Blender 2.42 Has Been Released

bartv writes "Blender 2.42 has been released. It features an impressive list of new features for professional users. The most important improvements are: a new render pipeline, node editors for compositing and materials, support for anisotropic materials, improved fluid simulation and new character animation tools. Most of these features are the result of the production of Elephants Dream, the first Open Movie. During this project, Blender's lead developer Ton Roosendaal was coding the features that were required by the artists to produce their movie."

Comments

I'd like to see more.

[suso]

See, the best invention really is neccesity. They should try to make a movie every year or two.

What have they done for the UI?

[Tablizer]

The UI was natoriously difficult the last time I tried Blender. I agree that there may be a method to the madness, but why not have a mode for those who want instant gratification by using "expected" conventions? It could increase interest and hobbyists. I realize that some don't like watching impatient newbies infesting forums and fan sites, but if you want a product to survive, you need new blood. Today's snot-nosed newbie may be tomarrow's programmer for a great new feature.

Re:What have they done for the UI?

[SB_SamuraiSam]

I've tried Maya (evaluation), 3DS Max (cad), AutoCad and Friends (cad), etc. They all have very different interfaces. These are the few that would seem to define "convention," yet they are totally different. They are also hardly within the "hobbyist" price range. Blender is well within the hobbyist price range, has some decent, free documentation. The "getting started" range of documentation is actually quite good.

Not to mention people are free to, for example, fork the project and make it how they wish.

If you watch "The Making of" for Elephants Dream, you'll see that they looked plenty productive and the new node compositing (think Shake) looks down-right sick!

Re:What have they done for the UI?

[joshier]

I have modelled in the past, and this poster above is nothing but a liar. You don't model from "electrons".. you model from vertexes, points and edges. You then use a smoothing tag to estimate a curv over the points, inwhich you can add more detail by adding more points.

Blenders UI isn't great for a total newbie I agree, but that's not to say it's hard. I thought 3ds maxes interface was hard at first compared to maxon cinema 4d, but I got used to that.

There's also lots of video tutorials for blender which is brilliant. and yeah, the above poster should in no-way of been modded "insightful"

It should be named Blender 3.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, the list of new features and improvements is so impressive that, were it a company product, it would surely be named "3.0", not puny 2.42 (after 2.41)...

Re:It should be named Blender 3.0

[Speare]

Seriously, look through the back changelogs-- there's a HUGE list of new features and capabilities and tweaks and improvements on EVERY dot release. Yet it's still binary-compatible with ancient .blend files (and the ancient versions of blender can load the newer .blend files ignoring for future parameters). Pretty impressive really.

Re:It should be named Blender 3.0

[It'sYerMam]

In the past year or so, every single release has something that got the modeller in me excited. Each time, there has been at least one feature that is almost immediately applicable, usually more, and with a raft of bugfixes and minor features that I doubt I'll use. Blender has been for quite a while a very impressive piece of software, and that is ignoring the fact that it is free. It is one of the main, (in my opinion) achievements of the F/OSS movement, and is competable with professional applications. If development continues at this rate, I expect is will quite possible be better than its expensive competitors.

Open Moves bad for America

[MarkByers]

Watching so called 'Open Movies' is Communistic and hurts the American economy. In particular it hurts us. There's no such thing as a free lunch. You get what you pay for. Open movies contain viruses and trojans. Sharing open movies is illegal in most countries.

Don't download this movie or we will sue you. We know you broke the law when you were 14 years old. We have it on record.

Your friends,
The MPAA.

I'm not trying to troll, but...

[oldosadmin]

Has anyone seen Elephants Dream? It's a horrible movie. Sure the 3d stuff is cool, but that's not what I want advertised everywhere as "the product of open source". The movie is *bad*. We're talking worse than Gigli, seriously.

Re:I'm not trying to troll, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to point this out to you and ruin a perfectly good rant against hobbyists and open source jacks-of-all-trades, but they hired a professional screenwriter to write the script. They asked him for "artsy" and that's what he gave them. Sure, it's not Pixar by any stretch of the imagination, since Eddy Murphy's not providing the voice of a wisecracking fax machine, but there's a hell of a lot going on in ED. It's crafted like a puzzlebox, with multilayered symbolism hidden in the imagery and dialogue. It wasn't meant for saturday matinees, it was made for the art film festivals. If that not your cup of tea, that's fine, but don't decry it as "crap" and insist that just because you didn't see it, there must be nothing there. Film is subjective, not objective.

(Disclaimer: I'm not really a huge fan of arthouse films. I know 'em when I see em, and I'll give 'em the respect they deserve, but I usually end up watching Hollywood's output.)

  Oh, and it's completely open. If you can do a mean Eddie Murphy Fax-machine voice, you're free to render your own Dream.

My impressions of Elephant's Dream.

[enitime]

"See, the best invention really is neccesity. They should try to make a movie every year or two."

In future they should try to get better writers. I saw the Elephant's Dream movie, and technically it's not too bad. The models seemed fairly on-par with most "real" 3D animation feature movies. The animation was worse, but at least still around what you get on those 3D animated kids' shows or in-game cut-scenes. I was more impressed than I thought I'd be.

But did anyone think that story was any good? I didn't. And with all the stories and fan-fiction out there surely there must be hordes of aspiring writers out there who would like nothing more than a movie based on one of their scripts, even if it means making it creative common licensed. If nothing else, it gets their name on IMDB. That's a decent foot-in-the-door these days, if they're looking for a career. Then you perfect it with collaborative writing, TV-show style, where a whole team of writing staff have input (or in this case the whole Internet.)

Couldn't get open-sourcier than that.

But get WRITERS to do it. I'd bet good money this thing was written by animators and modelers. If you're a professional-level animator/modeler you're probably not a professional-level writer. No one's good at everything. Get over your egos and suck it up.

I guess it's the same problem open source programmers have with, for example, user interfaces or documentation. "It's just a minor detail, what really matters is this other aspect. Besides, how hard can it be? I'll do it myself."

Re:Just maybe

[SharkJumper]

Ah! You're familiar with my work!

Re:eh hem.

[Score Whore]

It has nothing to do with being stupidly technical. It has to do with language. When it is said "necessity is the mother of invention" anyone with even a little bit of intelligence can identify that it's not a literal statement of fact, it's figurative. That same person will then think about what it might mean. Then being the marginally smart person they are, they will see the idea being expressed and the particularily articulate way that idea was expressed.

Your statement of "the best invention really is necessity" makes very little sense. At it's most literal, no one will agree with you. What is so great about necessity? Even taken figuratively... well, there's nothing figurative about it. If you've heard people say that and you connected it to the famous "necessity is the mother of invention", then you either didn't understand what they said or both you and the speaker aren't very good at the english language.

I realize that english is a living language, but even so if you want people to take you seriously and be persuaded by what you have to say, you need to use the language in a skilled fashion. Being articulate, forming complex ideas with efficient use of words, and constructing logical statements is the very basics of being a proficient communicator.

Physics better, but still bad

[Animats]

Tried the new physics engine, by dropping a cube and a cone onto a slanted plane. Things are definitely better than in 2.41, where the objects just hit the plane and stuck. Now they hit, bounce a bit, and slowly fall to align with the plane. They start to slide.

Then the cone goes spinning and flying off into space. Huge conservation of energy violation. Oops.

The Bullet Physics guys don't have sliding friction right yet. But they're making progress.

Re:Not even close

[Qbertino]

"support for anisotropic materials"

Wow, so Blender is only 15 years behind the times now?

Sorry, I think I'll stick with maya for making movies

Sorry, but you're a dick. I hope Autodesk, Mayas new owner, makes you pay through the nose, Mr. Oh-I'm-so-professional Moviemaker. Allthoug I doubt you've got a legal licence. Then I hope they sue your ass off.
Finally Blender has overcome the largest part of it's shortcomings compared to bizarely priced 3D Studio Crap and Co. and all you've got is a wiseass remark. Let's see you're great "Maya Movie Work". I doubt it comes even near Elefants Dream in any respect.
In case you haven't gotten the drift yet: Blender is on the fast lane to becoming the 3D industries business model nightmare and allready is causing prices to drop and quality rising left, right and center. Try that with Gimp vs. Photoshop.

Bottom line: Quit being a jerk and give the Blender team some credit and cudos allready. If anybody deserves it in the OSS design app dept. it's them first. Many times over.