Congrats on landing this job Mike! I’m sure you will fit in quite well there =)
These are really good suggestions. I’m totally happy to critique code when requested, get into nitty-gritties of techniques, etc. I’m also happy to take some the more recent donations and send them on to the Blender Foundation. I think that’s appropriate. I don’t know how to get the money earmarked for Cycles development, though, and I’d like to see that happen. (I know Ton will ultimately put the money where he needs it, but still, it would be nice if it did get used more directly on Cycles development.)
What a nice surprise with the anisotropic shader, and congratulations on the new job.
Obviously its going to suck for the community to see you go, since you’ve put in a couple of high profile patches in a short amount of time. I had personal hopes you would help Brecht optimize the blender code for speedier rendering.
No chance at all your new boss will let you do some community service time? 
Congratulations Mike! I’ll see you on the sitoa Mailing List when you get there 
Mike great work as always!
Mike could you also implement nk-metals???
I mean measured metal fresnels…
I’m already on there…I’ve had access to the mailing lists and internal trac and everything for a while now. I’ve just been lurking. I’ll say hi at some point when I have something to say.
It would be really cool to have a handful of fresnels available to attach to various closures (or have the mix node have the option of a fresnel…does it already have that?). Although in practice, the conductor fresnels (nk) seem so subtle I almost don’t notice them.
I don’t think I’ll have time, though…I’m busting my butt at Tippett Studio so they have as much out of me as they can before I start at Solid Angle, so there’s not much in the way of free time. It’s a bit of a miracle I was able to get the anisotropic shading patch done, honestly.
Are you going to work on Arnold!?
It would appear that way
According to his comment on the last page, he is, and he probably won’t be able to work on Cycles anymore as a result.
I also hear that people on places like CGTalk are starting to get annoyed whenever Arnold is mentioned because there’s little information and no indication of a release date where it can then be purchased. Some are even starting to think it’s vaporware as a result.
Uh…what? :eek: Believe me, it ain’t vaporware (cough I’ve seen all the source code cough). All the big and medium-sized VFX/animation studios know about it, and most have an eval of it or are actively using it. Even Tippett Studio has an eval of it. It’s released, on version 4.0.x already. It is not currently marketed to individuals (it takes a lot of resources to handle the support for that), but I believe there are plans to eventually tackle that.
I’ll see if I can get permission from Marcos to share a few videos of commercials that were done with Arnold by studios around the world. Plus, I know I can tell you that Sony ImageWorks has an in-house variant of it (and Solid Angle and Sony still work together on improving it), which is now the only renderer they use. They’ve dropped renderman completely.
Methinks people on CGTalk don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. 
Honestly, I think Solid Angle tries to keep a low profile, because they don’t want to get inundated with requests from individuals, as they primarily work with studios. I’m probably talking too much about it as it is, but hey. Don’t mistake a company being quiet for them not having influence or clients. Appearances can be deceiving.
This is my favorite reply of this whole thread. This dude is as excited as I am! Yes, that Solid Angle, and yes, I’m going to work on Arnold. 
Lol, yeah it was OT sorry…but, when it comes to talk about Arnold my jaw drops everytime, i read the “story” behind Arnold and Marcos, and I find it so fascinating…plus, when you see Assassin’s Creed Revelation and Mass Effect 3 teaser, or demonstrations about its speed and capabilities well…you know…
edit: double post sorry
Great news, Mike! Congratulations on your new job, I wish you all the best. Arnold - that is exciting!
Thanks for doing what you did as a developer for the community. I’m glad you plan to stay around as a forum member, because besides being an experienced developer who has to leave us, you’re also a pretty nice guy who certainly also has other things to give to this community than code!
Congrats Mike, sounds like a great opportunity and again, thanks for the work on Blender you managed to find time for.
A quick note, obviously don’t feel like you have to share anything that risks an NDA breach. It doesn’t take much digging to find that Arnold renderer exists and is being developed. Personally I’d love to know things like a public release date, price and so on, but I know that feature films and game cinematics are rarely rendered on vapourware…
Actually, I don’t have any idea what the timeline is for a version for individual use, or a price point. I know it is less expensive than Pixar’s Renderman, but I don’t even know how much less. But, alas, even if I did know, I probably couldn’t say anything at this juncture.
Mike,
I know that you’re probably neck deep in NDA at this point, so I understand if you can’t elaborate, but having looked at the source of both projects, would you say that Cycles is “on the right track” to becoming a competitive renderer? I’ve used Arnold before and I was blown away by the speed. I know that there is the general feeling around here that Cycles is to follow in the tracks of Arnold, at least spiritually, but I can’t help but feel like there was something “different” about Arnold that places it on another level beyond the normal commercial vs. OSS feeling. I know Arnold has had years more development and application time than Cycles at this point, but it would be good to hear at least that we’re headed down the right path.
Hrm. Not worded too well on my part. I’m one of the many people who would love more details on Arnold. Those two details being the main ones. However, its obvious that there are now and will be a bunch of things you can’t say about the project. Or can’t say yet. My point was supposed to be:
Don’t feel the need to satisfy our curiosity at the risk of breaking NDA’s and so on. We can wait.
If the Arnold engine is as spectacular as everyone says it is then I don’t see why it can’t hold its own among consumer rendering solutions especially if Solid Angle sells it at a price competitive with engines such as Vray or Indigo.
For example, I can see for sure that it might win over a bit of the Blender userbase if there was a Blender-addon capable of doing things like adding Arnold-specific node types, I can also see it winning over parts of the userbase for virtually every other engine as well.