[Bf-committers] yafray might be dropped from Blender?

[Arne Schmitz]

Am Sonntag, 16. März 2008 09:38 schrieb Giuseppe Ghibò:
> Tom M wrote:
> > "We probably should disable yafray in official releases now...
> > it is really not maintained anymore. (Tom: that's nothing Janne
> > can do either)
>
> If you plan to drop yafray, how about to replace with yaf(a)ray, i.e.
> this one?
>
> http://wiki.yafray.org/bin/view.pl/UserDoc/YafaRay
>
> Gustavo Boiko (boiko at mandriva.com) has created a patch for using Yafaray
> instead of Yafray for current blender, here is:
>
>  http://people.mandriva.com/~boiko/patches/yafaray_blender_export.patch
>
> though that patch will be probably moved to his own svn in the next weeks.

I think some form of XML export should be kept, since it allows for simple 
export to external renderers. I am using the XML export for two self-built 
inhouse renderers, that we use for research. I do not have a lot of time or 
knowledge to keep Blender's XML export up and running, but I probably could 
help a little here and there. The nice thing about Blender's XML export is, 
that it allows for the export of almost all primitives, as well as single 
animation frames. It is also very easy to parse by other tools and languages. 
One can hack together a Yafray XML parser quite easily. If it goes away, I 
think I would just write myself a custom format, with a python script, but 
that would take quite some work. 

Maybe it would make sense to write down the Yafray syntax in a XML grammar. 
Because AFAIK it is only implicitly specified by the Yafray source. If we 
could make a 'standard' XML format for exporting, this might make it easier 
for other tools to use that standard. I think this would be an orthogonal 
concept to the other export tools, which export only parts like models (off, 
obj, 3ds,...), or Verse (networking) or even the infamous Render-API. The XML 
exporter would have the ability to make for a powerful, very easy to use 
interface from Blender to other tools!

Cheers,

Arne

-- 
Dipl.-Inform. Arne Schmitz              Phone   +49 (0)241 80-21817
Computer Graphics Group                 Fax     +49 (0)241 80-22899
RWTH Aachen University                  http://www.rwth-graphics.de
Ahornstrasse 55, 52074 Aachen, Germany
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