Developer Meeting Notes

General Forums Blender Development Discussion
1500

I’m not demanding nothing. Just making a fair point that if they are contributing to blenders development there’s probably gravy points to be had that are currently simply squandered. :wink:

edit: ah, missed that the post wasn’t directed at me.

1501

Happy to read this. Though I’ll hold back my excitement until we see some results.

My Last Nvidia GPU was 680, ever since then AMD. So had may first hand negative experiences with blender/AMD setup. It’s getting better but definitely not at the same level of Nvidia’s progress.

There are far more AMD specific issues that are not being moved due to low priority

  • VR purple screen on AMD GPUs
  • Vulkan
  • Cycles Kernel compile

resolved but shouldn’t’ happen - hope that Lukas can ensure the below doesn’t occur again with future releases

  • Performance regressions - in 2.81 & 2.82 cycles rendering performance dropped significantly and took another 2 FULL release, 2.82a or later before it was fixed - https://developer.blender.org/T71479
1502

12 October 2020

Notes for meeting of Monday, 12 October 2020. 18:00 CEST / UTC 16:00 on #blender-coders on blender.chat.

Announcements

Blender 2.91 bcon2/bcon3

  • Next week is bcon3 on Wednesday 21 October.
  • All the 9 high priority bugs should be done by then.
  • All tools to have its final icons.
  • Any developer who added a new feature to take a look at its documentation, involve artists in making decent images for the release notes when possible.
  • If there is no manual entry for the new feature do it, or check with Aaron Carlisle (Blendify) for help.

New Features and Changes

Blender 2.91

  • User Interface
    • UV Editor: move overlay settings into popover, like the 3D viewport (commit ) (Jeroen Bakker)
    • Outliner: Move collection exclude button to restrict columns (commit) (Nathan Craddock)
    • Timeline: add auto keyframing popover (commit ) (Hans Goudey)
    • Improve layout of various pop-up dialogs (commit) (Yevgeny Makarov)
    • Use Ctrl-TrackPad to cycle values in buttons (commit ) (Yevgeny Makarov)
  • Volume: new Volume Displace modifier (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)
  • Sculpt:
    • Union and Join mode for trim tools (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Add icons for new tools (commit ) (commit ) (Rahul Chaudhary)
    • Preview the active side of the line gestures (commit) (Pablo Dobarro)
  • Mesh: improve performance calculating mesh edges with multithreading. (Jacques Lucke)
  • Animation: always try to match the existing curve when inserting keys (commit) (Sybren A. Stüvel)
  • Batch previews: improve speed of preview generation. (commit) (Bastien Montagne)
  • Preferences: use the users temp directory in background mode (commit) (Campbell Barton)
  • Python API: add volume.grids.save(filepath) to save grids and metadata to disk (commit ) (Brecht Van Lommel)

Weekly Reports

7 Likes
1503

19 October 2020

Notes for meeting of Monday, 19 October 2020. 11:00 CEST / UTC 9:00 on #blender-coders on blender.chat.

Announcements

  • Daylight saving time changes on October 25 in Central Europe.
  • Blender 2.91 beta (bcon3) on Wednesday October 21.
  • Wayde Moss joined the Animation & Rigging module team, focusing on the NLA editor.
  • UI team meeting notes
  • Animation & Rigging meeting notes
  • James Monteath is working as DevOps and Operations from Amsterdam

2.91 bcon3

  • bcon3 planned for Wednesday, October 21.
  • There are still 8 high priority bugs unassigned, developers planning to work on them please claim them. Otherwise Dalai Felinto may assign them at random before bcon3.
  • The experimental features won’t be available
  • Any brushes still missing icons and multi-object quick edit issue are to be solved by Wednesday.

Tuesday Talks

  • Dalai Felinto will resume the Tuesday Talks this Tuesday.
  • The idea this time is to try shorter time slots (15 minutes per module) with emphasis on the status of the ongoing projects.

2.92

New Features and Changes

Blender 2.91

  • User Interface:
    • Property editor search now finds results in all tabs and resets panel expansion when exiting search. (commit ) (commit) (Hans Goudey)
    • Improved layout and icons in various panels and popups. (Hans Goudey, Harley Acheson, Yevgeny Makarov, Antonio Vazquez)
    • Show more information in open recent files tooltip. (commit ) (Juanfran Matheu)
  • Sculpt:
    • Cloth brush improved softbody influence setting, now based on plasticity. (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Global automasking settings support in filters. (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Use cursor depth in trimming gestures. (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Experimental pen tilt Support. (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Improved syncing of Face Sets visibility. (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Show paint brush cursor in all tools. (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)
  • Mesh:
    • Reduce Voxel Remesher volume projection artifacts on sharp edges. (commit ) (Leha)
  • Animation:
    • Snap Cursor Value operator, to snap only on the Y axis. (commit) (Sybren A. Stüvel)
    • Option to invert search filter in dopesheet editor. (commit ) (Antonio Vazquez)
  • Fluids: option to write OpenVDB files with full, half or mini float precision. (commit ) (Sebastián Barschkis)
  • Eevee: add shutter position option for motion blur(commit ) (Clément Foucault)
  • Cycles: bundle kernels for NVIDIA RTX 3xxx cards to avoid runtime compilation. (commit ) (Patrick Mours)
  • Volumes: new Volume to Mesh modifier (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)

Weekly Reports

10 Likes
1504

Very good, one of those small quality of life improvements!
I often have files with the same name but different file paths, which I couldn’t differentiate in the recent files menu.

1505

2020-10-20 Blender Rendering Meeting

Attendees

  • Brecht Van Lommel (Blender)
  • Jeroen Bakker (Blender)
  • Clément Foucault (Blender)
  • Stefan Werner (Tangent)

Notes

Status of Ongoing Projects

  • Eevee/Viewport
    • Focus right now for developers is bug fixing for the 2.91 release.
    • Vulkan refactor and associated state tracking is causing compatibility issues in Python scripts that use BGL and the GPU module. Clément works on it and Jeroen helps testing Python example scripts to ensure they still work. Hopefully reported issues can be solved without API compatibility breakage, but it’s not clear yet.
    • The GPU module will need significant improvements for us to drop BGL in future releases. Germano started work on this some time ago, unclear currently if Clément should take over or how this will be organized. Brecht will ask Dalai.
  • Cycles
    • Brecht will focus this week on bug fixing and code review of patches like generic attributes.
    • Kévin continues to work on API update project.
      • Usage of update flags : nearly done, some regressions are to be fixed (some dicing tests are failing)
      • Optix BVH refit : was done against master, will need to merge into the procedural branch to check everything works somewhat properly
      • Render Device node: patch will be updated
  • Cycles and Eevee module owners will update workboards to reflect plans for next few months by the next meeting.
  • Automated testing of Cycles and Eevee in various configurations is important to ensure good performance and stability long term. With the new devops engineer this is a project that will become possible. Something to think about regarding the requirements on the sides of both development and devops, though this project is not going to start immediately.

Practical Info

This is a weekly video chat meeting for planning and discussion of Blender rendering development. Any contributor (developer, UI/UX designer, writer, …) working on rendering in Blender is welcome to join and add proposed items to the agenda.

For users and other interested parties, we ask to read the meeting notes instead so that the meeting can remain focused.

10 Likes
1506

https://devtalk.blender.org/t/26-october-2020/15850
Notes for meeting of Monday, 26 October 2020. 18:00 CEST / UTC 17:00 on #blender-coders on blender.chat.

Announcements

2.91 Beta

  • 2.91 bcon3 (beta) happened on Wednesday 21, October 2020 as planned.
  • The download number indicates that the beta builds are actively tested.

obraz
Daily downloads of 2.91 (alpha & beta) on builder.blender.org in October 2020.

Note: The numbers may be unreliable in terms of absolute values. However they are accurate on the relative change since beta (October 21).

2.92 Alpha

Be sure there is a design approved before you start working on the projects, be sure things that will need review are known ahead of time.

The team will try to stick to the fixed release schedule even if some features have to be left out due to the uncertainties of the future.

New Features and Changes

Blender 2.91

  • Eevee (Clément Foucault)
    • Screen Space Reflection: improve contact reflections and self-intersection cases (commit ) (commit )
    • Principle BSDF: Use multi-scatter switch for the glass variant (commit )
  • Sculpt (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Displacement eraser, boundary brush and line gesture are no longer experimental and have icons (Rahul Chaudhary)
    • Line Gesture: angle snapping, limit to segment and change active side (commit ) (commit) (commit)
  • Modifiers
    • Ocean: support baking spray maps (commit ) (Hans Goudey)
    • Lattice: performance improvements (commit ) (Jeroen Bakker)
  • Fluid (Sebastián Barschkis)
    • Add obstacle fluid distance parameter (commit )
  • Compositor (Sergey Sharybin)
    • Make keying node work with premultiplied alpha (commit)
  • User Interface
    • Various layout and naming tweaks (Julian Eisel, Hans Goudey, Harley Acheson, Pablo Vazquez)
    • Move gesture selection with spacebar (commit ) (Pablo Dobarro)

Blender 2.92

  • Cycles (Nicolas Lelong, Jagannadhan Ravi)
    • Multithreaded export of geometry (commit )
  • Sculpt (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Boundary Brush: smooth deform type(commit )
    • Grab Brush: silhouette option and plane deformation falloff (commit) (commit)
    • Face Set Edit: delete geometry operation (commit)
  • Grease Pencil (Antonio Vazquez)
    • Bake mesh animation for selected keyframes only (commit )
    • Cutter tool parameter to set caps (commit )
    • Subdivide cyclic section of strokes in modifier (commit)
  • Python API (Campbell Barton)
    • Expose the file version via bpy.app.version_file (commit

Weekly Reports

9 Likes
1507

2020-10-27 Blender Rendering Meeting

Attendees

  • Brecht Van Lommel (Blender)
  • Kévin Dietrich (Blender)
  • Jeroen Bakker (Blender)
  • Clément Foucault (Blender)
  • Lukas Stockner
  • Patrick Mours (NVIDIA)
  • Stefan Werner (Tangent)

Notes

Cycles

  • Socket API. Changes were reverted due to motion blur tests failing and crashing in other areas, Kévin will investigate and update the patch.
  • OptiX BVH refit. Patch by Kévin is ready for review, Brecht and Patrick will review.
  • Custom properties as geometry attributes. Brecht works on refactoring the kernel changes to avoid performance regressions.
  • Regression tests on GPU devices. Brecht works on adding a CMake option to run the regression tests on GPU devices. It will be for manual testing to start with, a mechanism to keep reference images updated for multiple devices needs additional infrastructure. Brecht will create a task on developer.blender.org for this.
  • NanoVDB. Patrick still looks into further optimizations for half float, hold off on asking platform maintainers to commit libraries.
  • Tile stealing (D9324). Brecht reviews.
  • Multiple BVH types. For mixed CPU/GPU rendering and networking rendering we need to support building multiple BVHs. This is the reason OptiX does not yet support CPU + GPU for example, and why CUDA/OpenCL + CPU uses a slower BVH on the CPU.
    Lukas proposes to build BVH from packed primitives which would work for network rendering. This would require significant refactoring, needs investigation to see if it’s feasible. Other possibility would be to send over the scene graph now that it’s becoming a more generic nodes + sockets system, though this would be significantly different architecture than current network rendering.
  • Network render. Lukas gets closer to being able to post a patch with improved network render. Initial patch will not solve some more complex issues like OptiX support or fast transmission of textures.

Eevee & Viewport

  • BGL compatibility after Vulkan refactor. Clément fixed known bugs, so unless more unexpected issues come in we should be fine for 2.91.
  • 2.92. Clément will make tasks for new features planned to be worked on, and expects to have time to transition from bug fixing to 2.92 development.
  • Eevee: Cryptomatte. Jeroen has an initial implementation of Cryptomatte passes.
  • Color management: Jeroen still works on color management bugs related to the image drawing refactors (new or already existing).

Practical Info

This is a weekly video chat meeting for planning and discussion of Blender rendering development. Any contributor (developer, UI/UX designer, writer, …) working on rendering in Blender is welcome to join and add proposed items to the agenda.

For users and other interested parties, we ask to read the meeting notes instead so that the meeting can remain focused.

11 Likes
1508

Any idea when new hair will become available? Is it months or rather years away? :neutral_face:

1509

Hope to see some info about material painting too that replaces Blender ancient texture paint.

2 Likes
1510

Wow ! so much for Cycles being stalled. Some fundamental changes in there !

1 Like
1511

Notes for meeting of Monday, 2 November 2020. 11:00 CET / UTC 10:00 on #blender-coders on blender.chat.

Announcements

Welcomes

  • Robert Gützkow accepted a grant to work part time in bug triaging starting November.
  • Nicholas Rishel is now a committer, currently working on improved Windows tablet support.
  • Bassam Kurdali and Christoph Lendenfeld are now officially part of the animation and rigging module.

New Features and Changes

Blender 2.92

  • Fluids: add APIC simulation method (commit ) (Sebastián Barschkis)
  • Sculpt (Pablo Dobarro)
    • Dynamic topology detail size edit operator (commit )
    • Pie menu for global automasking options (commit )
    • Normal orientation for lasso trim tool (commit )
    • Paint Studio Light preset (commit )
  • Grease Pencil (Antonio Vazquez)
    • Option to trace image sequences and convert to grease pencil strokes (commit )
    • Parameter in Texture modifier to rotate Dot textures (commit )
    • Material parameter to rotate texture (commit )
    • Improve join operator (commit )
    • Add interpolate operators in Draw mode (commit )
  • Graph Editor: Un-Bake FCurves operator (commit ) (Sebastian Parborg)
  • Multires: remove simple subdivision type, in favor of simple subdivide operator (commit ) (Sergey Sharybin)
  • Lattice: apply modifier operator is now supported (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)
  • Motion Tracking: simplified configuration of camera intrinsics to refine (commit ) (commit ) (commit ) (Sergey Sharybin)
  • Cycles: tile stealing to improve CPU + GPU rendering performance (commit ) (Lukas Stockner)
  • Outliner: properties editor sync on selection (commit ) (Nathan Craddock)
  • User Interface:
    • Various improvements to layout and naming (Yevgeny Makarov, Sybren A. Stüvel, Philipp Oeser, Aaron Carlisle)
    • Cycle enum values with trackpad Ctrl-Pan (commit ) (Yevgeny Makarov)
  • Windows: improved Wintab tablet support, fixing various bugs and improving sculpt and paint stroke quality (Nicholas Rishel)
  • Python API: point sys.executable to the Python binary, bpy.app.binary_path_python is now deprecated (commit ) (Campbell Barton)

Weekly Reports

7 Likes
1512

Sculpt
Dynamic topology detail size edit operator
https://i.imgur.com/XcfizyZ.mp4
Pie menu for global automasking options
obraz
Normal orientation for lasso trim tool
https://dev-files.blender.org/file/data/ruxe5kc4btefio7qs73x/PHID-FILE-fkxtctd2r43wwtyhik2w/2020-10-16_03-42-22.mp4
Paint Studio Light preset

obraz
obraz1695×1031 162 KB

Grease Pencil
Option to trace image sequences and convert to grease pencil strokes
https://dev-files.blender.org/file/data/howc4motlsl5u5pkwr7n/PHID-FILE-3afja2l5aofqy6uernh4/Trace_Sequence.mp4

Parameter in Texture modifier to rotate Dot textures
https://dev-files.blender.org/file/data/4ycfo6xxzgupwstuueep/PHID-FILE-vrhqg7fwavxaosstvz4m/UV_mat_rotation.mp4

Other:
Cycles: tile stealing to improve CPU + GPU rendering performance
obraz
Outliner: properties editor sync on selection

26 Likes
1513

Thanks a lot for adding the videos :hugs:

2 Likes
1514

The gpu opensubdiv acceleration it’s forgetting by everyone :frowning:

5 Likes
1515

That table is awesome!

5 Likes
1516

Custom Object Properties as Material Attributes

It is super easy to make variations for instances. And it looks like some sort of Material Overrides are possible, now, via custom properties.

7 Likes
1517

So cool. Do you know if vertex groups are accessible yet ?

1518

is not forgotten, just the devs are quite busy with the previously planned taks, and the opensubdiv GPU problem is not trivial to solve.

According to Sergey Sharybin:

“There is no update. Team is overloaded with a lot of other projects. It is still a planned-to-be-worked-on project, but there are no time allocated for it a far as I know. As soon as there is anything, you’ll see it reflected in this task.”

1 Like
1519

Lol you kidding me? No one working on this ,so it’s forgotten