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Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

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Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#131

Post by phkahler »

striking wrote: post #36
JAlexoid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apple wants to permanently remove OpenGL from macOS" - that would be a poor decision.... although, they really don't care for the pro market in any case.

They've already deprecated OpenGL. Drivers on macOS are locked at OpenGL 4.1, which is missing a whole lot of nice features. Not because the hardware doesn't support them, but because Apple doesn't want to keep maintaining OpenGL. And why would they? OpenGL is really unpleasant from a hardware manufacturer's / integrator's / OS author's perspective, it makes app ports for mobile that much harder unless you're using G…

>> And why would they? OpenGL is really unpleasant from a hardware manufacturer's / integrator's / OS author's perspective

That's exactly why they should keep it. Now all those CAD programs that use older OpenGL features have to figure out how to do things that are not supported by Metal. Vulkan initially forgot about this market as well and had to add some things back in.

There is Zink to handle compatibility, but that should have come from the organizations and companied deprecating OpenGL. It should probably be standard on new platforms so they can keep OpenGL at the API level.

Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#132

Post by pjmlp »

hulitu wrote: post #54
striking wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've already deprecated OpenGL. Drivers on macOS are locked at OpenGL 4.1, which is missing a whole lot of nice features. Not because the hardware doesn't support them, but because Apple doesn't want to keep maintaining OpenGL. And why would they? OpenGL is really unpleasant from a hardware manufacturer's / integrator's / OS author's perspective, it makes app ports for mobile that much harder unless you're using G…

> And why would they? OpenGL is really unpleasant from a hardware manufacturer's / integrator's / OS author's perspective That's why it must be deprecated. Why do we need to reinvent the wheel over and over again ? I get it, X sucks and the answer to this is .... wayland. OpenGL sucks and the answer to this is ? DirectX ? Vulkan ? SDL ? Libcaca ? ( sorry i forgot ncurses). Just like an old builder: you have some bric…

Carmack, miniGL and Carmacks position regarding OpenGL is what made it relevant in first place.

In 2011, Carmack would have gone with DirectX instead.

https://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/pc/carmack-directx-bett...

> The actual innovation in graphics has definitely been driven by Microsoft in the last ten years or so,' explained AMD's GPU worldwide developer relations manager, Richard Huddy. 'OpenGL has largely been tracking that, rather than coming up with new methods. The geometry shader, for example, which came in with Vista and DirectX 10, is wholly Microsoft's invention in the first place.' > > 'It is really just inertia that keeps us on OpenGL at this point,' Carmack told us. He also explained that the developer has no plans to move over to Direct3D, despite its advantages.

ARB, Long Peaks failure, not defining SDKs and leaving to ecosystem to create tools on their own, making into a rite of passage that each graphics programming student needs to create their own SDK from scratch, is anything but appealing.

If ARB/Khronos would standardize networking protocols, we would have only IP, and then each developer would create their own networking stack on top of raw IP.

Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#134

Post by Encounter »

progbits wrote: post #103
dagmx wrote: post #3

Apple also submitted a patch to port Cycles to run on Metal. https://developer.blender.org/T92212

I guess some will see this as good news, but further entrenching Metal is just sad in my opinion. So much wasted effort just because they can't admit they lost the standards game and won't move to Vulkan. The generous interpretation is they just don't want to invest into that if it isn't "broken" but the cynic in me can't help but think at least part of the motivation is being different and maintaining the wall aroun…

Metal is by far a much friendlier API than Vulkan. Its approach with opt-in complexity is arguably the correct one. (Ever tried writing a Vulkan "Hello triangle" from scratch?)

It's also gaining some nice features that are usable out of the gate, rather than waiting on Vulkan extension standardization and adoption. It simply makes the most sense for Apple.

Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#135

Post by agumonkey »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #33
cdiamand wrote: post #16

It's great to see Blender get the support. The user numbers seem to be arcing upwards. https://www.blender.org/news/blender-by-the-numbers-2020/ If you've ever had a passing interest in Blender or 3d modeling I recommend checking out the donut tutorial, which is fast becoming the "hello world" of blender - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPrnSACiTJ4 And check out all the donuts - https://www.reddit.com/r/BlenderDough…

I've been helping add it to University curriculum because it's enabled us to contract and hire really talented and motivated people without the vendor tax of 3ds Max or Maya, and they usually have broader skill sets that we can apply elsewhere. Not knocking all the amazing people who use other software, but if you want new opportunity, use Blender!

blender grew beyond words, but I'm still not sure if it does reactive DAG propagation for animated attributes (like Maya). I was a bit shocked to read that you need to setup propagators or controllers (forgot the term tbh) to get a similar effect. Maybe I need to RTFM.

Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#137

Post by heartbreak »

eddieh wrote: post #124
cdiamand wrote: post #16

It's great to see Blender get the support. The user numbers seem to be arcing upwards. https://www.blender.org/news/blender-by-the-numbers-2020/ If you've ever had a passing interest in Blender or 3d modeling I recommend checking out the donut tutorial, which is fast becoming the "hello world" of blender - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPrnSACiTJ4 And check out all the donuts - https://www.reddit.com/r/BlenderDough…

> If you've ever had a passing interest in Blender or 3d modeling I recommend checking out the donut tutorial, which is fast becoming the "hello world" of blender - > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPrnSACiTJ4 Is there a good written tutorial? I can't sit through video tutorials.

I went through the donut tutorial on 2x speed. If you’re interested in learning modern visual arts (computer graphics, photography, videography, etc.) you’re going to have to deal with video tutorials. Make them work for you.

Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#138

Post by cmarschner »

yreg wrote: post #108
washadjeffmad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been helping add it to University curriculum because it's enabled us to contract and hire really talented and motivated people without the vendor tax of 3ds Max or Maya, and they usually have broader skill sets that we can apply elsewhere. Not knocking all the amazing people who use other software, but if you want new opportunity, use Blender!

We had a class on Blender in high school (mandatory even!) and it was very popular. A lot of people in our school played with Blender in their free time in the following years.

Why would a Blender class in high school be mandatory??

Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#139

Post by heartbreak »

pitaj wrote: post #77
cdiamand wrote: post #16

It's great to see Blender get the support. The user numbers seem to be arcing upwards. https://www.blender.org/news/blender-by-the-numbers-2020/ If you've ever had a passing interest in Blender or 3d modeling I recommend checking out the donut tutorial, which is fast becoming the "hello world" of blender - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPrnSACiTJ4 And check out all the donuts - https://www.reddit.com/r/BlenderDough…

Anyone know a good intro tutorial for using Blender as a video editor like Premier?

Blender’s video editing capability is most useful as a replacement for After Effects. A free tool like Davinci Resolve is a better replacement for Premiere.

Re: Apple Joins Blender Development Fund

#140

Post by dTal »

defaultname wrote: post #19

Apple's software and hardware arcs are coalescing into them going all in on AR/VR. Things like LIDAR, Photogrammetry, spatial mapping, USDZ / PBR and friends all come across as pretty marginal novelties on smartphones, but they are all a part of that strategy, and will make much more sense with a headset. They're coming out of the gate with a robust ecosystem. Blender is obviously a huge component of the software sta…

I would bet my life savings that Apple are developing some form of VR - maybe headsets, maybe something more interesting like a lightfield display. They're clearly very interested in this space.
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