Blender 2.40 Released

LetterRip writes "Googles Summer of Code has born fruit with the Blender 2.40 release. Thanks to their support and the hard work of the coders they supported Blender has fluid dynamics simulation done by Nils Thuerey, a powerful inverse kinematics system done by Brecht Van Lommel, and much improved boolean tools done by Marc Freixas. Of course Blender has had a huge number of improvements aside from the work supported by Google. The animation system got a complete rewrite by Ton Roosendaal, as well as other major improvements like flive UV unwrapping LSCM, and a Modifier stack system. It also has seen greatly improved ease of use since the last Slashdot announcement addressing all of the complaints raised- things like 3d manipulators, full undo system, etc. There is also a quick start guide for new users, and nice video and written tutorials on new features and a fairly up to date manual."

Re:Awesome

[syphoon]

I don't think I've ever seen someone substitute "proprietary" with "capitalist" like that before. What are you implying? Blender has a little red book?

Open-source software is not the opposite of capitalism. It's an orthogonal concept.

Re:Awesome

[Quarters]

and it is as versatile as a professional capitalist program like Maya, Lightwave, or 3DS Max.

No, it's not. In terms of expandability and versatility Max has it beat hands down. Here, do these things in Blender:

Script a new custom helper node that has a private parameter block to hold run-time specific information and uses the exposed viewport drawing commands to create a custom icon and transform gizmo for the helper object. Create a new material that has a global parameter block to hold settings for .FX (or .HLSL or .GLSL) shaders. Have those shaders work in the viewports. Have the settings be easily accessible both by the scripting language and the C++ SDK so that the data can be easily exported. Create the custom helper node and material in a scripting language, not C or C++ w/ an SDK.

Now create an entire bipedal skeleton with head, neck, clavicles, R/L upper arms, R/L lower arms, R/L hands, 4 spin segments, pelvis, R/L upper legs, R/L lower legs, R/L feet, proper IK and joint constraints. Do that in less than 30 seconds.

Still with me?

Keyframe animate the new skeleton over 100 frames. Create a second skeleton of a totally different scale with a different bone count. Now map the animation from skeleton 1 to skeleton 2, taking into acount the differing bone counts and scale. Do that in less than a minute.

Use a cloth simulation to create the animation of a person walking through a curtain. Use an extremely dense mesh for the curtain cloth. Now skin-wrap that animation on to a low-res version of the curtain with an IK bone setup instead of a cloth simulation (since cloth sim can't be use in a real-time engine). Quickly! The skin wrapping needs to be done in a minute or so.

Blender isn't a bad product at all. It's actually a very nice product. That doesn't mean it's more versatile than Max, though. Autodesk has more man hours poured into Max each year than Blender has had for the entire time its been a product. Autodesk has the advantage of a huge customer base and the smarts to talk to those customers and incorporate new features that increase productivity. Max wasn't nearly as versatile 3 years ago as it is now. Except for the biped creation step above it couldn't do any of the things I listed either (except maybe the custom helper node).

There's nothing wrong with "capitalist" software (eyeroll at the bad melodramatic turn of phrase). If Max provides features and options that fit a current or designed workflow and increases productivity then it is well worth the purchase price.

Re:Awesome

[LetterRip]

[QUOTEScript a new custom helper node that has a private parameter block to hold run-time specific information and uses the exposed viewport drawing commands to create a custom icon and transform gizmo for the helper object.[/QUOTE]

No problem.

[QUOTE]Create a new material that has a global parameter block to hold settings for .FX (or .HLSL or .GLSL) shaders.[/QUOTE]

Sure.

[QUOTE] Have those shaders work in the viewports.[/QUOTE]

Alas we will need Ogre or CrystalSpace integration for that yet...

[QUOTE]Have the settings be easily accessible both by the scripting language and the C++ SDK so that the data can be easily exported. Create the custom helper node and material in a scripting language, not C or C++ w/ an SDK.[/QUOTE]

Scripting and direct access to the C code no SDK.

[QUOTE]Now create an entire bipedal skeleton with head, neck, clavicles, R/L upper arms, R/L lower arms, R/L hands, 4 spin segments, pelvis, R/L upper legs, R/L lower legs, R/L feet, proper IK and joint constraints. Do that in less than 30 seconds.[/QUOTE]

There are preexisiting skeltons with full constraint setups avialable already. Not automagic - but it is the weighting and morphs that are the big time consumers. We have very good morphs and weighting system now, and the rigging and constraints is quite easy and straight forward.

[QUOTE]Still with me?[/QUOTE]

Yep

[QUOTE]Keyframe animate the new skeleton over 100 frames.[/QUOTE]

Done.

[QUOTE]Create a second skeleton of a totally different scale with a different bone count. Now map the animation from skeleton 1 to skeleton 2, taking into acount the differing bone counts and scale. Do that in less than a minute.[/QUOTE]

Nope can't do this yet - motion retargeting will hopefully come by this summer - that is a pretty recent addition though to 3ds etc.

[QUOTE]Use a cloth simulation to create the animation of a person walking through a curtain. Use an extremely dense mesh for the curtain cloth.[/QUOTE]

Done

[QUOTE]Now skin-wrap that animation on to a low-res version of the curtain with an IK bone setup instead of a cloth simulation (since cloth sim can't be use in a real-time engine). Quickly! The skin wrapping needs to be done in a minute or so.[/QUOTE]

Haven't tried it but pretty sure is doable.

[QUOTE]Blender isn't a bad product at all. It's actually a very nice product. That doesn't mean it's more versatile than Max, though.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely agreed.

[QUOTE]Autodesk has more man hours poured into Max each year than Blender has had for the entire time its been a product. Autodesk has the advantage of a huge customer base and the smarts to talk to those customers and incorporate new features that increase productivity. Max wasn't nearly as versatile 3 years ago as it is now. Except for the biped creation step above it couldn't do any of the things I listed either (except maybe the custom helper node).[/QUOTE]

Well - with Blender you can accomplish most of what you listed now.

[QUOTE]There's nothing wrong with "capitalist" software (eyeroll at the bad melodramatic turn of phrase). If Max provides features and options that fit a current or designed workflow and increases productivity then it is well worth the purchase price.[/QUOTE]

Absolutely agreed.

LetterRip

Re:Linux Lover?

[The Mgt]

I'm guessing the article was submitted by a linux fan.

Why? It's a Windows and OSX app too.

Re:Splitting Hairs...

[khellendros1984]

The . isn't a decimal....for instance, 2.4.1 is a valid version number, as is 2.10.3, but 2.10.3 isn't the same as 2.1.3, see? At least, that's how many programs are versioned (mostly open source stuff, I suppose), where they don't worry quite as much about the software's marketing image.