So,

Blender 2.5 is about to be released (Today or tomorrow I believe). 'About time' I cry. However, I'm guessing everyone will be wanting to try it out at least, so when you get it and start playing with it, post anything you find that might make our movie easier, and anything that you think is going to mess up anything we already are doing.

The initial thing that I think might be a problem is tha fact that the GUI is supposed to be so editable that we will all end up with very different ways of doing the same thing, so helping one another might become harder.

There is supposed to be a total rewrite of the Action/IPO NLA system so they all integrate better too. I see a steep learning curve on the horizon.

Hoping to get a copy by the weekend!

Matt

DL'ing from work right now, will mirror a copy on OWF's server tonight so everyone here can access it easier.

...lol. I was cringing at the thought of attempting to download this over the weekend, but thanks to your CJ link I have it in my possession. This evening I'll find out what the newer features are . . . at least those which affect me.

Grabbed a cpy last night and had a quick look through.

I like the dope sheet window so far, and the tool bar in the main window. Some of the other features I'm still getting a handle on. Not a fully functional version as yet I believe, but I think I like the new GUI. As always, Blender has a steep learning curve, but a lot of the various parts of the program seem to be more streamlined and integrated with each other better. Also, things that are un-related have been separated ( though I now have to re-learn where everything is all over again!)

What is nice is that because all of the keyboard shortcuts are programmable, it provides a list of all of the current shortcuts.

Matt

OK - So I installed it and the blessed thing just didn't even open - said something about send MS error report.Will download more stuff to get it going.

Anyone had time to try this out yet?

I found out that radiosity has vanished in this version, but a new GI has been integrated. The AAO has improved too, but still not sure if it is good enough for movie purposes.

Main issue I can see is that importing 2.49 animation files into 2.50 seems to mess with the names of the actions, so they end up with no names. Could be a problem if we want to convert half-way through the movie making process!

Matt

The Software doesn't seem to like my laptop - I have an AMD processor & windows XP. I used the same thing on a "proper" computer with Intel & xp - and it worked perfectly. My laptop always doesn't run some games due to the AMD fact.
On first impressions of the program, it was a total disorientating minefield and despite the millions of tips on the BA regarding this, my time on the earlier versions of blender coupled with the fact that I am quite used to the laptop way of doing things, I think I will stay away from this new fangled way of doing things until the last moment, and with the recession still not quite over, a new laptop is kind of out of bounds, as I told Santa earlier at the shopping mall.

2.5 is the normal Blender learning curve squared, I have to agree. Once you get out of the habits that 2.x have ingrained, I think it will be a faster, cleaner way of working, but it's certainly not going to be an easy step to take. I know 2.5 is just an Alpha version, and not a true release, but I have found several major drawbacks to the new version unless they get fixed. Mainly the keyboard shortcuts in the sculpt mode have vanished, so you have to use menus to change tools, radiosity has gone, and the new 'properties' panel that replaces the 'numeric' panel seems to have a huge amount of useless data in it most of the time, whilst not including important stuff that you really might want to alter numerically.

Oh, and every time tou restart it, or open another pane, it defaults to a HUGE size of text, and has to be shrunk, over and over again!

Matt

Matt: the sculpting shortcuts are back in the latest build from graphicall