dates have changed 
but haven’t seen any ‘a’ build in
edit:
oops… builds are in 
They will change it when the release is ready.
Yeah sorry about that, a last minute bug got found and fixed, so builds were pulled back for a short while. they should be there now.
Does it support CPU+GPU rendering?
No.
also no bevel shader.
It is mostly just a bugfix release, no new features over 2.79.
I don’t think there’s ever been a ‘truly bug free’ Blender release (or even one that feels bug free) since the early days when the codebase was far smaller and the devs. could get the number of active reports below 30.
The reasons for outstanding bugs are things such as a fix being highly non-trivial (ie. requiring a re-write of an entire area of code), a bug that needs a fundamental change in Blender’s architecture to truly fix, a bug that is in a fragile area of code (where fixing it can produce more bugs), a bug that is in an area that’s largely orphaned and no active dev. has a lot of knowledge of, a bug that is in an area where a rewrite is planned or is imminent ect…
This could be one reason why the BF is taking the important step of improving their process of patch review and placing more effort in the area of on-boarding new developers, more bugs potentially being squashed on a daily basis.
I am not requesting a bug free release or big refactor of several areas. I would prefer a threshold below 300 rather than 400.
But this is not my point. In the list, there are bugs that occurs when the user does not do something complicated, rare or totally absurd.
For example, these ones :
https://developer.blender.org/T53704
https://developer.blender.org/T50423
You simply follow expected workflow, you press on dedicated checkbox => And it simply does not work.
That’s weird for a corrective release.
And bugs related to import/export are also the kind of things that user will expect to see fixed by corrective releases.
My feeling is just that scan done could have been more severe to avoïd these little things that are not completely blocking but can upset users in the perspective of a release that could be official one during more than one year.
Way too buggy still. With OpenColorIO to 1.10 in Debian I’m getting reversed 3D Luts errors to console consistently. The OpenCL stack keeps crashing depending on some of the passes I wish to run.
If one has an OpenCL stack GPGPU the only features that should be active are the ones certified to work. The rest should be grayed out.
Those areas deal with the various passes. I can crash files depending on which one I select for a separate pass.
2.79 shouldn’t be release for another month at this rate.
Well the Blender team does want to get 2.8 ready for widespread testing by Summer (SIGGRAPH at the latest), so I imagine there’s only so much time they can spend on 2.79 if they want to achieve that.
In general, the increased bugginess compared to earlier releases may be due to the development focus on 2.8 (I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if we see a major bugfixing effort in the weeks before the official release).
If there’s any reproducible issues with the release candidate build from blender.org , please open up a ticket on developer.blender.org
You’ve reported these bugs, correct?
Just a thought here and I’m well aware of what section of the BF this thread is in. This is not going how I had hoped several weeks ago. I had hoped 2.79 would end up being the best it could be given 2.8 is a major change. And, by that I mean not only a bug fix but including the speedups that have been in the nightly builds for quite some time.
That given my understanding 2.8 would be the build that didn’t jam developers up and with a stable, feature rich, 2.79 it would be the one simply ready when the developers decided that was the case. Whether that be six months or ten. Or, as I understood the original plan anyway. Well, something has gone askew with that plan since now it seems 2.79 is jamming them up because of 2.8 and a trade show.
Maybe I misunderstood how 2.8 would come on line. And, don’t pretend to know what considerations Ton has obviously. I mean after all he is The Man. Anyway, just a thought and no need for four post involving a pissing contest.
///
A few things to note here
- Users are, again, not grasping how ‘a’ and ‘b’ releases work. The only thing that goes in are bugfixes and nothing more (adding the new stuff in this case could increase the chance of bugs not found in 2.79).
- The devs. are placing 2.8 development first, but they are also committing to the 2.7x branch if a change can be used in a production build right away (ie. it’s not breaking workflows or introducing a new concept that will take time to polish and stabilize).
- 2.79a actually got its AHOY message from Sergey, so it should be out very soon. 2.79a has not been a high priority for devs, hence the slower rate of development which should be the case if you’re doing major overhauls in a new version at the same time.
- The stability of the master builds (2.7x) is fairly decent right now from what I can see (so they are quite usable if you want some of the latest stuff).
Yeah, you are exactly right Ace. Evidently I’m not grasping what the final 2.79 build should be. Nor, the entire concept laid out for the development of 2.8. Which I thought was going to be a developers build not constantly jamming them up with a release every month. And, God knows we love a plan coming together.
But, in the interim they would leave a Killer 2.79 for Blender users and studios to use for those many months. After all 2.79 is the Flagship Edition of Blender. Where we now actually have development going on in studios. Hell, I might be wrong but didn’t the trip to 2.79 bring sponsors on board. And, even had propitiatory programs acknowledging Blenders very existence. So yes I’m a little confused.
Suddenly it seems 2.8 is not going to be on a developers schedule of months without worrying about a release which I thought was the damn plan as I mentioned. Oh, well, I’ll work with what is available as we all do and thank the developers for that. But, honestly I’ve changed my mind. Forget Wednesday less have a final 2.79 release a month from now as one guy mentioned.
///
2.8 in general will not even see an official alpha build for several months yet, and 2.79a is planned to be the end of the line for 2.7x (so there’s not going to be near as much time taken up by release planning).
2.79a is a bugfix release, and its purpose is to be more stable than 2.79. There’s not much point in delaying getting those fixes to users, the cutoff will always be arbitrary. If many more fixes come in after the release it’s always possible to do a 2.79b, etc. Personally I would like to see the release process streamlined so we can do frequent bugfix releases and ideally auto updates rather than discuss when bugfix releases should happen.
Every Blender version released has had known bugs, crashers, etc. This is just the reality of big software, look at any tracker for similar sized open source projects. It’s always possible to focus more on bug fixing, or more on new features, … and different users will have different opinions on what the priority should be.
The large majority of bugs in the tracker are things that have always been broken, since the feature was available. Regressions tend to be fixed more quickly. That means if the number of bugs in the tracker increases, it’s not usually indicative that the software has gotten more unstable, just that we have more information about things that don’t work.
Oh, shit, not the end of the line, Ace. I’m reminded of how many businesses held on to Windows XP even as Microsoft worked their way up to this thing known as Windows 10. Because it was simply working for them and security concerns dragged them into a update.
@brecht, thanks for taking the time. And, of course for your efforts over the years putting Blender on the map so to speak and enabling me to turn out something I can live with. Although I had to be dragged screaming and crying into Cycles with Nodesville. Of course that has all changed with the newest Shader. So accept my thanks young man if you will.
That being said we all have opinions as you recognized and acknowledged. And, being older then dirt I hate change. And, view 2.79 as Windows 7 when they finally got it right before driving me to Linux. Once again thank you for taking the time.
///
Blender’s been through a big change like this before (2.49 > 2.59) and what came out was a better program with a greatly improved UI.
It will be the same with 2.8, features like proxy overrides and collections tackle major weak-points in Blender’s workflow and Eevee is a realtime version of what BI could’ve been (before the code became trashy beyond repair).
A number of people actually did hold out on Blender 2.49, but they eventually switched over because of things like Bmesh and Cycles. It was the same with people holding out on BI compared to Cycles, but even RobertT (the guy behind many stylistic works) has since switched
It has indeed, Ace. And, I made that transition like many on this forum. But, I wouldn’t compare that to that change. 2.49 was a gift to hobbyist whereas 2.79 is being used in studios around the world in their workflow every day. Thus my comment 2.79 is the culmination of Blender being on the map. And, 2.8 being some unknown shit you might download on work stations while people are getting the product out with what they know. Which it seems is 2.59 / 2.79 at the moment.
And, of course that will change down the road. But, don’t expect people to run out and embrace change simply because it is nothing more then that. Hell, it doesn’t work that way. One guy on the Blender Podcast said I might go screaming and crying into 2.8. And, I suspect his workflow is way more sophisticated then ours. Just a thought, guy.
///
Just wondering if I could check a bit of my thinking in relation to all of this.
So 2.79a is a general bugfix patch to 2.79, hence it should be more stable, with less issues and anyone using 2.79 in production has no reason not to update to 2.79a (once officially released) and keep going.
To have some of the newer features, like GPU+CPU rendering, etc, one will still need the daily builds which I assume are build from the current master.
Does that mean, once released, that any daily builds will be based on 2.79a with ‘extras’ or do those daily builds already include everything that makes up 2.79a with various other extra code (which is a combination of more proposed bug fixes along with new features).
What I’m really wondering about, is would it make sense to do all the creation work on 2.79a and then once finished, just use a daily build for faster final rendering, but not save any changes, in case the daily build does anything to the blend file that 2.79a doesn’t like.