2.79 for the rest of your life, or if you think any one of them is “better”, I don’t give a damn. Just don’t be claiming nonsense online, possibly setting other people on a wrong path…
Theres always that one guy.. Probably used blender to make a guru doughnut and he’s suddenly the expert over people who had dedicated years of their free time mastering a particular part of blender that the foundation decided to yank, to make space for useless new members like yourself.
Sam Porter, Lol.
Nvm my 12 years blender experience, in free time and professional work. Even still worked with the old old version of blender, that you probably never even have touched.
I know exactly how hard it is to switch, Heck i’m still using 2,79 for many of my production projects. Mainly because of stability, but also muscle memory. But having opinions on something doesn’t change the facts. You might dislike cycles, you might like it. The fact stays the same Cycles has objectively more features, functions and freedoms than BI.
Maybe next time first check out the persons work and credentials before flinging allegations around…
I can tell you this, the new engine was added because BI held the experienced modelers back, not because it didn’t got new people in. Without cycles blender would still be the GIMP of 3d Software. Cute, but totally irrelevant outside its bubble,
This is a huge loss. Eevee is nice but it *cannot* replace Blender internal just yet. If you need to bake diffuse textures with alpha, Blender 2.8 literally will not let you do so.
I am forced to stay on Blender 2.79.
You can in 2.8, just need to be a little more crafty, but admittedly being crafty is not for everyone…
2019 is coming to an end. 2019 was The Year That Blender Internal Died. And The Year of The Rise of Eevee.
This thread proves that not everyone was happy about that. Despite the many efforts of some to convince us we are completely wrong.
Okay, we can choose to stay with Blender 2.79b forever, or we can still make the giant leap to Eevee and Cycles, despite our initial reluctance.
In the meantime I have (forced) opted for the second. Blender is evolving so quickly, you cannot punish yourself forever and stay on the spot. One thing is certain: switching to Eevee is not done in one, two, three! For me (who had never rendered with Cycles before due to the very long rendering times) that meant a relapse of many, many months of Blender fun. “Hey Blender loser, go back to START and throw 6 x 6 before leaving your prison again.”
Many blender users apparently applaud all those novelties, some even get euphoric (“Blender is Fun Again !!!”), but I am convinced that also many blender users dream of stable software that does not change every day. A software that they can rely on to realize their personal dreams, a software that they can learn to use alongside all their other activities and which can then be used to fulfill their creative needs.
A software that changes daily is not A Godsend for everyone. That means that you have to put so much time into all those novelties that your creativity suffers. That cannot be the intention either.
I think I can give good advice to people who want to learn Eevee in a flexible way: buy the book “Blender Eevee – The Guide to real-time rendering with Blender 2.8” by Allan Brito. Read it from start to finish (2 or 3 times if necessary, it’s not that thick) and it can be a big help to get started with Eevee. It is a good book, clearly written and to the point. It certainly helped me a lot.
And download as many free textures as possible. Study their nodes and learn from them. This can also help you much further.
May I wish all blender users a Happy New Year and especially Lots Of Blender Fun! With or without Blender Internal or Eevee.
Have a good time! Happy Blending!
Now, that is a good idea. If there aren’t enough tutorials about using Eevee, a book will have to do. For me, personally, I’ve invested a lot of time and effort of creativity and imagination into Blender 2.5 on forward and I’ve always stuck to the Blender Internal Engine. But it will get to a point where the you would have reached the limitation of the engine. My main concern would be that the node setup made for the Internal Engine will not be compatible if I open the same file in 2.8x on forward. For those who want to stick to 2.79, like me for creative reasons, that’s completely fine. Sooner or later, things will have to change in order to improve as artists.
We all don’t need to argue like which soda was better between New Coke-a-Cola and Classic Coke.
Great post! I do understand where most are coming from, and one of the great things about blender is that you can always keep using whatever version you want, I mean you can still download version 1.6 if you want, it still works as it did back then. Unlike some of the popular subscription software that kind off force you to update.
If you look at it that way, Blender doesn’t change at all. It just gets reincarnated every so often. And new features go into new versions. It would be unreasonable to expect devs to keep updating all the old versions with new features, right? Besides, blender is open source, anyone can grab an older version of blender they prefer, and implement some of the newer features in there.
Despite some of my heated posts of which i sometimes go a bit overboard. I never have a problem with anyone using whatever version they want. It just pains me when people sell themselves short by swearing something new off indefinitely, because they’re used to something else.
Nor can I leave accusations to the devs alone, that claim they are doing this for any other/nefarious reason than their love for blender and their passion for improving tools for everyone.
I haven’t even fully switched myself, and explored every feature of eevee. Hopefully/probably 2020 is going to be the year. Let’s encourage each other to keep learning and improving, and not wallow in self-pity and stubbornness. Blender is about fun.
Happy Blendering 2020 everyone!