2.59 - 2.63 upgrade

So I’ve been working in blender 2.59 because that was the most recent version when the project went on hiatus. Now every once in a while i try to update my game into 2.65… this is outrageously hard since it seems like the whole game is broken but the system console is telling me life is peachy. has anyone posted a how to upgrade versions article? someone should cut out that niche market for themselves.

PS should i try switching from 2.59 - 2.60 then 2.61 etc or should i just dive in and go to 2.65. I’d really like to get to use the modern tools.

Definitely go straight into 2.65. I usually just use the latest build when it comes out, that way the changes don’t build up.

Please have a look at the release notes.

The converter usually converts from the previous version only. In most cases this is not a big deal as there are not that much format changes.
But there was a big step somewhere around 2.61. This merged the F-Curve Actuators with Action Actuators. This conversion might require manual steps (please see release notes).

So I recommend to go through each single (full) version. But this is a lot of work.

The converter can handle multiple version jumps.

The potentially breaking changes that come to mind are animation changes and removing texface stuff.

The animation changes have caused serious grief for me when I tried upgrading from 2.59 to 2.63. Is there nothing to help soften that blow? I really don’t want to have to remake several hundred animations :frowning:

The question is, why are you upgrading? If there is not something in 2.65 that you must have, then just stay on 2.59 for your project.

The animations themselves should be fine, but the logic might be a little different now. First we need to pin-point exactly what is breaking. Do any of these bugs look familiar? http://projects.blender.org/tracker/index.php?group_id=9&atid=306&power_query=1&query_id=605&run=Power+Query

I had some problems with the animations with 2.60
the fact that up to 2.59 the actuator action was (or could? boh)
be activated every frame, while after 2.60 should only be activated once

so I had to slightly change the script


from:


cont.activate(action)


to:


if not "init" in own:
    own["init"] = 1
    cont.activate(action)


other than that, that I know everything that worked before it still is now
for some times there was problem with shapekey (now solved)

PS: really there “n-gons” (you can have a face with more than 4 vertex) that is a lot annoyng :smiley: , but is deactivable in someway(i have to found a way to setup it as default…)

Sorry i was gone for a while. and actually there are a few things from the newer versions I would like to use. for some reason in the new versions my animations will actually blendIn and I like the ngons. But i did notice my animations all horrifically broke. I did read the release notes but I guess I’ll go back and try it again one upgrade at a time. the main reason i want to upgrade anyways is that if i stay at 2.59 and 2.72 has something i feel like i NEED then i’m going to cry when the jump is all that much further. The only reason I’m not current now is because I took a year long blender hiatus. I still think someone could make a very popular youtube series walking people through all the changes they need to know to port from upgrade to upgrade.

I’ll do that. thanks for the heads up. btw I’m going through your guide to python coding pdf and I must admit I didnt even know what modules were before reading it so I’m also going to have to go back and reformat all of my code a well. thanks a million though. top shelf information.

@kastoria: I need to upgrade because there is a bug with the Text objects in 2.59 where they won’t use different fonts.
@Moguri: You’re right; it doesn’t seem to be the animations, rather how they are being controlled. I’ve included a couple of pictures to demonstrate the issue(s). 2.59 is on the left, 2.64 on the right.

  • The bars in the middle are on an action to determine their width, and an IPO to set their height. You can see the logic for it in the second screen shot. The width action is working perfectly; it’s the height IPO that is not functioning correctly.
  • The bottom center elements (the right shows them completely white) have an IPO to set colour and alpha.
  • The slither of a green bar you can see in the top left of the 2.64 screen shot shows an IPO that is starting on the wrong frame. It’s a progress bar.
    Unrelated to this issue, but teething problems I’m also facing:
  • The brightness of the images seems to be lower in 2.64. You can see that best looking at the ‘Steps to Literacy’ title. There are no lamps in the scene.
  • The images are showing wayyy sharper in 2.64. It’s making the buttons harder to read. See ‘Print Menu’ and ‘Print Screen’ to see what I mean.
    P.S.
    What’s up with the linebreaks in the forum while replying? I can’t get them to work properly in ether Opera or Internet Explorer.

hi @Skormeus,

Let me allow you to avoid the hassle of going up through all the major versions of Blender, as it doesn’t seem to help the situation.
As soon as your .blend file touches Blender 2.6, it starts to look and act pretty funky.
Ive tried going through all major releases even after 2.6, but to no avail.

I’m wondering if anyone else has been able to come up with a solution.
Please let us know.

Thanks,
-helenclarko