Guild of Writers

Aww, so much anger and frustration..

It appears I will have to restrain myself communicating across the pond.

*waves from France* heya Please do communicate.

Blender 2.80

I may be in the minority here, but I don't see how Blender 2.80 support should be a big priority (regardless of the complexity of the task).

Blender 2.80 looks great, and it has many improvement; but in the end I do'nt see a lot that could improve *our* work. Blender is not a game level editor and most of the new features I see are really directed at animation, FXs, or rendering.. Sure there are a few ncie things here and there, but nothing I see that really justify the amount of work it will take to support it. The biggest change is probably the UI; and that nothing vital IMHO. 2.79 work really well, is stable, and has pretty much everything we need to make Ages. Staying on it allows us to refine the existing base, improve ease of use, and improve the documention (which will have to be 70% re-done when we eventually move to 2.80...)

I'm all for improvements, but to me catching up on 2.80 just seems too much work for the little gain we'll get from it.

(beside, I'm not a fan of the new UI on 2.8; I don't like radial menus, and the black and white icons are a non-sensical decision. So you'll have to pry 2.79 from my cold dead hands. )

[edit]
One thing that might looks potentially interesting, but would be muuuch later down the road, could the new viewport rendering system (theoretically) allow for a viewport to display proper Uru shaders? (I have no idea) . Right now that's one area of development that would benefit from a shorter interation time. Being able to check a shader right into Blender, rather than having to build an Age and test it in Uru would be a nice time saver.

Me waves back at France I don't want to leave Europe

My only desire for 2.80 compatibility is that I use Blender for stuff other than age building where I produce short animated logos.

In those cases I am using a lot more node wrangling to get glass and shiny metal effects.

If all I was doing was age building I would probably stay with 2.79b and it is only the desire to not have to think about which version I was using.

I would love to have all of that node shading and texturing to play with in age building but for now I can wait so for now Aloys you can rest assured your hand can remain warm and alive and holding Blender 2.79b.

[edit]
Talk about coincidence my Quora feed just threw up a thing about Americans not understanding the British taking the piss it goes on to mention the Aussie's and Kiwi's getting it as well and not that it gets mentioned much but I have seen it with French, Germans, and the Dutch I dare say other sections of Europe have it as well.

I guess this is just another reason I am disappointed with this Brexit debacle
[/edit]

Aloys wrote:Aww, so much anger and frustration..

It appears I will have to restrain myself communicating across the pond.

*waves from France* heya Please do communicate.

Yeah, this isn't a cultural problem. Not in that way, anyway.

Aloys wrote:

Blender 2.80

I may be in the minority here, but I don't see how Blender 2.80 support should be a big priority (regardless of the complexity of the task).

Blender 2.80 looks great, and it has many improvement; but in the end I do'nt see a lot that could improve *our* work. Blender is not a game level editor and most of the new features I see are really directed at animation, FXs, or rendering.. Sure there are a few ncie things here and there, but nothing I see that really justify the amount of work it will take to support it. The biggest change is probably the UI; and that nothing vital IMHO. 2.79 work really well, is stable, and has pretty much everything we need to make Ages. Staying on it allows us to refine the existing base, improve ease of use, and improve the documention (which will have to be 70% re-done when we eventually move to 2.80...)

I'm all for improvements, but to me catching up on 2.80 just seems too much work for the little gain we'll get from it.

(beside, I'm not a fan of the new UI on 2.8; I don't like radial menus, and the black and white icons are a non-sensical decision. So you'll have to pry 2.79 from my cold dead hands. )

[edit]
One thing that might looks potentially interesting, but would be muuuch later down the road, could the new viewport rendering system (theoretically) allow for a viewport to display proper Uru shaders? (I have no idea) . Right now that's one area of development that would benefit from a shorter interation time. Being able to check a shader right into Blender, rather than having to build an Age and test it in Uru would be a nice time saver.

The main concern is lack of support and updates. Blender 2.79 is going to be left behind, so at some point we will want to migrate if nothing else but to continue, or else be stuck behind like PyPRP was with 2.49b. There are already bug fixes sorely needed in 2.79 that so far have not been merged, and it remains to be seen if they will be.

As for the renderer, yeah this is something we've looked at (and have before 2.8 as well), and hopefully it's doable. It would be amazing to have a plPipeline-accurate render in Blender.

J'Kla wrote:Me waves back at France I don't want to leave Europe

I don't blame you.

J'Kla wrote:[edit]
Talk about coincidence my Quora feed just threw up a thing about Americans not understanding the British taking the piss it goes on to mention the Aussie's and Kiwi's getting it as well and not that it gets mentioned much but I have seen it with French, Germans, and the Dutch I dare say other sections of Europe have it as well.

I guess this is just another reason I am disappointed with this Brexit debacle
[/edit]

Context is everything. Don't believe something that tells you Americans don't do this or don't understand it.

J'Kla wrote:If all I was doing was age building I would probably stay with 2.79b and it is only the desire to not have to think about which version I was using.

I understand that, In fact I have both versions installed too, as I am trying 2.80. And it is a bit annoying to go back and forth. Using different shortcuts etc..

Deledrius wrote:The main concern is lack of support and updates. Blender 2.79 is going to be left behind, so at some point we will want to migrate if nothing else but to continue, or else be stuck behind like PyPRP was with 2.49b.

That's a good point. It is a kind of a never ending run.. Just as we start to get comfortable with a version of Blender a new one comes around.. So I say we make a stand, we draw a line in the sand and say: for the next 2 years we will use Blender 2.79.

There are already bug fixes sorely needed in 2.79 that so far have not been merged, and it remains to be seen if they will be.

I must say that it's very uncommon for me to run into bugs with Blender 2.79. It is very stable; and I use it all day long. Maybe that's just the way I use it. I don't do a lot of heavy stuff, mostly modelling/mapping.

Deledrius wrote:As for the renderer, yeah this is something we've looked at (and have before 2.8 as well), and hopefully it's doable. It would be amazing to have a plPipeline-accurate render in Blender.

I guess this is would be a lot of work, so that's definitely at the bottom of the priority list; but yeah indeed that would be amazing..

These days I try to avoid the "Reply" button until I'm in a good mood, am in no hurry, and did some research about the topic at hand. Helps me avoid saying something stupid

From what I've seen, Blender 2.8's material editor is really oriented towards physically based shading (unlike the old Blender renderer which was more or less compatible with Plasma's), so this definitely looks like the major blocker for a 2.8 version, since nothing in Blender matches Plasma's materials anymore.

Yeah, might as well stick to 2.79 IMHO. Korman is running on a sane version of Blender, let it evolve there for a while. Unlike PyPRP, Korman won't need to be entirely rewritten when upgrading to 2.8. Racing towards the latest Blender version would only slow Korman development which would be detrimental.

Once we get to Blender 2.8 though, having the material editor AND viewport accurately mimic Plasma's rendering pipeline would be a blast. But this will require a lot of patience since that's a huge amount of work.

Or we could go the other way around: implement a physically based renderer into Plasma, which amounts to 10x more work (and the downside of having TWO renderers cohabit) Might as well port the Plasma PRP format to another engine IMO (yeah I'm a bit focused on this idea currently).

Sirius wrote: Might as well port the Plasma PRP format to another engine IMO (yeah I'm a bit focused on this idea currently).

Yes! Lets port it to Second Life.

Aloys wrote:

Deledrius wrote:The main concern is lack of support and updates. Blender 2.79 is going to be left behind, so at some point we will want to migrate if nothing else but to continue, or else be stuck behind like PyPRP was with 2.49b.

That's a good point. It is a kind of a never ending run.. Just as we start to get comfortable with a version of Blender a new one comes around.. So I say we make a stand, we draw a line in the sand and say: for the next 2 years we will use Blender 2.79.

I don't think that's an unreasonable strategy.

Aloys wrote:

There are already bug fixes sorely needed in 2.79 that so far have not been merged, and it remains to be seen if they will be.

I must say that it's very uncommon for me to run into bugs with Blender 2.79. It is very stable; and I use it all day long. Maybe that's just the way I use it. I don't do a lot of heavy stuff, mostly modelling/mapping.

Well, I was thinking specifically of a bug that happens when opening or reloading a blend, or sometimes when using Undo. Hoikas submitted that patch, but it doesn't even appear to have been triaged yet.

Sirius wrote:These days I try to avoid the "Reply" button until I'm in a good mood, am in no hurry, and did some research about the topic at hand. Helps me avoid saying something stupid

Sometimes I think I use it too much, but it's really the only way to keep things straight if I'm replying to more than one topic, and especially if I'm replying to more than one person. I really want to tweak the CSS to add a lot less empty space around the reply boxes (and fix the color; the contrast is too high). It's not as nice-looking as it could be, but I haven't had the time.

Tweek wrote:

Sirius wrote: Might as well port the Plasma PRP format to another engine IMO (yeah I'm a bit focused on this idea currently).

Yes! Lets port it to Second Life.

We wouldn't gain much. It does have some newer graphics abilities, but it's also pretty crufty with a lot of old assumptions from when it was new in the early 2000s. We'd be better off writing our own brand new pipeline. (And yes, I know you were joking, but it's not as silly as it sounds! Just also not worthwhile even so...)

Tweek wrote:Yes! Lets port it to Second Life.

Oh cool ! I've always secretly dreamt of playing a sexy vampire and fly through adult instances of Ae'gura !
(I had a look at Second Life at some point, and that's pretty much all I remember of the hour or so I spent in there Seems there is more to it but oh well, wasn't my cup of tea anyway)

Deledrius wrote: I really want to tweak the CSS to add a lot less empty space around the reply boxes (and fix the color; the contrast is too high). It's not as nice-looking as it could be, but I haven't had the time.

Personally I'm fine with the current design. But then I used to say the same of the previous one...


I forgot to add: it seems Elder Scrolls modders were still using Blender 2.49 until recently. WTF, their fanbase is like 100x bigger than ours...

Tweek wrote:

Sirius wrote: Might as well port the Plasma PRP format to another engine IMO (yeah I'm a bit focused on this idea currently).

Yes! Lets port it to Second Life.

Oh my. You savage!

(although there are a few people who would enjoy that)

Sirius wrote:it seems Elder Scrolls modders were still using Blender 2.49 until recently. WTF, their fanbase is like 100x bigger than ours...

100x bigger? So they have like.. 700 people? (*runs*)

Aloys wrote:100x bigger? So they have like.. 700 people? (*runs*)

Let's not be pessimistic
Although it does depend on who you count on both sides. Programmers, modelers, scripters, active members, regular players, fanboys ? They have enough knowledgeable people for DLL injection to be considered "common", which is saying something