The development fund has had a big boost in the past months. Recurring donations are steadily climbing up to EUR 25k per month, which makes it possible to keep supporting the core developer team and to look into starting new projects.
Grants
The Development Fund grants will first be used to enable the following six people to work full time on core Blender development:
Bastien Montagne, Brecht Van Lommel, Campbell Barton, Clement Foucault, Jacques Lucke, Sergey Sharybin.
And as part timers: Sebastian Parborg, Dalai Felinto and Philipp Oeser.
When the Development Fund climbs up to 30k p/m, more people can be supported. There are at least eight developers eligible for coming on board this way.
(Note, on 28-01-2019 we made it to 25k euro per month. Sebastian Parborg was added to the team for full-time triaging and bug fixing.)
Key project: 2.80-stable
Obviously, the main focus for everyone is to get 2.80 out. That means stabilising and cleaning code, bug fixing, reviewing patches, finishing incomplete features, gathering and incorporating feedback, testing with user files, … in general everything that’s needed to make Blender ready for a stable release.
Not only does this imply work on reports at the developer.blender.org site, part of the team also works alongside the Spring Open Movie team to stabilise and validate Blender in production every day.
An official 2.80-stable is targeted to be ready in Spring. Hopefully in April.
New projects
Based on the feedback in the previous roadmap article, there’s enough to do for 100s of developers on projects the coming years. That means we will have to prioritise. What’s possible to start working on in Q2 is:
- Overrides and asset management
- Better support for large scenes or complex environments
- Modifier nodes
- Physics & real-time mode (for designing simulation and baking)
- Cycles: reviewing/adding patches
If the development fund grows beyond 30k:
- Particles and hair nodes
- Texturing tools and tools for procedural textures
- Painting and Sculpting improvements
- Better snapping and precision modeling
- Cycles: denoising
- Compositor
Priorities of new projects are still open and depend on Dev Fund member feedback and availability of developers. Let us know what you think, and don’t forget to join the Development Fund if you want to help out!
Note that there are numerous other projects running as well, thanks to Blender Institute, and thanks to volunteers and developers working for other companies. For example, work on Blender pipeline tools, work on the Video Sequencer, AMD openCL and Nvidia RTX rendering.
I wish you happy holidays and a wonderful 2019!
Ton Roosendaal
Chairman Blender Foundation
It is said that if the development fund grows beyond 30k:
Particles and hair nodes
Texturing tools and tools for procedural textures
Painting and Sculpting improvements
Better snapping and precision modeling
Cycles: denoising
Compositor
As it seems it’s 34k now. Will we get development in these fields, oh boy! Go-go Blender team!
Where do you see 34k? It seems it doesn’t get to 30k judging by the Blender Development Found : https://fund.blender.org/
Well, today it is already 30614 € !
30k euro. You are looking at the dollar amounts.
My bad! But it’s 31,357 Euro as of today! So I guess we all should be hyped! =))
Could you guys from blender look at akeytsu, cause for animation it gives usefull tools.
Something went wrong in newest builds of 2.8 because rendering with Cycles is slow.
A scene that took 03:20 now takes 04:50 or more. Same file same quality.
Any idea what had happend?
Denoising also seems to take longer?
Sorry can not tell exactly what is the problem
It seems Windows 10 works badly the first times you use a new build.
Denoising also has something to do but not so much as i thought.
You should use Paypal as a way for donators to contribute.
I think it’s possible, look here:
https://www.blender.org/foundation/donation-payment/
For all those years I’ve been amazed by everything the BF has pulled off. Realizing how much I have profited from Blender in terms of technical and artistic skills, as well as for paid jobs, I decided it’s time to give back. So I signed up for the Development Fund.
I am sure it is money well spent and that the BF will allocate it wisely, so I’ll spare You my wishlist here. There is just one thing that I find really important, at least as important as than the next bleeding edge feature: keep Blender well alive on all current platforms, and thus make sure that as many artists as possible have access to creative freedom.
You added many new features to blender 2.79.7
when we can download this version as a stable and full installing pack ?
Is there a way to show the gizmo in border selection?
It seems to work differently than 2.79
I want the Transform tool to support a select box or to show Gizmo in border selection (or select box)
Anything new concerning the development of Blender 101/Blender templates ?
As far as I recall there haven’t been any info with substance from BF concerning this subject, since the Code Quest crowd sourcing campaign started (and Blender 101/templates were one of the main targets for this campaign).
So I hope BF gets around to post a article concerning this subject here on the Blender Developers Blog during 2019. After 2.80 are released obviously (getting that over the finish line is of course a logical focus for the developers) but before the next Bconf preferably.
A article that roughly sketches out how BF plans to implement Blender 101/templates during the 2.8x release cycle.
One thing we should not forget, is that we have a large backlog of things to improve in the current feature set. Adding more features is great, but we should remember to take time to fix all the small issues too. This thread had many small issues listed:
https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-ui-paper-cuts/2596/1483
We could do a paper cut Code Quest :)
Considering that this thread was created by the Blender UI team member, I think it is fair to assume that they are aware of it.
I would be delighted to see an improvement on the hair tools in blender, for my particular use that would be perhaps the only feature Blender lacks in comparison with the big paid softwares and their hair grooming technologies.
Congratulations reaching the 25K per month milestone! I’m happy to be a tiny part of that.
Just in case a developer has some scarce spare time left for development inspiration, here’s my Blender suggestion list, including a big summary of Sculpt Mode improvement suggestions: https://blender.community/u/MetinSeven
Cinema 4D users are now using Blender 2.8 beta ( For testing purpose)…. I was Cinema 4D user year ago but now full time Blender… Blender has much power I use Sheepit for renderings too! All these stuff are FREE! Thank You Developers. I’ll consider for development fund.
I think Blender should make Ad after Blender 2.8 stable release to grow our community. :)
It is like Substance Painter or Quixel but open. Adobe just got ahold of Allegorithmic and Substance Painter may now go subscription only. It looks like they are on the warpath to own more tools to force subscription only models. More info here: https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php?topic=27494.new#new
People are not happy and are shouting for Blender and open source support for the foundation.
Could you guys get ahold of this guy here?
https://armorpaint.org/
They are looking for support to offer high level PBR 3D Texture Painting and the work is really good. It should help Blender to have such powerful painting tools. It looks like they could use the support to bring the tool more features.
Sample workflow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzRqXIsvahg
We’ve been in contact, Lubos does an amazing job. He expressed interest to work independently on own products for now. That’s also a good approach, especially because he intends to make it Blender compatible. But you never know, maybe in the near future… :)
Thanks for the direct response Ton.
Yeah, ArmorPaint is semi-open but lacks resources which tells me he may want to build the tool up to sell out later as well (hope not).
3DCoat has a new Christian works only license that states artists can only used it for certain project types.
Quixel that used to depend on Photoshop got knocked off by Adobe so they just released Mixer as a free open beta with a perpetual license later.
Allegorithmic Substance Painter is now Adobe’s. This one is the most interesting because it resulted in mass feedback toward supporting Open standards and the Blender Foundation fund to keep these tools accessible to artists and away from the subscription model. Even when people were willing to pay for a full permanent seat license, these companies found a new way to milk them for cash. People even threatened to sue Allegoritmic citing that they supported the company when it was an indie.
As a result our production pipelines no longer include Adobe or Autodesk tools, since we will never rent software regardless of how much they push for this model or any company that uses subscription only.
Imaging having to pay a monthly fee just to turn on the OS on that $3000 machine you just purchased? Or to have all of your design work of years locked behind a monthly paywall or proprietary file types so you cannot collaborate with other tools for more complex projects?
We continue to support the Blender foundation to ensure that open standards can keep innovation going and allow artists access to the tools they need to work and create.
Keep up the the great work.
guys, what about wireframe rendering issues? There is already a heated discussion here https://devtalk.blender.org/t/blender-2-8-wireframes-discussion/666 and it seems none of the devs have answered there. Will it be a part of polishing/stabilization? Having a working wireframe mode that is at least not worse than what we had in 2.79 is extremely important.
just want to know is Modifier nodes mean :
if I do extrude then bevel I can go back to extrude to change it ? which mean like history operator ?
Because If I do extrude then click, Now I can no longer edit the extrude only if I do undo which is not good thing.
I also forgot to explain….
When i model with 2.79 its very quick because i use the right click for selection mode (vertex face edge). Also use the numeric keys to change from wireframe to solid a lot.
And use ALT + left middle n right mouse buttons to navigate quickly….
Could you please include this setup option as in 2.79 when selecting the Maya interactivity at startup?
Would be very good
Thanks again
Hello again
First of all congratulations for the best 3dfx app in the world.
Other very important feature for Blender would be modelling through procedural textures. Just as an idea i modelled several fungus but could not controll its shape detail as i would with a procedural texture so the holes on it must be retouched by hand if you want realistic results.
More procedural types would be great for extrude or make holes in shapes if possible. Mandelbrot Julia Etc Some to create Veins or Cracks for example…. or any other innovative method for procedural modeling!!!!
Thanks again Blender friends
Good morning, I would like to request the PDF Manual 2.8 Updated with the updated images as soon as possible, and I really enjoyed having the option to leave interface and menu in English and the tips in Portguês Brasil, Continue so you are Evolution!
i am very sad that you guys didn’t put much focus on modeling/UVing/rigging/texturing tools sure you made some active tools that stick around but they still lack functionality and are pretty much useless with the new tool panel/top bar, right now maya and modo have the best ones,for example the knife tool is the worse we need a better one that works and confirm the the cut after each click..etc not only that you can combine it with loop cut when holding a modifier key and snap by percentage and starts from any point..etc u win speed and efficiency, you get the idea and many other tools don’t even exist like draw polygon,vertex normals tool,..etc even no dedicated retopo tools which we have to relay on external addons, and also the UV tools are outdated, belnder is dragging behind ….how hard is it to update these and make them next gen level for professionals , u do them once and they’ll stay forever..i think these are the main problem right now, because if there is no improvements in those areas then i have to leave blender and use other programs instead.
hey blender devs thank you for your awesome work, you are truely ninjas in my eyes ;)
i think many Artists like me would say that u should focus on performance and interoperability plz, handling large scenes with shaders, opening large files, FPS playback with complex rigs , editing and uving meshes…etc this is what the competitive apps are focusing right now, it’s a very crucial thing to stay in the curve.
we can live without other fancy features for a while but once high performance and stability are reached u can go wild with any features you plan to add…so i urge you to make this the next big goal.
Hi, dear developers!
I wanted to express my deepest gratitude for your hard work. I’m super excited about 2.8 version. It’s a real breakthrough and I just congratulate you all with this fantastic achievement.
A also wanted to ask if you’re planning to make some improvements to the Remesh modifier, I wonder if it could do the same perfect work like automatic retopology tools in ZBrush. that preservs topology really well. Its’ primitive project function is also amazing. It would be great if one day you could implement these features into my favorite program of all time.
Thanks again
To earn payment, and similarly users, it is possible if 1) to create a platform for plane-tables (Android) 2) to Improve video editor, – beginning to compete with АЕ
Holding my sculpting ransom I see… you’ll get your 30k boss.
Exciting times!
Major for me are improved collections / overrides / instancing workflow improvements supporting complex scattering (see ForestPack or Clarisse for scattering).
Minor but nice would be better alembic support (attrs), OpenVDB import.
Thanks
‘Better support for large scenes or complex environments’ … that sounds great, Ton. It’s another step closer to the Interactive mode we discussed at the last Blender Conference together with Benoit and Martins.
I hope it brings also LOD system back as well as improves manipulation of objects in scenes with thousands of objects.
You should buy a Manuel Bastioni Lab add-on and make it to be a part of the Blender core. This is now abandoned and it is really bad. Blender with a separate workspace for creating people would be much more powerful software. We all need good avatars. MBL is a really good stuff. Please make it a part of Blender. Please contact Manuel and do something with that.
Just ported on Android
touch screen support (surface book 2, surface studio 2)? Almost any new laptop has a touch screen today.
I was just thinking how I could possibly get the word out how terrible Blender runs on an SB2.
Tablet support is essential. We gotta get this experience smoother on the go. If not ipad at least adequate touchscreen pc support.
Please Please Please Please Please to improve EEVEE :((
Please add Ruby extension for render blender files https://www.rubyguides.com/2018/03/write-ruby-c-extension/
nothing more. I need only addfile and get/set/modyfy vertex.
Please
It would be great to have such a button in the Blender UI to create saved new files during development representing all the stages. Without Save As…. For example, I create a house and by clicking such a button I can save the current work as House-01.blend, then I work with texturing and click again to save House-02.blend, and then I add a roof to my house and click to save House-03.blend, etc. The number would be increased and added automatically by clicking the button and maybe all those files should be placed in one folder called House in this case.
Not a button but ctrl+shift+s to save as then press + on the numpad will create a numbered incremental save without you having to rename the file manually. ctrl+alt+s will save a copy without making the saved file active. You can also increase the number of “save versions” in the user preferences and then every time you save you will get a .blend1 .blend2 etc. file which are hidden by default in the file explorer but you can see by clicking on one of the buttons at the top (can’t remember which off the top of my head)
Thank for your explanations. I didn’t know, of course. But for making this feature more friendly, maybe such a button would be a good alternative. Not much work I guess. You see how much confusion can be.
A quick look at the posts reveals the most desired feature:
Better snapping and precision modeling
u guys should focus on the important things more than these aesthetics, i am relatively new to blender and i want it to be the best at it’s job like everyone else, so i would say upgrade the UV/mesh/ editing especially when you have heavy geos,interactive primitive objects creation with possibilty to go back in histroy and make changes, resources usage especially now with EEVEE..etc u get the idea, i was happy that you guys made huge improvements to dependency graph, don’t know how much but hopefully it’s now more flexible.
I would put a vote for pixars usd, atleast as an importer exporter but maybe also start looking into using its outliner or usd as a scene description for cycles, or hydra viewport.
Hi. The question from the beginner – whether it will be possible to do interactive things in blender 2.8, like in Unreal Engine?
There will be a new ‘interactive mode’ , probably 2.81…
That and the ‘everything nodes’ project and i see game engine stuff coming back in a big way.
The harder part of this is more the deployment of games, data access, and license stuff…
Armory3D seems to handle this by integrating a seperate newly developed game engine that can export to major platforms using Kha, a haxe library…
I wish that not only a “Better snapping and precision modeling” will be made but also some ability to make “sketch” with parameters like in CAD software.
I think that the CAD industry is way bigger than the animation/VFX etc. and the 3D printing adds the ability to produce products that are much easy to make with Blender than any other CAD software.
Peoples are already using Blender to make models for 3D printing and for fixing them.
(another wish: to have the “Mesh Analysis” to work with modifiers and having modifiers for “Remove Doubles” and “Recalculate Normal Outside”)
Way bigger and by far way greedy. Just look at projects like freecad or librecad. Very Little to no funding at all and lots of users and downloads.
But yes, i agree “better snapping” is still required for better 3D printing interaction and easiest modeling when precision is needed.
If you look at revenues, the CAD software market is 10x bigger (if not more) than all of media/entertainment tools. I always send people to FreeCAD, a project worth joining or giving support.
Concerning CAD… It would be interesting if the grease pencil system could be leveraged to do 2d drafting…
Going further, The 2.8 series would be a great time to add some cad functionality in a well integrated way that would not only benefit cad users.
For instance, a ‘paper space’ editor space could be developed where you can have viewport objects at scale that look into the 3d view ( be it a 3d detail or section or an orthographic grease floorplan ) …
That same system could then be used for people would want to make say a comic book with grease pencil, or it could have templates for printed storyboards…
Hi Ton, why don’t you hire marketing and brading team to really drive money in?
Imagine what could happen if just a few architects or firms move over that could afford a corporate membership…
I’m thinking along those lines myself if get my * together …
Also, to capture a big part of the CAD market, it would be great to have the ease of use and precision of sketchup like modelling inside Blender.
Some parts make up the grunt of the difference for 3d architectural modelling
The push pull tool, the patent expires next year.
The way it automatically cleans up a mesh when drawing within the same ‘group’ or object. You don’t really deal with vertices in Skecthup.
The inference engine, maybe an update to blender snapping could include the intuitiveness of something like this.
Quickly going into nested groups by double clicking them
etc…
Would be interesting to see what patrt of the workflow can be done with existing Blender concepts, and what could be added.
Maybe mainly the precision… any chance to get a decimal type for coordinates in Blender ?
Looks like someone is also thionking along these lines :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XCvYmMLf1M
Another thing needed for ease of use cad modelling…
NGon holes in Ngon …
https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/cxcbbc/
apparently Bmesh has some support for it but it was commented out, and so the tools haven’t been made to use this functionality.
Again, fixing this for good could lead to better tools for everyone, not just cad usecases… Boolean, bevel and knife editing would definitely benefit from this, apparent in how real time csg is being used now in hard surface modeling…
Maybe the earcut algorithm can help in this ?
https://blenderartists.org/t/ngon-holes-in-ngons/602769
Better snapping and precision modelling is not good just for 3D printing it is also more natural and easier to learn and use when you are making hard surface models.
I think this should be a priority as it will make modeling easier (well it depends on how it will be implemented). I remember when I had to do something in AutoCAD quickly (and I don’t use that software often). It was very easy to pick up and to what I wanted to do in the version that added such snapping and other aids.
The average artist might not care about precision very much but I do and I also think that precision modelling can help a lot and give more opportunities for example in games.
I’m a new Blender user and I’m blown away by 2.8. Really amazing! Coming from a CAD profession its not that the users are greedy, it’s that they’re accustomed to paying (too much) for CAD software. Paradoxically this makes one less likely to donate. It’s hard to imagine good software that doesn’t cost a lot
I second the “Remove Doubles Modifier” suggestion!
I really think any tools and workflows dedicated to Motion Graphics, such as modifier, particles, simulation and hair nodes should be top priority. Of course, these tools would not be limited only to motion.
Motion nowadays is everywhere, from instagram to youtube. It’s a huge market that Blender could embrace.
I agree, motion graphics is really popular these days, a dedicated workspace would usher blender to a larger user-base.
One of the main things that would benefit motion graphics is nodes for modifiers and other things, like the Animation Nodes addon allows for today. This allows for efficient procedural animation of all sorts of motion graphics effects.
You’re right. So, a dedicated workspace for motion, with Animation Nodes already shipped with Blender and the future nodes for modifiers and particles would do wonders for Blender in general. Talking for myself, where I live (Brazil), motion graphics is at peak of the creative industry, with people migrating over everyday. Blender is losing a “creative trend” by “ignoring” motion graphics.
You guys are sort of close to that 30k mark. I think Blender should try and be a little more aggressive pushing this development fund by advertising the proposed additional features if you reach that milestone.
Right now the only way anyone knows about the potential features is in this blog post. Something like this should be right on the banner of the home page on blender.org. This would generate more awareness of the additional features that would be coming if the link to the development fund wasn’t just a tiny box below.
I agree with you. If the donation is placed in a visible place like the homepage, there will certainly be many people who know and donate to the project.
I’m always a bit reluctant doing too much begging… but you’re right. Will work on it!
Begging is more like: “Give us money so we can do nothing.”
You are more like in this category: “We can do this and this for you if you give us this.”
Tools like Blender, Krita, GIMP are getting more and more important as the commercial alternatives are getting ridiculously expensive. And I can guess that younger artists and hobbyists are struggling to actually afford any of these.
And 2.8 is a foundation release to bring in more people on board.
If these big time studios chip in a little bit each year they could not only have a free tool at their disposal but also a larger pool of potential talent. Maybe that’s how these foundations should be promoted to those who have the money and power.
Perhaps a dedicated motion graphics workspace and improve on that with tool set that is similar to cinema 4d motion graphics tools like (mograph) or like Maya that is now catering to motion graphic designers. I think catering to motion graphic designers would be a smart move because a lot of them are one person crews that generate impressive work very quickly and this would drive up interest in Blender and increase the Blender portfolio of what is possible just by one person and as a result increase funding and support more developers.
This would be a dream come true.
Cinema4D is quite a workhorse in the MoGraph industry and loved by a lot of people.
But I found that Blender has some really impressive tools I love to use as well. So every time I can and I don’t rely too much on MoGraph I try to use Blender.
nothing on improving animation workflows, playback speed, animation caching, graph editor / dope sheet / timeline in general :(
I think that’s for the Animation 2020 project.
exactly, 2020 is not that far that gives them at least 1,5 years until it’s end, they should start that after 2.80 release ,i think they bite off more than they can chew hopefully with this steady increase in fund they’ll be able to do it,blender is not just for modeling or rendering , rigging and animation iare big things and shouldn’t be ignored because that’s what the main job of any 3D package.
Alexander gavrilov already improve dope sheet and nla editor ,bendy bones and much more
His is in fire mode right now for the blender animation and rigging system :)
Here is all the improvements in blender 2.8 for the animation and rigging
https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.80/Animation
I am working on getting support for dedicated animation developers – the 2020 project indeed. It’s not in the current dev fund planning. Probably needs 2+ full time developers.
that would be awesome to have, pushing blender’s rigging and animation system to be top quality like we have now in 2.80 is essential Mr.Ton…best of luck to blender team :)
“Better snapping and precision modeling” for us CAD modelers is the number one priority! ??
Overrides and asset management -> Yes!
Modifier nodes -> Yes!
Better snapping and precision modeling -> Yes Yes Yes Yes!
Thank you Blender foundation! Merry Christmas to all!
As an architect, my favorite feature from the list is be better snapping tools.
Yes, each architect have a dream: blender advanced snapping!
So, when are animation nodes going to be integrated?
That’s part of the ‘everything nodes’ in Blender. It will start with nodes supporting modifiers. Then we look into particle systems, hair, generative modeling, physics, rigging and animation in general.
The ‘animation nodes’ add-on developer works full time for Blender Institute now, he will keep his add-on work for the time being.
Waiting for the procedural content (modeling/animation) generation tools in blender for so long. Will everything nodes make is simple for procedural content.
Can’t wait to make awesome stuff with Everything nodes. It will be a awesome addition to the Blender community.
The modifier nodes and large scene support is a priority, but 2.80 had been doing wonderful as of lately the stability is doing great, can’t wait to see what happens with the texturing and texture paint today tools _^
I just signed up as a Silver member of the Blender Development Fund. It is not much but I hope it helps get the Blender Development Fund over 30k sooner than later. As a Cinema 4D R19 user embracing Blender 2.80 in earnest I am desperate for “better snapping and precision modeling” tools / settings.
Blender 2.80 will make blender enter the big boy ring with C4D and Maya. Except blender is free. We have a winner.
this is great news, isn’t Overrides/asset management already started and half way and planned to be in 2.81?, i would vote for these three ones and hopefully we can get all of them in 2019.
* Better support for large scenes or complex environments.
* Painting and Sculpting improvements.
* Better snapping and precision modeling.
happy holidays to you all :)
For overrides and assets still quite some work is needed.
i cannot wait for a better precision workflow inside of blender !!!! right now for modeling architecture its quite a mess :)
Sounds like an exciting year ahead! Just a quick question Ton: you use “p/m” a lot: it’s not clear to me what currency you are referring to as “p”!
“per month”, if I’m not mistaken. :)
Makes much sense now :D The missing “euro” in “30k p/m” confused me (was reading the “slash” as “per”)
Yea, i guess there is redundancy mistake, cause slash itself means “per” so “p/m” would mean “per per month”.
not necessarily as “w/o” doesn’t mean “with per out” ;)
In order to prevent spam, comments are closed 15 days after the post is published. Feel free to continue the conversation on the forums.