[Bf-committers] blender as ui for game engine

Tue Jan 26 14:57:20 CET 2016

Hi, 

> Secondary: plugin architectures are popular for closed source environments, or 
> semi-open environments where the goal is to build a commercial infrastructure 
> for plugin vendors. That is not something I believe will serve our goals 
> better. Did you check the "open fx" plugins? It's a disaster, plugins adding 
> watermarks over your art telling you to pay them first. 
> 
> But I can be wrong! Revive K3D or Moonlight3d - all plugin architectures who 
> claimed Blender to be a disaster 12 years ago already. I would love to see 
> competition and see other approaches to make 3d tools work well. 

Technical aspects aside, I think it's the strong leadership what made the Blender
project big rather than the lack of an efficient plugin system. The argument that
reduced flexibility of Blender should scare proprietary business models away
appears somehow weird to me. That's what I read between the lines here, but I can
be wrong though. What is the purpose of the Blender Market then? Also I honestly 
dislike the idea of putting the open movie project datasets, as best 
educational source on how to use Blender out there, behind a paywall, but 
that's another story. While I understand all the difficulties associated with 
financing a stable development of Blender, I would consider this rationale for
not having a plugin system debatable at best.

-- Kai

P.S.: I don't like watermarks on art either though.

> Gesendet: Freitag, 22. Januar 2016 um 21:13 Uhr 
> Von: "Ton Roosendaal" <ton at blender.org> 
> An: "bf-blender developers" <bf-committers at blender.org> 
> Betreff: Re: [Bf-committers] blender as ui for game engine 
> Hi, 
>  
>> During Blender conference 2015, the question was raised why blender did not 
> support these ideas or projects, Mr Roosendaals' reply was: "if you want that, 
> you will just have to create your own community" (I am paraphrasing here, but 
> it is essentially what he said) 
>  
> Well obviously there's a rationale for not going for a plugin architecture. As 
> for any concept, there are pros and cons related to Plugin architectures. 
>  
> Blender's architecture is not plug-in based at all, and that's purposely so, by 
> design. 
> 3D Max - for example - was designed ground up with a plugin architecture. 
>  
> To convert the current design into a plugin architecture is not a recommended 
> project. It will conflict too often with (old) designs. You better start from 
> scratch with a new design then. 
>  
> Secondary: plugin architectures are popular for closed source environments, or 
> semi-open environments where the goal is to build a commercial infrastructure 
> for plugin vendors. That is not something I believe will serve our goals 
> better. Did you check the "open fx" plugins? It's a disaster, plugins adding 
> watermarks over your art telling you to pay them first. 
>  
> If we want to have a true free/open source creation environment, we have to 
> make sure that the program works without needing a plugins externally. For 
> everything, the whole pipeline. On top of that we can make sure that this 
> environment is extensible and configurable. Addons and occasional plugins then 
> can help with it, but can be limited to expert cases or special use cases. 
>  
> But I can be wrong! Revive K3D or Moonlight3d - all plugin architectures who 
> claimed Blender to be a disaster 12 years ago already. I would love to see 
> competition and see other approaches to make 3d tools work well. 
>  
> -Ton- 
>  
> -------------------------------------------------------- 
> Ton Roosendaal - ton at blender.org - www.blender.org[http://www.blender.org] 
> Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute 
> Entrepotdok 57A - 1018AD Amsterdam - The Netherlands 
>  
>  
>  
>> On 22 Jan, 2016, at 19:49, hewi jupama <hewi at jupama.org> wrote: 
>> 
>> How I love this discussion, you (may) know me. 
>> 
>> Allow me to again write you too many lines for people not to have time to 
> read ;) 
>> 
>>>> What part of Blender's C core is neglected exactly? 
>> 
>> How funny you are asking. have you ever looked at the creator.c file, the 
> first and most basic file from blender, where it all starts: 
>> 
>> if (G.background) { 
>> /* actually incorrect, but works for now (ton) */ 
>> WM_exit(C); 
>> } 
>> 
>> auch, that is when I say +1 for me. And literally, this is just the start! 
> The blender C core code is riddled with these comments and hacks and it needs 
> lots and lots of refactoring. If you don't agree or see that, mmmh ... ? (don't 
> know how to put that nicely so I wont put anything :) 
>> 
>>>> However the purpose of the "Blender" project is to: 
>>>> "build a free and open source complete 3D creation pipeline for 
>>>> artists and small teams." 
>> 
>> You are however absolutely right, the blender foundation wants to provide "a 
> tool for ... " It is very important and a real privilege to see blender is 
> sticking to these goals. Many projects fail because they divert from their 
> initial goal! 
>> 
>> We are discussing the preparation of the blender source code for 2020, to 
> make it extendable and easily maintainable. To make it stick to the current 
> conventions and guidelines on coding and project management (e.g. the 
> ubiquitous right hand rule of XYZ Axis as a main source of sadness every time I 
> open blender). This, apparently, has nothing to do with current blender vision 
> nor it's goals. I see that now (I was involved very closely in the Blender 
> Plugin System (BPS) discussion). 
>> 
>>>> we're not looking to prevent you from trying this. 
>> 
>> But you're not providing much of support either. I was actually prohibited by 
> Mr Roosendaal himself to discuss the BPS system on the developer irc channel 
> "as it is not a supported project from the blender foundation". Well, that 
> makes me very sad. 
>> 
>>>> But *expecting* this will be accepted into master isn't reasonable 
>> 
>> Exactly wright and 100% correct yet again. During Blender conference 2015, 
> the question was raised why blender did not support these ideas or projects, Mr 
> Roosendaals' reply was: "if you want that, you will just have to create your 
> own community" (I am paraphrasing here, but it is essentially what he said) 
>> 
>> So basically, any discussion to refactor blender's source should be taken 
> offline or elsewhere online, until the dev's and Ton see the benefit and are 
> convinced of the relevance. 
>> 
>>> That's why I sent this email out to the group to see how many people would 
>>> be willing to support me while I did this but the response seems less than 
>>> luke warm, although I might be totally wrong. 
>> 
>> I had this idea already somewhere Dec 2013. My idea was to create a BUI 
> (blender user interface) and extend that using a plugin system. 
>> 
>> 
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/BUI_BlenderUserInterface[
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/BUI_BlenderUserInterface]
>> 
>> 
> http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?319727-BUI-BlenderUserInterface&p
> =2528068&viewfull=1#post2528068[http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?3
> 19727-BUI-BlenderUserInterface&p=2528068&viewfull=1#post2528068]
>> 
>> My intention to achieve this is still not just luke warm but boiling hot. 
> Despite all the ice cubes that were thrown in my path. I have source code ready 
> to be reviewed. I just need a place to drop it and we can start developing. 
>> 
>> If you look through the spaghetti source code and all it's circular 
> dependencies, you will find the source is not that hard at all. It of course 
> needs time and a good initial set-up. 
>> 
>> throw me a private line "hewi at jupama.org" to discuss future evolution of this 
> idea. Discussing it here will only cool you down. 
>> 
>> KR, hewi 
>> 
>> ps: Again i have though hard and long and over and over and doubted and 
> re-read and re-phrased before I pushed the send button. But, freedom of speech 
> in mind, I finally did. 
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