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Cycles X

code.blender.org

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Re: Cycles X

#61

Post by jandrese »

actinium226 wrote: post #41
dagmx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender has a lot of things lacking however: * It too is crash happy just in different ways. However Maya scales better with large scenes than Blender does and that's key * Blenders licensing is a deterrent. Very few people want to deal with GPL. * Blender is not good for extensibility if you're looking for performance. The API is unstable and exposed only via Python. Studios need to extend the DCCs and Blender doesn…

> * Blenders licensing is a deterrent. Very few people want to deal with GPL. Why would a studio care about this? A tech firm would certainly care, but the entertainment industry? They probably don't know what GPL is and would probably just associate it with "free"

There are definitely management types that see "free" software as "I can't yell at the vendor if something goes wrong." I've seen this many times in government contracts. It's a CYA move IMHO. Even if the vendor is never going to fix the bugs you find, you can at least blame them for not delivering on time.

Of course it's even more silly when you consider that you're never going to be making patches to Maya, so in theory nothing is lost on the Blender side here.

Re: Cycles X

#62

Post by dagmx »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #46
dagmx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender has a lot of things lacking however: * It too is crash happy just in different ways. However Maya scales better with large scenes than Blender does and that's key * Blenders licensing is a deterrent. Very few people want to deal with GPL. * Blender is not good for extensibility if you're looking for performance. The API is unstable and exposed only via Python. Studios need to extend the DCCs and Blender doesn…

Just as a counterpoint: in computational fluid dynamics there are many large commercial companies that use GPL softwares, and there are also commercial companies that offer paid support contracts for those GPL tools. Once it catches on in the community that these tools are good quality, there is no legal risk, and there is good support if you want to pay for that, they tend to spread rapidly.

I think what you're saying is very much in line with my initial comment, if we skip out on extensibility for a second.

If the Blender foundation offered paid support, such that studios used it like a black box (e.g like Maya etc), then the GPL part doesn't matter. They can get someone else to take on the burden and supply them with builds.

Blender however doesn't offer that and I think it's a missed opportunity.

However even if that were the case, extensibility is important. And unfortunately, blender doesn't have any API other than Python, and its API is GPL too. Studios need a C like API for performance reasons, and using the API shouldn't affect the licensing of their own code.

Re: Cycles X

#63

Post by dagmx »

jandrese wrote: post #61
actinium226 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Blenders licensing is a deterrent. Very few people want to deal with GPL. Why would a studio care about this? A tech firm would certainly care, but the entertainment industry? They probably don't know what GPL is and would probably just associate it with "free"

There are definitely management types that see "free" software as "I can't yell at the vendor if something goes wrong." I've seen this many times in government contracts. It's a CYA move IMHO. Even if the vendor is never going to fix the bugs you find, you can at least blame them for not delivering on time. Of course it's even more silly when you consider that you're never going to be making patches to Maya, so in th…

Maya has support licenses (as do most commercial DCCs). Studios can get Autodesk to patch Maya for you and give you custom builds.

Re: Cycles X

#64

Post by rguetzkow »

dagmx wrote: post #60
ziftface wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty certain that's not how the GPL works. It has no effect on the content you create using the tool. It places restrictions on redistribution of the code itself. I don't think there are any limits on what you do with gimp or blender, unless you are modifying its code and redistributing it.

Yes the GPL doesn't apply to work created by GPL software. I've heard people in companies be worried about it though because they misunderstand "using GPL libraries" as applying to work created as a product of them, rather than strictly software.

The Blender Foundation is quite upfront about this though to prevent misunderstandings. It's directly addressed on the page that explains the license: https://www.blender.org/about/license/

Re: Cycles X

#65

Post by mkaic »

127 wrote: post #54
ravenstine wrote: post #3

I've kept an eye on Blender for the last 15 years and tried it again recently after having almost exclusively used Maya. It's continually improved in just about every way, is relatively easy to use with just a trackpad, and it performs really well. In contrast, Maya is has more features overall but is... a piece of shit in many ways. It doesn't matter what hardware I've used; it's a rule that Maya has to crash random…

Yes, Blender is an amazing project and great 3D production software for being free. However there are many issues that remain unresolved after years. Viewport performance being one of them. There seems to be at least to an extent a mode of development where fun new things get done but old, boring, more critical issues will not. I give all credit to Blender developers for doing the old, boring and important things. It…

Viewport performance is one of the several major improvements demoed in the linked video by Brecht!

Re: Cycles X

#66

Post by dagmx »

rguetzkow wrote: post #64
dagmx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the GPL doesn't apply to work created by GPL software. I've heard people in companies be worried about it though because they misunderstand "using GPL libraries" as applying to work created as a product of them, rather than strictly software.

The Blender Foundation is quite upfront about this though to prevent misunderstandings. It's directly addressed on the page that explains the license: https://www.blender.org/about/license/

The case in point here though was GIMP not Blender. I'm not sure whether they provide or provided such clarification.

Re: Cycles X

#67

Post by brundolf »

brundolf wrote: post #12

Oh man, I am pumped about the viewport improvements. Whenever I'm working on a scene, tweaking lighting or shaders is really arduous because after every tiny adjustment I have to sit and wait at least a few seconds to really see what effect it had. These previews look amazing.

Edit: I should clarify this only applies when

1) I'm using a Cycles-only shader node (which unfortunately I do a lot; see the thread below), or

2) I'm focused on lighting the full scene with all the indirection, or

3) I'm adjusting volumetric effects

Otherwise Eevee is a great stand-in

Re: Cycles X

#68

Post by edflsafoiewq »

mattnewton wrote: post #55
127 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Blender is an amazing project and great 3D production software for being free. However there are many issues that remain unresolved after years. Viewport performance being one of them. There seems to be at least to an extent a mode of development where fun new things get done but old, boring, more critical issues will not. I give all credit to Blender developers for doing the old, boring and important things. It…

Presumably this happens because it’s mostly volunteer labour right? Hiring a person to solve those boring old but important-to-your-business issues seems like it could pay off at a certain number of maya licenses. My guess is it mostly doesn’t happen because these shops aren’t in the software business and don’t want to be, so don’t know how to value engineers and don’t want to spend money on engineering they aren’t s…

Blender is mostly developed by paid devs I think.

Re: Cycles X

#69

Post by berkut »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #57
dagmx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender has a lot of things lacking however: * It too is crash happy just in different ways. However Maya scales better with large scenes than Blender does and that's key * Blenders licensing is a deterrent. Very few people want to deal with GPL. * Blender is not good for extensibility if you're looking for performance. The API is unstable and exposed only via Python. Studios need to extend the DCCs and Blender doesn…

> Blenders licensing is a deterrent. Very few people want to deal with GPL. I see this claim taken seriously all over the place, and I just don't get it. How in the world is the GPL actually an issue? The GPL does not apply to anything made with Blender; only changes made to Blender. You can very trivially use Blender without ever dealing with the GPL. Do studios really think they need to make changes/extensions to B…

When you write plugins (which VFX studios write a lot of for various DCCs like Maya, Nuke, Katana, Houdini) for GPL software, are the plugins then derived works? Does Blender's License have an opt-out clause for that?

Sometimes (but not often) these plugins do need to be shared with other studios (or even the vendor - Netflix is starting to get fairly aggressive in asking for copies of the source work, but that doesn't really work well with every studio having a custom pipeline and different ways of doing rigging / deforming), but it looks like it's going that way. In this scenario, is "sharing" "distributing" from the license point-of-view?

Large VFX/Animation studios are not going to open source critical plugins that given them potential edges. They want them to be totally private and their IP.

The large studios have a lot of research / IP stuff going on as well, they are basically tech houses (hundreds of software devs), and they really care about IP (both software and the client's material).

Re: Cycles X

#70

Post by rguetzkow »

dagmx wrote: post #66
rguetzkow wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Blender Foundation is quite upfront about this though to prevent misunderstandings. It's directly addressed on the page that explains the license: https://www.blender.org/about/license/

The case in point here though was GIMP not Blender. I'm not sure whether they provide or provided such clarification.

They do in their FAQ: https://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#can-i-use-gimp-commer...
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