So, let’s start with my New Year’s Resolution.  Here we go … I, do solemnly swear, by the witness of the new decade 2010, will post blog posts on a regular basis.  Yes, you heard it correct and can hold me to it!  I pay for the blog so I might as well use it, right?  I will also post a lot more goodies for you to enjoy as well.

Speaking of goodies, you’re probably wondering what happened to my video podcast series.  Well, one thing I’ve learned is that things never go as planned.  During the creation of the first podcast, my svn checkout quit compiling properly.  Largely due to the fact that there was a lot of new code commits to the svn that wouldn’t let me compile on Mac OS X.  So, I jumped on IRC and started talking about it in the #blendercoders channel about my compile problems, which itself stemmed interest in another problem with compiling on Mac OS X.  The user-def.mk system for overriding the settings was, and actually always has been, somewhat of an issue.  The current method was to copy the entire user-def.mk file from the config presets, and paste it into the blender root directory to be edited.  To be honest, I’m not a coder, or at least not a well experienced one.  So, I have no clue why this was a problem.  It’s always been routine for me when compiling Blender to do this.  Well, since then, it’s changed again.  To make a long story short, I’ll need to do some more research on how it’s setup now before I can continue with the compiling series.  There are some dependency issues that need resolved too.  The video podcasts are planned to get back into development, but starting into something else other then compiling Blender.  Feel free to post suggestions in the comments, because I’m always interested in my reader’s feedback.

Another goody to expect from this year is a rewrite of the old Fur Library for the 2.5 update.  There’s some really awesome stuff I’d like to take advantage of, and I think it would really benefit those who actually used the old library.  I’m researching the in-app tutorial stuff in 2.5, so I hope I’m able to make something useful this time around.

Again, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year, and I look forward to keeping in touch more often.

the Hynds|Studio Video Podcast

Episode 1
Compiling Blender 2.5 – Introduction

I’m about to start posting more on the website along with some of my recent projects, so keep tuned in.

The new full screen, feature loaded, File Browser is serious about productivity.  Finding what you want, where you want, and quickly is what we all been waiting for.  Thumbnail previews of images make it easy to figure out which file you’re looking for.  The new sidebar gives fast access to your system directories and files.  Bookmarks can be set to really speed up finding things, and it also remembers what you opened recently.  But the fun doesn’t stop there.  The header provides several new viewing and sorting options, along with filters for common file types!

Edit: It’s been brought to my attention that the animated viewport switching is actually in the 2.49 release.  You can find it under User Preferences > View and Controls > “Smooth View”.  I guess I never really noticed this until the 2.5 UI enabled it by default.  I’ve been using Blender for the past 6 years and I still learn something new every day.

Something I didn’t notice right away until I started doing some modeling in 2.5 is the animated viewport switching.  When switching in a 3D View in both Orthographic and Perspective, using the Number Pad 0, 1, 3, and 7 keys, the viewport is actually animated.  It doesn’t matter what view angle you’re at either.  The animation effect will move from any User view angle, even from a Camera view.  This will be very helpful, especially for beginners, to understand where you are in relation to your scene and/or model.  It’s great to see a lot of work is being done like this to help the user learn and understand 3D space and the application itself.

Out with the old and in with the new!  But what’s so different about picking your favorite color now?  The color picker seems to be working the same.  A little different UI to suit the new makeover, but overall it still functions the same as before.  RGB, HSV, HEX, Sampler … except one tiny new thing.  Tiny it is, because it’s the new mini color picker!  The Mini Color Picker is displayed when simply LMB clicking the color well to edit the color.  To bring up the full Color Picker, Shift+LMB click the color well.

We really haven’t seen much of the Game Engine additions to 2.5 yet, and it’s pretty cool to see the developers starting to add in the functionality for it with the new user interface.  And guess what, the Logic Editor is getting an overhaul!  You won’t find it listed in the Buttons Window anymore, because it’s now designed as it’s own window.  It has it’s own sidebar with some settings, which I’m curious what type of development lies in the works there since the menu’s are still empty yet.

In a way, it’s a little disappointing to see the old fixed layout being ported to 2.5.  Lots of us had hopes to see a Node based system with the freedom to move the Controllers, Actuators and Sensors around.  But, the UI improvements are nice.  We got curved connections between bricks now!  Woo hoo!

Keep up the great work developers!

Editing your layouts just got so much easier! Using Swap Views, you can drag and drop one view onto another to simply swap them. This is done by Alt+LMB (Left Mouse Button) Click and drag the handle in the upper right corner of the view, then drop it on the view you want to swap with.

Note: The upper right corner handle of a view is called an “action zone” in code. I’ve asked the developers for an official name for this, and the results were interesting none the less. It seems there really isn’t an “official” name yet.  I’d imagine it will be called the “Corner View Widget” or something similar.

This has got to be one of the coolest little features being added into 2.5.  It’s called “4-Split View”.  In a nutshell, it takes a single 3D View and automatically splits it into the traditional 4 views (Top, Front, Right, and Camera).  To enable this, you use the Transform Property menu (accessed the same way as before with the N key), and then click on “4-Split View”.  It has 3 options: Lock, Box, and Clip.  “Lock” prevents you from changing the view perspective’s.  “Box” will auto align each window scale to match the others.  As of currently, I can’t click on “Clip” and I’m actually not sure what it would do when it’s ready.  Any thoughts?