[Bf-committers] Qdune code

[Jonathan Merritt]

Well, I can't speak for anyone else involved with Aqsis, but I was  
personally a bit perplexed to hear about QD.

The main thing I've been wondering is: why develop QD as a separate  
project?  Why not, for example, take the Aqsis subdiv2 code and  
improve it?  Or add a new shading and sampling pipeline?  Or add a  
"Blender interface" to replace the Ri-calls.  Or ...

If it is accepted into Blender, QD will fight for developers alongside  
the other open source REYES implementations.  Because of the large  
Blender user base, it will instantly achieve a large advantage over  
Aqsis (and Pixie) that I don't understand.

It would be instructive to know why QD was chosen.  Quick assertions  
about speed (when the project has never been released!) seem to be a  
bit of an insult to the innumerable man-hours that have been devoted  
to Aqsis and Pixie, and the good-faith efforts to get proof-of-concept  
stuff working.

The history in this area is really long; numerous attempts at Python  
exporters, work by Green, Paul Gregory and myself on integrated  
exporters, and now the Render API project.  Of all those efforts, the  
Render API looked the most promising.  But then suddenly QD sprang up  
and was incorporated into the Blender code base without any external  
evaluation!  How can QD not be in direct competition with the Render  
API, if it is being used with the intent of achieving the same stuff  
that people would like to see from external renderers that will  
eventually be hooked up to the Render API?

It's all a bit difficult to understand from the outside...

Jonathan Merritt.

On 08/11/2007, at 11:54 AM, Alfredo de Greef wrote:

> --- Jonathan Merritt <j.merritt at pgrad.unimelb.edu.au>
> wrote:
>> Can
>> somebody please post the
>> results of running qdune on these tests?  Then we'll
>> know whether it's
>> something to get excited about, or whether it's
>> still a naiive
>> implementation with a great deal of work still to be
>> done.
>
> First, you can safely assume the latter, because that
> is *exactly* what it is.
>
> Anyway, the majority of ribfile tests I used during
> development were from JRman, but some of them again
> might come from the aqsis suite, not sure.
> But as far as I know, making Blender a renderman
> compliant renderer is not the point anyway, which QD
> certainly is not at all.
>
> I hope QD is not seen as the enemy here, though I can
> sort of imagine some feelings of resentment.
> QDune was/is only possible because of the Production
> Rendering book, and so I also have Paul Gregory to
> thank for that.
>
> Alfredo
>
>
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