From BlenderWiki
Draft
START OF CONTENT FOR Dev:Doc/Projects
Blender 2.7x
Latest release: 2.78a.
Git master is still being updated very frequently -- everyday, basically, but the main focus is on fixing bugs.
For users, this is the latest version that can be used for production work, since 2.8 is still in very early stages.
MORE CONTENT FOR Dev:Doc/Projects
Blender 2.8
Version 2.8 will be a major update, with whole areas of Blender rewritten, similar to what happened with 2.5.
This project has been termed "The Workflow Release". The aim is to improve the user experience as it relates to workflow and pipeline.
A production-ready release of 2.8 won't be available for months, it's a huge undertaking.
START OF CONTENT FOR Dev:2.8/:
Blender 2.8: The Workflow Project
This is the main page about the 2.8 Project. Here we gather all the documentation produced about it and list the current tasks being worked on.
Version 2.8 will be a major update, with whole areas of Blender rewritten, similar to what happened with 2.5.
This project has been termed "The Workflow Release". The aim is to improve the user experience as it relates to workflow and pipeline.
A production-ready release of 2.8 won't be available for months, it's a huge undertaking.
Participate:
- Proposals: for user proposals (concrete and well explained ideas)
Language and Library Version Upgrades
The min version requirements for code in Blender will be upgraded to newer versions, probably:
- C: from C89 to C99
- C++: from C++ 98 to C++ 11
- OpenGL: from 2.1 to 3.3
- Python: we're already reasonably up-to-date on Python 3.x
This affects which platforms will support 2.8, according to their support for C/C++ compilers and OpenGL, so developers always consider and discuss carefully when to upgrade and be able to benefit from newer features and better performance.
Subprojects
Assets Integration
Project to better integrate asset handling in Blender: design proposal, ongoing work and roadmap.
More information... on developer.blender.org
Layers
From Dalai on Layers and Beyond:
- "The current layer system in Blender is showing its age. It’s been proved effective for simple scene organizations, but it lacks flexibility when organizing shots for more convoluted productions.
- The layer system for Blender 2.8 will integrate workflow and drawing requirements. It will allow for organizing the scene for a specific task, and control how different set of objects are displayed."
Learn more:
- Google Summer of Code 2016: UI Design: initial research and development by Julian Eisel (severin)
- Dalai on Layers and Beyond (Nov/2016)
- Scene / Layer design diagram (work in progress, still being discussed)
Participate:
Developers: Dalai Felinto (dfelinto) (coordinator), Julian Eisel (severin)
Upgrading OpenGL
OpenGL 3.x brought many changes, deprecating a considerable portion of its API. Because of that, to upgrade from 2.1 to 3.3 there's a lot of code that we need to change in Blender.
(XXX move the snippet below to the above link and refactor that page)
OpenGL Immediate Mode Replacement
Learn more:
Participate:
- List of affected files: the source files that need to be recoded
- Task at developer.blender.org
Developers: Mike Erwin (merwin) (coordinator, main programmer), Dalai Felinto (dfelinto) and volunteers.
This recode task needs more volunteer coders. It's a good oportunity to start helping.
Viewport
Blender's viewport will benefit greatly from restructuring and a facelift, making use of modern OpenGL to greatly improve its real-time rendering performance for editing, previewing and exporting. Offering better workflow and user experience is the main objective.
PBR
Implementing Physically-Based Rendering (PBR) capabilities in the new viewport for high-quality real-time rendering is a fundamental step in modernizing Blender.
(XXX create a new page for this content below)
More information...
Clément Foucault developed an experimental GLSL PBR version of Blender. He is officially involved in this project to implement PBR for Blender 2.8.
Learn more:
- PBR Viewport Kickoff (report about developer discussions)
- Clément's experimental Blender with GLSL PBR
Learn more about PBR (external links):
- The Comprehensive PBR Guide
- Basic Theory of Physically-Based Rendering
- Physically-Based Rendering, and you can too!
- Real Shading in Unreal Engine 4 (slides in a pdf)
Participate:
Developers: Clément Foucault, dfelinto
References
Blender Developer Blog's articles about Blender 2.8 planning and development:
- Ton's Proposal / Announcement (Jul/2015)
- Developer Kickoff Meeting Notes from 2015's Blender Conference (Nov/2015)
- Lukas' Proposal for Caching, Nodes and Physics Development (Mar/2016)
- Dalai on Viewport Development (Sep/2016)
- Dalai on Layers and Beyond (Nov/2016)
- Ton's report (Nov/2016)
- Highlights of Workflow Workshop (Dec/2016)
- Viewport Project – Plan of Action (Dec/2016)
END OF CONTENT FOR Dev:2.8/
MORE CONTENT FOR Dev:Doc/Projects
Official Branches
Non trivial new features are usually developed on their own new branches. When finished, they may be approved and merged back into the master branch. Special versions of Blender, like the ones upgraded for Blender Institute movie productions, also have their own branches.
More information...
Scripts (needs update)
Python scripting is a very powerful feature in Blender, both for key functionality (the User Interface, for example) and for plugins that can greatly extend the program's capabilities.
START OF CONTENT FOR NEW PAGE Dev:Doc/Projects/Scripts
Official Pipeline and scripting projects:
- BAM (Blender Asset Manager)
Python script that extracts all .blend dependencies and puts it in a zip with new paths. - Attract
- Flamenco
- Etc etc.
Right side
END OF CONTENT FOR NEW PAGE Dev:Doc/Projects/Scripts
Summer of Code (needs update)
- Google Summer of Code projects
Archive (needs update)
Known TODOs (needs update)
Issues for (new) developers to work on are collected in wiki. It's known todo items, features or fixes that already have been approved to be worked on:
