Crazy crazy plugin idea

Support Basics & Interface
#1

Hey Everyone,

Ok so I have this wild idea…

First of all let me say I love blender to bits - it is a truly great program. So great, in fact that I have abandoned five years of blood sweat and tears cooking over a hot 3D studio max stove to convert to blender.

Having said that, there are certain things that I would like to be able to do in blender that may not become availabe for quite some time. So basically I am going through my favourite plugins from my old days as a max user, and emailing the people who created them, and asking them how much money it would take to bribe them into creating a port of their plugin for blender.

First of all, I only bother contacting the ones who offer their plugins for free. Second, I leave it upto them to decide how much money it would take to make it worth their while, but Third, I make the stipulation that the port must be freely available just as blender is.

??? What lunacy is this? :slight_smile:

Seriously though, check out the following plugins, and tell me how cool would it be to have these features in blender - in the near future:

http://www.ibmr.net/Ornatrix/
http://www.chaosgroup.com/software/simcloth3/
http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/research/cloth/index.html

And if you’re thinking it, yes I know about fibre and topix and the other stuff around etc etc, but basically ‘I aint getting any younger’ :slight_smile: You may also be thinking ‘why don’t you just learn how to do it yourself?’ I’d love to but again it comes back to time - there just aint enough of it :frowning:

Personally, I don’t mind using some of my personal stash to fund potential projects like this, but in all likely hood, somewhere along the line I’ll proably have to resort to organizing some sort of fundraising.

More than anything though, I’m just floating the idea in the forums to get peoples opinion about whether it’s a good one. It’s also a good opportunity to find out if this is a road the Blender Gods would smile on or frown on.

Thats my 2 dollars worth, what do you think?

#2

i’d generally say - no. for several reasons.

first of all, there is no plugin architecture (yet?) for blender as it is in max, or maya - not talking abt. python here, but compiled libraries. this doesn’t apply to textures and sequence plugins, but for the rest.

second, before spending money (fund-raising will be another issue) on external developers for some specialized tools, i’d rather support the blender foundation to make blender better.

and third, if blender supported plugins, i see no sense in having a plugin that costs zero for max, but needs to be paid for blender.

it would be a better idea to get people aboard to help developing blender. blender has still a reputation of being a “toy” among most professionals. if we can change that, interest in blender will gain momentum and this will attract artists, coders and others, who usually stick with the big, expensive packages.

#3

Hey there solmax…

But… hair!!!

grin I think you make some good points there…

  1. no plugin architecture

I’m not too worried about how they do it. If there was a plugin architecture - great, otherwise they can just roll up their sleeves and get involved in blender dev as a dev in whatever way it is that the powers that be prefer developers to work.

  1. specialized tools vs foundation funding.

Hmmm… wishlists are always a tricky thing and usually as wide as the ocean. For me, I can’t think of anything I’d like to have next in blender more than yummy looking hair (have you seen the ornatrix stuff? damn!) But for bob, jane and mary, it might be the last thing they would want. Which is exactly why I’m thinking let the foundation get on with the stuff that the majority want, while me and my hired guns sit a little out of the way chipping away at the sideline stuff that not as many people are interested in (hair and clothing simulation - chortle).

  1. paying for plugins

I might not have caught your meaning very well on this one. When I talked about paying for plugins, I didn’t mean they should try and sell a port of their plugin to blender users, I meant I didn’t mind paying them for the time it took to code a port of their plugin to blender - with the understanding that it would be freely available.

  1. professional opinions of blender

For me personally, the idea of blender being a toy ground violently to a halt when edge and face selection became available. Also the explosion of video notes have made an enormous difference too - as far as I can tell, the number one complaint from new users was about the learning curve. This is hardly an excuse now, with all of the great learning material available.

As far as changing attitudes in ‘professionals’ I think its a case of what comes first the chicken or the egg - for me I had a checklist of things that made a 3D package worth looking at. At the top was edge and face seleciton and as soon as it showed up, I dumped max for blender quicker than I could blink. Am I trying to say blender is better than max? Nope, (sorry) but it has everything I need and its about $8000 (AU) cheaper :slight_smile:

The point is, hair and cloth are big ticket items that get attention. If it’s respect and credibility that blender wants, I think these features will go a long way to getting it.

Anyways, I should get off my soapbox, it’s 3AM here - sorry for being so passionate, I just love what blender lets anyone who wants to do.

#4

i fully agree with the professional “aspect”, and that blender delivers everything you need, except advanced physics simulation (hair, cloth…). and i misunderstood what you meant with “paying for porting” - now it’s clear.

actually - to be honest - i’d love to see some advanced new stuff, of course. and if there is a possibility to make the community pay for porting - wonderful. maybe i’m just too pessimistic in that case to truly believe this will work out. but hey - don’t get disencouraged by thought like mine :wink:

the main reason for porting plugins and spending time and knowledge would be motivation. money is truly a motivation factor, but if it was the main factor, we wouldn’t have blender at all, or still v225 in the best case. the ppl around ton - and he himself - have for sure a different approach to their great work. this kind of ppl need to be attracted to the blender project, as they perfectly represent the “spirit” of it.

hm, getting pathetic right now;), but i hope you get my point.

#5

There is a bit of a half-assed cloth simulation in instinctive-blender (which is essentially blender with a different (more efficient) UI, more features, and some tweaks). You can search the forums on blender.org or here.