It is free, most code is opensource. It has an AWESOME realtime raytracer, and a very good UI design.
It is developed by a single person. It cannot replace what blender can do by far, but it’s design and some of it’s tools are very inspiring.
tested and it has some quite nice features, also discussed the possibility of open-sourcing with its developer, I gather he’d rather a smaller userbase of satisfied users then opensource and try make it please everyone. Which I can understand actually
I have to admit it does have some neat features, but I’d still think it’s behind Blender in terms of total functionality.
Isn’t this being coded by the guy who says Blender’s code is no good and thinks his program could surpass Blender in a few months with an army of coders?
Cyborg Dragon, in your second paragraph, you’re thinking of Moonlight|3D.
Anyway, I contacted the author of this program many years ago, asking if there was ever going to be a Windows port. His reply was pretty much a suggestion to get Linux. Not a bad advice, of course. But, back then, I hardly knew anything about Linux and it didn’t look as user-friendly as it does now.
Despite its many features, this program has remained largely unknown due to its limited documentation, the non-existant community, lack of promotion, etc.
Well, it definitely has evolved even further now too,
and I would also like to add that my last post in this thread sounds much harsher than I really meant it to be/come out as,
so got to apologize about that. :o
And that would be my main problem(s) with it, its a good initiative, definitely though.
No need to apologize. You have every right to hate its GUI, especially if you’ve actually tried it. All I’ve seen since I’ve known of this application is just one screenshot after another. Despite it looking pretty, I’m not sure how efficient it might be.
80% open source is practically not open source at all according to historical context. I’ve seen so many projects stager because the author lost interest in developing the program and wouldn’t release that last bit of crucial code. If there was other viable alternative to the program, then usually a code fork would be made and a new completely open source project would be made. In this case, Blender and several other open source modelers and rendering engines are available.
The last thing I want to do is learn an application that ceases to be developed.
Even if the guy isn’t interested in joining up with Blender, perhaps getting that fast raytracer into Blender would be do-able. (would be great if he would let Blender devs have it)
It would speed up rendering quite a bit seeing as the new volumetrics also uses raytracing… that would benefit from the speedup also.
I would guess that the renderer would be the part that is not opensourced. I certaintly don;t blame him for not wanting to open source everything, not everyone needs to be in the bandwagon. If he’ developing this by himslef and has been doing ti for years, chances are that he enjoys what he is doing and is passionate about his project. He doesn;t sem to be looking for or wnt any help. He seems content with the small userbase his program has. I find that refreshing actually. Even in the shape his app is in it could be nice little bit of competition for Blender if it were fuly OSS and had a following, which a nicer site and a gallery would probably help drastically. People are suckers for pretty pics, which is why most OSS projects are obligated to post screenshots of their app, they may not get ny users otherwise.