OT: Blender 2.79 is Out
ebergerly
Posts: 3,255
in The Commons
FWIW, Blender 2.79 was just released the other day. Easy to download, but just make sure you copy over your startup file and user preferences file after you do the install. To do that, go to (in Windows) "Users/xxxx/AppData/Roaming/Blender Foundation/Blender/2.78/config" and copy whatever files are in that folder to the same location but "....2.79/config".
There are a bunch of videos out there describing the new features.
Party on Garth.
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BTW, for those wondering what cool new features it has, from my perspective there's really not much. Though I don't do a lot of rendering in Blender, but if you do there are a couple good things. One is the awesome Principled Shader, which I wish D|S had. It's like all surface shader attributes in one node. And they did some tweaking on the Cycles render to remove some of the noise.
For me the biggest stuff is the most recent addons that are freely available. A whole list of them, and some are pretty cool.
DS does have one. It's called the Iray Uber Shader. Technically not one node, but everything in one surface shader.
Laurie
DOH !! Oh yeah I guess you're right. Though something was sticking in my head that it was missing some "all-in-one-ness" of the Blender version. Or maybe I'm just understanding the Blender one a tad more than the D|S one due to all the Blender tutorials.
What is the minimum opengl version that can use it?
Everything is always there in the Iray Uber shader; it's just that a number of parameters are also controls for dependent parameters. E.g. changing the Base Mixing, Translucency, Refraction Index, Emission Color and other settings all open other groups of parameters for use. And similar with the second and third layer parameters, Metallic Flakes and Top Coat. If you don't need to see a parameter, it's invisible, which cuts down on clutter.
If you want to see real clutter, load the Iray Uber shader into the Shader Mixer pane — all the training wheels are off, you see everything.
Incidentally, what's the UI like on this Blender version? I keep meaning to try it out, but so far I've never managed to morph my square tuit into a round one...
Don't know what the minimum OpenGL is for 2.79 (most blender releases can use the slightly older ones, but I've heard 2.8 will require the more recent OpenGL--- 3.4?. You'll have to upgrade then if you haven't already.
Drat, that means I'd be stuck, my old NVidia card won't go over OpenGL 3.3.0 — looks like I'll have to put it off until I get that computer upgrade with a more Iray-compatible graphics card I've been promising myself.
Your in luck SpottedKitty... this chart on the blender site says openGL 3.3 - https://developer.blender.org/T49012
I started learning how to use Blender two weeks ago, and I can't believe I know the answer to this, but the simplest way to morph a square into a sphere is to subdivide it several times.
As for the UI, one of the new features is automatic interface scaling, and that alone has already proven a most welcome addition for my 2K monitor.
...like smoothing, sub_D also takes more processing power though not as severe. That also contributed to how I was able to crash the 32 bit version of SIlo in less than 15 min. Added a couple levels of smoothing to get that sleek smooth polished hull for closeup shots, and it was "hello desktop".
To get that 'round tuit, you'd have to use a Subdivision Surface modifier. There's a separate Subdivide feature that will subdivide edges or faces, but it won't turn a square round unless the subsurf modifier is also applied.
Actually, it's a joke... "get a round tuit"...
Yep, that's why I used the apostrophe in 'round. I just thought for the benefit of new users I should point out that Subdivide and the Subdivision Surface modifier are two different things! :-)
Yes - but there's also a 'subdivide smooth' feature if you want to do it quickly. Now if only I could remember the shortcut for it... ah yes - in Edit-mode, press 'w' and you'll have the option in the popup menu. (Thanks to whoever posted about the free Udemy tutorials - I'm learning loads)
https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=blender&src=ukw&sort=price-low-to-high