Blender Beta 2 (2.54) released

Dim · Sep 2010

A new Blender beta has just come out. However, for production, I would wait for another week before using it because the .obj exporter is recently broken. Either that, or use an older version. If you can build it yourself, the corrected code should be linked to below.

From Nathan Letwory:

Hi,

Blender 2.54 Beta has been released! This is the second beta release for the Blender 2.5x series. Here a quick summary of the main work thats been done since Blender 2.53 beta:

Almost 200 (!) bugfixes. During this period close to 700 issues were reported to our tracker, about 675 closed. For some graphs and stats visit Blender Foundation: Status Update Week 36
RNA Renaming. A lot of names were changed in the RNA level. For those who have used drivers a lot in Blender 2.53, there is a helper script in the help menu to fix the paths.
RNA Properties API changed, see [Bf-committers] PyRNA type definition changes (postpone beta until end of week) for proposal and implementation details
Audaspace/Game Engine API GSoC merged (audio py api, game.logic and GE in general, port Yo Frankie! to work with)
As you can see, mostly the effort concentrated on bug fixing, and some major changes in API, but not much new things. After this beta well continue with squashing all those bugs (still over 380 open!).

A crucial bug with the OBJ exporter was identified just as the binaries were being built and uploaded. If you need this you can get the correct version of the OBJ exporter from:

https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender/release/scripts/op/io_scene_obj/export_obj.py

In the tarballs and .zip releases, look for the directory 2.54/scripts/ops/io_scene_obj and copy the file from the link on top of the existing export_obj.py

In the app bundle, go into blender.app and also look for the directory 2.54/scripts/ops/io_scene_obj. Copy the export_obj.py from the repository over the existing one.

For windows installer, if you installed with datafiles into installation directory, find the installation directory, and from there 2.54/scripts/ops/io_scene_obj, if you used user settings directory (application settings), look for %APPDATA%\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.54\scripts\ops\io_scene_obj. Copy the export_obj.py file from repository over the existing one.

Release logs: http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-254-beta/

So far, hundreds of bugs have been found in the 2.5x series, and they definitely need help to find even more. You can report a bug from within Blender directly. To see how, check out this video: http://www.blendercookie.com/2010/08/24/tip-reporting-blender-bugs/

Jonathan · Sep 2010

I've been trying to use Blender more, and have started using it to create/export stuff to UDK (via FBX). I've been also trying to work on creating a bunch of Python scripts to mimic what I often do in Max/Maya, etc. so we'll see how that goes.

Sure, Blender 2.5 isn't done yet, but it's quite awesome already.

renderhjs · Sep 2010

and so did I using blenders AO baking abilities, the nice thing for me was that I could just copy the application folder to another computer and have that one bake the 8k texture while continue working with the others.
Can't do that with Autodesk software

TheBat · Sep 2010

The 2.5 series really is a big improvement of the 2.4x series. I'm looking forward to the final release and think i might be using it more and more. I tested the previous beta 2.5 and was pleasantly surprised (especially in the customisability aspect).

vofff · Sep 2010

YEa but the Alpha for mac have so many bugs I lost my count. I hope this version is better than the older versions.

Dim · Sep 2010

Yeah, this beta is almost entirely bug fixes. From what I hear, it's a feature freeze right now until as many bugs as possible get sorted.

Edit: here's some nice visual info on the handling of bugs: http://www.letworyinteractive.com/b/2010/09/blender-foundation-status-update-week-36/

Blender Beta 2 (2.54) released

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