Developer Meeting Notes

General Forums Blender Development Discussion
2042

Look ma! I made a sample file

10 Likes
2043

Just a heads up, there are a lot of asset related commits today (relating to the browser, the placement of assets in a scene, taking features out of experimental status, ect…).

The workflows related to the reuse of material from previous scenes should be a lot less dependent on the old Append/Link feature now.

3 Likes
2044

I wouldn’t be bothered by it if other annoying things were faster. There are several things that have nothing to do with assets that make the asset editor flicker or refresh or something while I’m doing other unrelated things. Opening the source file of an asset takes a long time, opening another instance of blender in general takes 3x longer than I wish it would. You’d think the fact that Blender is already open would somehow speed up opening another instance.

1 Like
2045

When is the Bcon3 release which I believe means that 3.0 will be feature complete and just bug fixes left until the official release?

Thanks

2046

https://developer.blender.org/project/view/120/

2047

So if I download right now it will be the bcon3 version or is there a specific time when it’s released?

2048

After bcon2 → bcon3 change there should be a release candidate build available in experimental section here:

But it’s not there yet.

2049

OK thanks. I’ll check back later, I wonder if it will be delayed as it’s getting late in the day.

2050

The builds are usually done by buildbot, and it is doing its job usually at night. But afaik the build can be triggered by hand also.
You can download the current Alpha version - it is identical to what you expect from bcon3 release candidate anyway.

Oh man, the timing. Refresh the experimental download page.

2 Likes
2051

siding with this :point_up:
This is exactly the #1 reason why entire weeks of production go to waste: corrupt libraries.
Forget about your 3 month normal-paced project. If your linking went to one asset and (for some reason) it got corrupted, the entire project will never open. This is what used to happen on Max, Softimage and (you know which other one software).
Blender, in the good part can re-append things from any .blend file, so yeah, you could potentially re-build your project, but until you find that faulty asset, well … deadline…

3 Likes
2052

Bit of a question for anyone that knows.

Has the asset placement tools been merged in as part of 3.0?

If anyone knows please let me know.

2053

19 Likes
2054

Thank you! I normally wait for the stable releases but I am going to download 3.x just for this :slight_smile:

1 Like
2055

8 November 2021

Notes for weekly communication of ongoing projects and modules.

Modules & Projects

Geometry Nodes

halloween_spider
halloween_spider1920×1080 79.8 KB

New Features and Changes

Geometry Nodes

  • Add selection outputs to cone and cylinder mesh primitives (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)
  • Add length output to Curve Parameter node (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Support volumes in the set material node (commit ) (Hans Goudey)
  • Add selection input to Resample Curve node (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Add tooltips to primitive node inputs (commit ) (Nikhil Shringarpurey)
  • Performance improvements
    • Improve check if object has geometry set instances (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)

Cycles

  • Perform CPU film reading in the kernel, to use AVX2 half conversion (commit ) (Brecht Van Lommel)

User Interface

  • Include node name for socket animation channel UI (commit ) (Philipp Oeser)
  • Use arrow icon insteaf of a triangle in context paths (commit ) (Pablo Vazquez)
  • Video Sequence Editor: Remove separator lines between rows (commit ) (Pablo Vazquez)
  • Always show the 3D cursor while moving it (commit ) (Campbell Barton)
  • Add preview image storage to node groups, for the asset browser (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)

Grease Pencil

  • New option to merge all layers into the active layer (commit ) (Antonio Vazquez)
  • Performance improvements
    • Use cached depth to perform depth testing operations (commit ) (Germano Cavalcante)

Spreadsheet Editor

  • Display geometry volume component grids (commit ) (Hans Goudey)

Viewport

  • Support selecting point cloud objects (commit ) (Jarrett Johnson)

Weekly Reports

Summary
8 Likes
2056

15 November 2021

Notes for weekly communication of ongoing projects and modules.

Announcements

Modules & Projects

Cycles

Geometry Nodes

New Features and Changes

User Interface

  • Introduce View pie in more editors (commit ) (Pablo Vazquez)
  • 3D Viewport: Remove different outline color for instances (commit ) (Hans Goudey)
  • Allow using floats for font point sizes (commit ) (Harley Acheson)
  • Updated Blender Light theme for the Spreadsheet editor (commit ) (Peter Sergay)
  • Display warning when using Nishita sky texture node with Eevee (commit ) (Thomas Dinges)
  • Performance improvements:
    • Avoid drawing buttons out of view (commit ) (Julian Eisel)

Cycles

  • Add sample offset option for combining samples from multiple sessions (commit ) (Andrii)
  • Enable HIP device and binaries on Windows on RDNA and RDNA2 GPUs (commit , commit , commit ) (Brecht Van Lommel)

Geometry Nodes

  • Add offset input to Set Handle Position node (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Add selection output for Outer Points of star primitive (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Change selection output order in Cylinder node (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)

Text Editor

  • Add an option to auto-close relevant characters (commit ) (Matheus Santos)

Alembic Export

  • Allow exporting animated vertex colors (commit ) (Cody Winchester)

Grease Pencil

  • Add an option to PDF exporter to include all of the scene’s frames (commit ) (Antonio Vazquez)

Python API

  • Expose BLI_string_flip_side_name as bpy.utils.flip_name (commit ) (Demeter Dzadik)

Weekly Reports

Summary
6 Likes
2057

3 new important tasks.

Sculpt Roadmap:
https://developer.blender.org/T93226
Geometry Nodes 3.1 Targets:
https://developer.blender.org/T93203
EEVEE rewrite:
https://developer.blender.org/T93220

22 Likes
2058

22 November 2021

Notes for weekly communication of ongoing projects and modules.

Announcements

1000×500 205 KB

Modules & Projects

Geometry Nodes

EEVEE

New Features and Changes

Geometry Nodes

  • Geometry Nodes: Support custom instance attributes (commit , commit , commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson, Hans Goudey)
  • Add warning when retrieving modifier’s object’s geometry from the object info node (commit ) (__)
  • Decrease overhead of field evaluation with many nodes (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)

User Interface

  • Node Editor
    • Change minimum zoom level in the node editor (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)
    • Skip socket drawing on low zoom (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)
  • Use asset catalog tree view system for the spreadsheet dataset panel (commit ) (Hans Goudey)
  • Small tweaks to UI labels (commit , commit ) (Nikhil Shringarpurey, Aaron Carlisle)

Video Sequence Editor

  • Use alpha over as default blend mode (commit ) (Richard Antalik)
  • Improve performance of alpha over blending in some cases (commit ) (Richard Antalik)

Asset Browser

  • Disallow single file as asset library (commit ) (Sybren A. Stüvel)
  • Include partial matches when filtering tags (commit ) (Sybren A. Stüvel)

Cycles

  • Reduce triangle memory usage with packed_float3 (commit , commit ) (Brecht Van Lommel)

Python API

  • Add meta.separate() Python API function (commit ) (Félix)

Weekly Reports

Summary
8 Likes
2059

YES!YES!YES!

1 Like
2060

Notes for weekly communication of ongoing projects and modules.

Announcements

Modules & Projects

Asset Browser

Geometry Nodes

New Features and Changes

Geometry Nodes

  • Node execution time overlay (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)
  • Performance improvements
    • Improve multi-threading for medium sized geometries (commit , commit ) (Jacques Lucke)
    • Reduce overhead with many nodes (commit , commit , commit , commit ) (Jacques Lucke)
    • Optimize the Set Position node (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)
    • Optimize Cube primitive vertex location calculation (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)
    • Parallelize the Set Spline Type node (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)

Animation

  • Allow manually setting the intended playback range for actions (commit ) (Alexander Gavrilov)
    • Allow marking actions as cyclic for Cycle-Aware Keying (commit ) (Alexander Gavrilov)

Mask Editor

  • Draw the active mask layer on top (commit ) (Simon Lenz)

Cycles

  • Expose direct light sampling option in Debug panel, tweak panel layout (commit ) (Brecht Van Lommel)

User Interface

  • Improve scaling of widgets when zooming (commit ) (Leon Leno)
  • Change the icon used for Blender files without preview thumbnails (commit ) (Harley Acheson)
  • Replace .blend file icons, add “Current File” icon (commit ) (Julian Eisel)
  • Performance improvements
    • Significantly increase the performance with many UI elements like nodes (commit ) (Erik Abrahamsson)

Asset Browser

  • Catalog drag and drop
    • Support dragging catalogs into top level (commit ) (Julian Eisel)
    • Activate catalogs when dragging (commit) (Julian Eisel)
  • Asset library indexing for improved performance (currently disabled) (commit ) (Jeroen Bakker)
  • Add operator for installing asset bundles (commit ) (Sybren A. Stüvel)
  • Generate light preview when making light object an asset (commit ) (Julian Eisel)

Painting

  • Performance improvements
    • Increase speed of generating curve masks by 2-5x (commit ) (Jeroen Bakker)

Video Seuqnce Editor

  • Support drag and drop for data-blocks (commit , commit ) (Peter Fog)

Weekly Reports

Summary
13 Likes
2061

Notes for weekly communication of ongoing projects and modules.

Announcements

Modules & Projects

Geometry Nodes

New Features and Changes

Node Editor

  • Make displaying the node editor context path optional (commit ) (Hans Goudey)
  • Support internal links for Python nodes custom sockets (commit ) (Omar Emara)

Geometry Nodes

  • Dual Mesh Node (commit ) (Wannes Malfait)
  • Generalized Compare Node (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Domain Size Node (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Instance domain attribute improvements
    • Propagate attributes in Instances to Points node (commit ) (Hans Goudey)
    • Propagate attributes in Instance on Points node (commit ) (Jacques Lucke)
  • Add Point Count to Spline Length Node (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Rename Curve Parameter node to “Spline Parameter” (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)
  • Add Index on Spline to the Spline Parameter node (commit ) (Johnny Matthews)

Video Sequence Editor

  • Disable interactivity in combined view (commit ) (Richard Antalik)

Weekly Reports

Summary
7 Likes