Vray for Blender 2.8 - when?

[JuhaW]

Separate build has better export perfomance, C or C++, like Vray for Blender build has. That Redshift video has only 3 objects so export (Python code I think) is fast and seems unnoticeable. Just test Yafaray engine, complex scene/heavy polycount and just export (Python code) time is many minutes.

[svetlozar.draganov]

In addition to what JuhaW just shared. V-Ray similarly as Octane is much more feature-rich than other render engines. If V-Ray is integrated only as an addon we'll have to remove at least half of the available features.
For example, Blender doesn't have native support for DomeLight, in order to implement that feature into V-Ray for Blender we need to modify Blender itself, we can't do that only on V-Ray side.
Furthermore, V-Ray has much more complex materials than Blender, without adding the necessary support in Blender we can't use those materials.

This is actually one of the reasons which slow down the development of V-Ray for Blender. A huge part of our development process is actually to add things we need inside Blender. This is usually delivered by the Host App developers like Autodesk for 3dsMax/Maya, The Foundry for Modo and etc. In the case of Blender, however, we need to create support for our own plugin cause no one will do it for us.

Regarding the frequent Blender updates, this is also a very sensitive matter. Blender devs very often break our integration by adding/changing something on their side, which usually results in days or months on our side to update our integration to work with the changes. That's why for us is better to stick with one Blender version for a long period of time - if we have to update to every single Blender version it would be a nightmare for our developers.

[flat]

Hello, Svetlozar

Thank you for the details of the development.
I learned a bit about the Blender development environment.
I was surprised to know that add-ons can't be written in C/C + +. It's one of Blender's big weaknesses.

Knowing the background behind development, When a developer advertises an "add-on" type implementation, This means that the developers themselves claim that they are not implementing advanced features.(or very slow processing implementation) Very funny.

Thank you.

[bardo]

In my opinion, if having a custom build is needed to have the full vray features, this is not so much a problem.

And a bit of stability is always welcome when you're in a production environment....and , using Blender, we have the opportunity to use every build we want...so if a super new release has, for example, an interesting and particular modelling feature, we can download it, model with it and then import for the rendering.

And, the latest LongTimeSupport moves seems to match the stability needs.

[JHorsley]

Of course, do what you need to to make this a full, proper implementation. But the couple of examples you listed are definitely possible to do with just an add-on. I know that the Renderman add-on has managed to add in additional light types, such as their environment light. Almost all the render add-ons add their own render nodes and outputs for their specific shaders and such. I know speed can be an issue with python but I would have thought that if it was that bad you could just implement the heavy parts with something like Cython.

[kropaman]

But still a main question is will it be a full vray 3 or next integration with features like IPR, Auto exposure, Auto balance,Resumable Rendering, Hashmap based light cache and more or just a port of 2.79 with minimum support of Vray Next as is now?

[svetlozar.draganov]

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the main goal is now to make support for the newer version of Blender.
Once this is done, we will focus more on the new features like the suggested ones.

[Oleg_Budeanu]

Thanks a lot for detailed explanation, Svetlozar, that's really appreciated and often being missed from other plugin developers!
To be honest I'm really happy that ChaosGroup is looking at Blender and throwing at least some of their forces to implement VRay. That's really awesome and will move Blender even more towards being a common-used tool for 3D visualization.
I am curious about one thing - have you tried to contact Blender devs and discuss with them these issues? Maybe they will agree on implementation on some kind of standard to ease plugins development, such as VRay? After all that's should be in their field of interest, because the more plugin developers are interested in Blender - the more people will jump on to that train, isn't it?

[arquitecto]

As mentioned earlier in this thread, the main goal is now to make support for the newer version of Blender.
Once this is done, we will focus more on the new features like the suggested ones.

Thank you very much for the updates!

Can we have nightlies?

[rikou]

Thanks a lot for detailed explanation, Svetlozar, that's really appreciated and often being missed from other plugin developers!
To be honest I'm really happy that ChaosGroup is looking at Blender and throwing at least some of their forces to implement VRay. That's really awesome and will move Blender even more towards being a common-used tool for 3D visualization.
I am curious about one thing - have you tried to contact Blender devs and discuss with them these issues? Maybe they will agree on implementation on some kind of standard to ease plugins development, such as VRay? After all that's should be in their field of interest, because the more plugin developers are interested in Blender - the more people will jump on to that train, isn't it?

+1 !
and I'm pretty sure many of us think that!

[enrique.monzo]

I'm really glad knowing that VRay is being integrated in a custom build from a long term version of Blender 2.8x.
I remember very well all the issues related to broken things in Blender 2.79 in the different short releases. I was aware that such a kind of development has to be a nightmare.
In the meantime, while not having VRay in Blender 2.8x, I have been playing with Cycles and LuxCoreRender... and VRay is far more powerful!
Thus, I'm looking forward to the new VRay for Blender!

[svetlozar.draganov]

Can we have nightlies?

There are no nightlies yet But yes once the product enters more stable phase nightlies will be available for everyone

[enrique.monzo]

Looking forward to it!!!

[rikou]

In addition to what JuhaW just shared. [...].

Regarding the frequent Blender updates, this is also a very sensitive matter. Blender devs very often break our integration by adding/changing something on their side, which usually results in days or months on our side to update our integration to work with the changes. That's why for us is better to stick with one Blender version for a long period of time - if we have to update to every single Blender version it would be a nightmare for our developers.

I was thinking about that the last few days : Blender LTS

Is it something good for Vray devs ? Can this facilitate the dev ?

Thanks

[kamel]

we are waiting