Blender 2.5 Update Posted
polycounter lvl 17
http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/blender-25-project/
Just a little update from the Blender guys on Blender 2.5. There's a new screenshot, showing off the new window manager in action, with an overlapped window (new). But the same old problem of cutting off header buttons is also there. I'm going to have to bring that up.
I didn't expect them to move along at this so quickly. Looks like we might have something by the end of the year if they keep up this pace.
Anyways, this was posted for the benefit of my fellow Blender users. I know you are here, I see Blender used in a lot of WIP screenshots. Can we avoid the usual holy wars?![:\](https://polycount.com/plugins/emojiextender/emoji/twitter/confused.png ":\")
Just a little update from the Blender guys on Blender 2.5. There's a new screenshot, showing off the new window manager in action, with an overlapped window (new). But the same old problem of cutting off header buttons is also there. I'm going to have to bring that up.
I didn't expect them to move along at this so quickly. Looks like we might have something by the end of the year if they keep up this pace.
Anyways, this was posted for the benefit of my fellow Blender users. I know you are here, I see Blender used in a lot of WIP screenshots. Can we avoid the usual holy wars?
Replies
Also looking forward to seeing what comes out of Winter Camp as far as UI redesign.
I am really curious regarding the GUI and the mapping of the shortcuts,- hopefully they will include some presets.
other than that,- its always nice to read up some blender news because from a development pace standpoint they are truly impressive it really gets better and better.
Sorry I didnt mean for it to sound like they wouldnt get to the core announced development goals before release. I was more thinking that the release would not be held up if one or more of the major but non-core features was not finished. For example the NURBS rewrite, Ngons, GI lighting, volumetrics, ray tracer speedup, addaptive subdivision, image based lighting, projection painting, etc. The core stuff like UI refactor, reworked animation, and new event system would almost assuredly be compleated before 2.5 is released.
That said, I can't wait for customisable hotkeys. Finally, no more Alt+M to merge...
I'm not sure which keys I would remap myself. I've come to like everything as is. The only thing I don't like is the switching between vertex/face/edge modes in EDIT mode, but I use the mouse for that anyways.
I was just about to start learning the current python API to start exporting out my meshes, but it's going to change soon.
I'd be pretty surprised if they included any presets for other apps though. They'll probably leave that up to the community.
However, I can do you one better than screen shots
**Warning - All of these downloads are very much Pre Alpha versions and should not be used for anything other than satisfying curiosity**
Download Blender 2.50 in its current unfinished state:
Windows http://www.graphicall.org/builds/builds/showbuild.php?action=show&id=877
Mac http://www.graphicall.org/builds/builds/showbuild.php?action=show&id=878
Linux (64 bit) http://www.graphicall.org/builds/builds/showbuild.php?action=show&id=935
I believe at this point you can actually do a few things with it, but there are still significant pieces of the basic functionality that have not been included yet.
There is a talk about upcoming UI ideas here.
3rd Video: The Evolution Of Blender's UI
http://river-valley.tv/conferences/blender_conference_2008/
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The 2.50 preview is great. Especially when I saw the new way to split views. The color scheme is also much better.
[ame]
Theres also a rumor going around that a 2.49 release is going to to announced soon. They wernt originally planning to make a 2.49 but I guess features are getting backed up waiting for 2.5.
Also, I get random crashes when trying to delete keys in the animation editor. 2.47 was rock solid for me. Where are you finding this 2.49 stuff out? I would love to read it...
I find it strange how they aren't calling 2.5 a 3.0 release. They are recoding almost the whole thing to fit the new UI and data models. It deserves more than an 0.02 bump in the version numbers.
According to Ton its got the go ahead pending confirmation of features and a review of the bug tracker.
According to this weeks notes http://pasteall.org/4522
Late April could be a target release date, but there are lots of current bugs that havent been squashed yet (probably due to all efforts being on 2.5) and not many available people to put on the task.
Edit: Oh almost forgot. If you want to track these yourself they post the notes on the wiki every week (or you can join the IRC channel yourself if you want to participate) http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:SundayMeetingAgenda
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Borrowed mouse/keyboard layouts = hawt.
I hope that all of the GUI elements will be somewhat resizeable so that the GUI can be tweaked to a more minimalistic workspace.
And hopefully that startup screen with pickable keyboard layout will make it like that
Example - Here's a GUI I just carved out to demo that. I have the 'buttons window' (as named in Blender) scaled at all different sizes on the right, left, and bottom. If I wanted, I could save that layout. You can see on the top there is a pulldown menu that says SR2 - Model. There's a bunch of presets in there depending on different tasks.
That last set of shots reminds me of the sidebar in the old 3ds max 4 versions. Not a bad thing.
Have to say there's some pretty fundamental changes going on here that yes,, would make more sense calling this Blender 3.0 as Daaark suggested above. These changes are going to be hell on tutorial writers :poly122:
As I understand it, the plan was to use native file browsers where appropriate.
Here is a picture of the 2.5 image browser running on Linux (not sure what the Windows one looks like)
Edit: It sure is going to be tough on tutorial writers, especially once everyone has their hotkeys customized.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Blender2.5/WinterCamp
Part of the reason why I decided to dive in before 2.5. The transition will probably be less painful. I expect it to be awhile before we see decent, up to date tutorials, etc.
The first bits of the new button panels are coming together.
Many of them can be considered as eye-candy because they transport something xtra,- exspecially xtra pixel space. Another con is that this type of GUI design is a visual trend atm. that is more out for visual impression as functionality (see acrobat reader, CS3/4, max2010, Office 12, Vista,...).
Regarding Blender though I hope though that the corner radius can be defined and then it should be no problem setting it to 0 and thereby having rectangular with edgy corners like Lightwave or other edgy GUI`s.
g = move / translate
s = scale
r = rotate
e = extrude
tab = toggle edit mode with object selected
CTRL- V = vertex commands
CTRL- F = face commands
CTRL- E = edge commands
Space and W = misc context menus (so you don't need to loop up misc hotkeys, it's mostly all in here)
I don't know how it can get any simpler.
I don't see the GUI changing anything. It's just that it has been due for a cleanup for awhile now. They kept piling new functionality onto it, and it turned into a mess, and there are some limitations. Ton has said that there are features not there simply because there is no more room on the panels.
It will look nicer and more inviting for the new user. But the interaction with the program will mostly be the same.
As for the panels, I'd prefer it to be more as compact as possible, but whatever. It's been said recently that the GUI will be done as python scripts, so it doesn't really matter I guess? You can throw whatever you want up there. Would be cool to make a custom panel full of custom buttons. Kind of like the bookmark toolbar in Firefox.
I'm more worried about the colors.
I really hope they will kill that one sometime - I think for most 3d people its the first big irrittation with blender- next to the camera controls which I never till today really understood (I can navigate fine with the num- block but preciese mouse control like maya,max,silo,... never got that right). Maybe some visual context in the GUI (which key = what!) might help like the the bloved silo does so nice.
You want TURNTABLE NAVIGATION (possibly with around selection checked). It's in the options menu when you pull down the viewport. The default is something else.
I think that the rounded boxes have already been debated (vigorously) and it was finally decided that they were good. Right now the big areas of contention are the font rendering (it currently looks like it has an emboss when viewed on a darker theme, which is causing a lot of confusion and nerd rage), the check boxes (ugly? too large?), and horizontal vs vertical button windows.
When it comes to G, I usually prefer to use the 3D widget anyways.
The idea being that the new core will break backward compatibility with most python plugins anyway, might as well update while they are at it.
As far as Python being included...Im not sure what the plan is with that. Maybe they will offer it with only some versions of Blender? For example, it would be silly to include Python in the Linux version but Mac users are always complaining that its hard to get Python and Blender working together.
There is also the issue of file size. A small group of Blender users already are stuck using 2.3x because they can no longer fit new versions on a single 3.5" floppy disk. I dont think its practical to support that sort of extreme file size, but then again nobody wants to see more people left behind like that.
Kind of wierd to think of a modern 3d app in terms of 3.5" floppies, but Blender does has a following in some very poor parts of the world where the nearest internet access may be an eight hour bus ride away.
I think it's cool and hardcore, respect to the Blender guys for that.
I am more and more curious about the app now, even if I know that just like Sketchup, I try a fresh Blender install every 6 months or so and every time I am strongly disappointed.
(Like, woh can really STAND Sketchup's sloooooow viewport navigation haha! This thing is a joke
If even the GUI panels are going to be written in Python scripts, it's not going to be very good having it as an optional download. I mean, those guys don't want to walk uphill both ways for another 8 hours to get the python install too!
Who has a modern PC with an openGL accelerator and modern OS and can only use floppies?
Blender does come with enough Python libraries to run itself. You only need a full install to run some aftermarket scripts.
And who said anything about a modern computer? Blender will install and run on just about any hardware.
It won't run on my 1994 IBM Aptiva, and even then CD ROMS were standard. You'll need something post 2000 with OpenGL support. I'm not saying they should inflate it.
I just heard that little talk with Ton and whoever else in the Wintercamp meeting audio files where they were talking about bundling Python 3.0 and it would only be a 2 or 3 mb.
From a practical standpoint, the size of Blender could balloon quite a bit and still be very manageable. A 1 gig USB drive is going to set you back around 4$ these days. If you can afford the electricity to run a computer you can afford one of those.
Besides, the BF mission statement only covers bringing 3d to people with an internet connection. Its nice to support everyone else, but its not exactly a requirement.
Is there a way to change all that to a default nav theme ? Like, modifier keys for navigation, and normal left click for selection and transformation. (not to mention that the 'draggy' mouse thing makes it impossible to use with a tablet...)
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Vitals/User_Preferences
This is turning into a sweet 'blender from scratch' reference thread haha