|
|
| b l e n d e r n e w s |
|
Wed April 8 1998
Go to the Blender News Server to find out the latest news and post questions or remarks. This is the last message that will be published here. Mon April 6 1998
At the moment we are redesigning our site. Sorry for any inconvenience! The default blender startup file (HOME/.B.blend) still contains directories that are not standard. Some parts in Blender (Image Select) can core dump because of that. It's fixed and will be included in V1.29. Tue March 31 1998
NeoGeo is happy to announce the Beta release of a Linux and FreeBSD version of Blender at April 15 1998 We expect the first Beta users to help us complete testing and evaluating, especially for the various PC configurations. An official version will be released 4 to 6 weeks later. Time schedule: - April 15: Beta versions V1.3x - May-June: Official versions V1.4x - June-July: Manual version V1.5x - Sept: Complete version V1.8x - ???: Pro version V2.0x Other platfoms - Amiga/Mac/Alpha - and Windows95/NT are not scheduled yet. Currently only a very sparse manual is available. This is work under construction. Publishing the manual will be NeoGeo's first commercial activity with Blender. NeoGeo's strategy is to keep the program core freeware, while generating revenues with add-ons like plug-ins, extra tools and tutorials. Sat March 21 1998
Bugs fixed as mentioned 10 days ago. Also fixed: two serious bugs in block-user counting. (Sometimes data blocks were 'lost')
As announced three weeks ago, available here: the realy cool example of an animation we did at our animation studio here. It is a part of the award winning Morkramia sequel. Get it at the download section . Wed March 11 1998 1. Loading SGI images still has an error, sometimes. Fixed! 2. Tutor troubles! When starting a blender with a syntax like this: ./blender bat_key.blend Blender can't locate the textures. Instead: ./blender ./bat_key.blend or ./blender (and load the file with F1) works fine. This bug has been fixed. Expect an upgrade soon. Sun March 8 1998 Blender V1.27 is out now. A serious bug has been fixed in V1.26; it couldn't read Iris non-RLE images. This image type is quite rare, but causes an immediate core dump. (Thanks, John Walton!). Fri March 6 1998 Blender V1.26 is out now. Good news for Indy people! - Zbuffer mode fixed at Indy machines. - Overdraw menu's: text colors fixed. - Inventor files: bug fixed. - R-G-B sliders in TextureButtons (for image effects). Mon March 2 1998 Incredible! A PC running Blender. It was realy -slow- and quite buggy. Lots of work to do. And you know, our PC is just a P60 with 16 Mb! Good reference machine anyway. If we can get that box working... (Thanks, Marc from BowTie).
- More screenshots and rendered images at our site. - Releasing a new SGI version (some bugs fixed, better Indy support) - New demo: a really cool example file from our award winning Morkramia production. Only at the Unofficial Blender site ! Mon February 23 1998 Thanks to a few announcements in newsgroups, we got hundreds of e-mails by people interested in a Linux and FreeBSD version of Blender. This overwhelming support for the free Unices is great! Keep mailing...
The port of Blender to OpenGL and X is almost finished. One of these days the first steps to a FreeBSD version will be made.
- Inventor files with a Material node but not a DiffuseColor dump core... - Some overdraw text had a wrong color (Number menus). These have been fixed. Expect V1.26 in March. Wed February 18 1998 The Blender executable in the V1.25 download is OK. Don't get confused by the print in the info-header: V124! Forgive us for this silly error... Tue February 17 1998 Sorry! We have repaired a serious bug in Blender V1.24. It causes sometimes (and unexpected) core dumps when reading a file. We strongly recommend to get the V1.25, now available at the website. Fri February 13 1998 Today Blender V1.24 will be released. This version can read INVENTOR files (press F1, and select file). Currently only Inventor V1.0 ascii can be read. To convert files use: ivdowngrade -v 1.0 ./new.iv > ./old.iv Blender always converts Inventor into a Mesh Object. Use it to include 3D data only.
We want to know more about you. Starting today, it is required to fill in a form before you can download. Please, don't be annoyed!! We hope users will give us useful information about how to proceed Blender development. Thu February 12 1998 For people who understand these codes: YES! We started recoding Blender. Expect a freeware LINUX announcement in March! And maybe Windows? Wed February 4 1998 To help us improving Blender, we like to receive bug reports. To be sure we can use your reports, please follow these guidelines: - Only reproducable errors: add a complete description how to do this again. - The best bugs, for us, are those who core dump! These can be fixed almost immediately. - Keep file attachments small (max 100k). Mail to:blender@neogeo.nl
Use Blender to cleanup and manage your file system. First, open a FileSelecting window (press F1) - Select/deselect files using RightMouse. - Press 'a' to select/deselect all. - Press 'r': remove files - SHIFT+'r': remove files recursively (including directories including files ...) - 't': touch files - 'e': view a file using $WINEDITOR (usually jot). Open a second FileSelect window (or split this one): - 'c': copy files - 'l': link files - 'm': move files Press ESC to restore the previous windowtype. Tue February 3 1998 Back online! NeoGeo/Enji Games has moved to a new address: Floraplein 6, 5643 JG EIndhoven. The new office is smaller and a lot cheaper!
Blender now is officially announced at the Dutch SGI website. Sun January 25 1998 For the Blender die-hards: get tutor V2.0. These will be the 'Do It Yourself' example files. Still under construction! Fri January 23 1998 Also as an ftp mirror, visit The Unofficial Blender Homepage. Our biggest fan! Wed January 21 1998 We got some complaints about the readability of this site, including the manual. I hope it's fixed now. (Thanks, Peter Traskalik!)
If you are interested, get manual V1.02. This version has a better font size and includes the 'contents' page and some lost bitmaps. Tue January 20 1998 Tip of the day: Blender reads Amiga IFF images and even anim5 (DPaint) as animated texturemap! To write IFF, you have to use the undocumented 'Ftype' option. In the DisplayButtons activate the 'Ftype' button (near the Targa button) and fill in - or browse - an IFF example file in the Ftype text-button (in the buttons window, left). Example files can be any IFF image (HAM, colormap, 24 bits) but also Targa colormap and PlayStation TIM! When Blender writes images, it reads the Ftype first, then it writes the same image type using the included colormap.
Because of many requests, importing Inventor objects will be restored. Expect it sometime next month. Mon January 19 1998 This version has a few minor bugs repaired: - Dithering was sometimes disabled (only in 1.21). - O2: some drawing bugs and zoom in renderwindow repaired. - Shadow rendering with orthogonal camera. (O2 systems still have troubles drawing colored dashed lines.) One Megabyte with examples of Blender features. Added: a page with blender startup arguments. (section 3.6) Currently all 'exotic' filetypes have been disabled, except one: Videoscape3D. This is a very very (very) simple ASCII format: - Write it: ALT-w. Only the active MESH object will be written. - Read it: just as a regular file. This file will be 'inserted'. The file syntax: To read multiple files, blender also tries to read filename+nr, example: Fri January 16 1998 Download Blender version 1.21 (IRIX 6.2 only) for a revised O2 version. This version also has a few minor bugs repaired. Expect next week an official upgrade. Thu January 15 1998 Testing is still in progress. Some drawing modes have errors. - Preview render (Material buttons) display errors (horizontal black
lines). Most bugs are because of IRIX 6.3 and OpenGL. We'll borrow an O2 and
solve these errors ASAP! |