News:

Use the "Forum Search"
It may help you to find anything in the forum ;).

Blender 2.8

Started by jamespetts, January 15, 2020, 11:51:11 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

jamespetts

I notice that Blender 2.8 has been released. This is a major upgrade to Blender. One of the particular changes is the removal of the internal rendering engine and its replacement with Eevee.

So far, I have been unable to get the Simutrans automatic rendering scripts working with Eevee, although I am no expert in Blender scripting. I have posted a message about this on the Blender forums here.

Has anyone who uses Blender for rendering Simutrans objects been able to use 2.8? I could simply continue using 2.7, but I fear that there will eventually come a time when this is no longer compatible with modern computers and I should rather not be left behind if possible.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.

Matthew

I looked into this last year and my heart sank. My understanding is that not only the Blender Internal scripts, but also the models themselves (particularly materials and textures) are incompatible with Eevee. So switching to Eevee (or Cycles) would mean that we couldn't re-use anything from the existing Blend files. We are indeed stuck in a dead end.

It's a shame, because the Blender 2.80 GUI appears to be a great improvement over earlier versions. It even selects with left-click by default!

Ever since I came across Blender, I have had the impression that it's run like a cult by someone with narcissistic personality disorder. I know that's harsh, but it's not just me who finds it difficult:



The "Why is Blender so easy to learn" thread is sarcasm, of course.

Blender's defenders say that (a) the UI was intended to be very fast for professional artists and (b) 3D graphics are just a hard thing to do. Well, I really can't see why right-click is faster than left-click. And how is making a vast part of the existing universe of models supposed to speed anybody's work up? I can accept that learning 3D graphics is difficult, but overturning industry standard UI conventions means you're forcing new users to do two difficult things at once, in a clear violation of good software design.

Making such a major change as dropping Blender Internal in an .xx release (not 2.8 but 2.80) is yet another example of this attitude. Why would you not call the new version 3.0 to signal that it's not backwards compatible and introduces a new UI? It's another defiance of industry convention. My theory is that someone, somewhere is getting a kick out of forcing people to jump through hoops in order to get to their 3D graphics goodness.

Sorry for the rant, but using Blender gets me really frustrated. I've literally had to leave the flat and go for a walk to calm down after using it! The up side is that the kind, considerate, and consensual approach of the Simutrans community shines all the more brightly in comparison. Thank you for all your efforts, Simutrans devs and artists!
(Signature being tested) If you enjoy playing Simutrans, then you might also enjoy watching Japan Railway Journal
Available in English and simplified Chinese
如果您喜欢玩Simutrans的话,那么说不定就想看《日本铁路之旅》(英语也有简体中文字幕)。

jamespetts

I do not think that the position is quite as bad as you suggest, in that I was able to load the .blend files with the models and get them to render in Eevee. However, the automatic rotation/naming system was not working; the lighting dome also appeared to be absent, but it is not clear as to whether this was entirely missing or merely hidden.

I see that I have had no response on the Blender forum. I will update the tutorial to note that it is necessary to use Blender 2.79 for the time being.
Download Simutrans-Extended.

Want to help with development? See here for things to do for coding, and here for information on how to make graphics/objects.

Follow Simutrans-Extended on Facebook.