Blendigo 2.3.x test releases

[dougal2]

It's release time again!

Now that 2.2 is behind us I want to get the ball rolling with the next round of updates and fixes.

Welcome to the TESTING 2.3.x series of Blendigo.

THESE ARE STRICTLY TEST RELEASES. Treat them like betas please, there are many many untested changes in this generation.

WARNING
Do not use the 2.3.x Blendigo series on your production files !! Stick to 2.2 stable for getting real work done.

Some things, like the order of material types in the dropdowns have changed order, and this WILL cause old scenes to perhaps export with entirely different settings than before.
I'm sorry, but this could not be helped.
You should consider only making or setting up new scenes with these versions, and leave your older scenes back in 2.2-land.

Now is the time that I can reveal several features that I was holding back due to only wanting proven fixes in the 2.2 code.

NEW FEATURES

- 'Lamp spectrum' emission presets. These are a whole load of real-life measured lamp spectra (colours) ready and available to use in Blendigo.
The original data can be found here: http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/ ... amici.html

- Material Database search/download/include. By using the External material type, you can query the materials database and download the pigms directly in Blendigo

- PIGM support. pigms will be automatically unpacked at export time

- Much better OSX installer. Before using this though, you WILL need to perform an UNinstall manually to get rid of the mess that the old installer created. Instructions are below.

- Improvements to particle export. Particularly the 'Object' Visualization type is now available for things like grass blade instances.
(Unfortunately 'Group' type cannot be implemented at this time due to Blender bugs).

- Lots of other tidy-ups. Some may be visible (console output should have improved), some others are not.


KNOWN ISSUES

- OSX: If you share your Mac with other users who use Blendigo, or you use more than one user account, you may get failed exports due to permissions writing to /private/tmp - to cure this you need to log in as the other user and clear the /private/tmp folder of their files. (or use sudo and clear everything; it's pretty harmless).

- Not 100% backwards-compatible with scenes set up with previous versions of Blendigo; especially with regards to material settings. This won't be fixed, you'll need to migrate your old scenes to the new Blendigo if you wish to re-render them with Indigo.

DOWNLOADS

UPDATED TO 2.3.2 - see here


YOUR FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS APPRECIATED

As with the current efforts to get Indigo 2.4 as complete and user-friendly as possible, please please keep reporting any issues you find with Blendigo - it is your feedback as users and artists alone that push Blendigo forward into being the software that works for you.

[Godzilla]

Thank you Dougal!

[OnoSendai]

Fantastic. Thanks Doug.

[StompinTom]

- Improvements to particle export. Particularly the 'Object' Visualization type is now available for things like grass blade instances.
(Unfortunately 'Group' type cannot be implemented at this time due to Blender bugs).

Thanks a ton! Too bad about the 'Group' stuff but that's alright, it just means I have to set up a few particle systems with different objects.

Thanks for your hard work!

[Doug Armand]

Downloaded - will start testing in the next few days

[enricocerica]

Nice update,

Thanks a ton! Too bad about the 'Group' stuff but that's alright, it just means I have to set up a few particle systems with different objects.

I had to face the same situation whith group particules, assuming you randomly pick objects in the group, you could always create several planes and each of them has a different particule system for each object in the group, that's what I did to create some variation in the grass, to add flowers, ...

[Doug Armand]

First buglet?. I know you said they're might be compatability issues with older files but thought I'd post anyway

Opening up any old file gives the following error:

Error%Broken installation of Blendigo, please reinstall
Abort

Then it all loads and seems to work fine.

EDIT: OK I get the same error even when I use a new scene with no materials yet added. It happens when I switch to the workspace with the Blendigo script window open. Only happens the first time I switch. If the workspace with Blendigo is saved I get the error when opening the file again.

[Doug Armand]

Tried using the Materials Datbase option and searched on 'rock'. Got a python script error:

File "F:\Dougs Stuff\3D\blender-2.49 x64\.blender\scripts\blendigo.py", line 4
346, in buttonEvt
materialButtonEvt(evt)
File "F:\Dougs Stuff\3D\blender-2.49 x64\.blender\scripts\blendigo.py", line 1
937, in materialButtonEvt
q = matdblib.query( matdblib.connector() )
NameError: global name 'matdblib' is not defined

Personally with Indigo shipping with the excellent Material Editor maybe this funtionality is best left for that?
I personally will never use it in Blendigo as the Material Editor is so much easier to use - just my point of view

[Doug Armand]

EDIT: thought it was working fine but displacement doesn't seem to be working with pigm's - can anyone else test that as well?.

Using .pigm's works brilliantly - this is a major step forward - thanks Dougal2!

[Jambert]

You're late Doug, christmas was 25 december

thanks for you're work, will try it soon

[StompinTom]

(EDIT) Expletive. Can you name these test releases something a bit different from the stable 2.2 script? It overwrote the previous scripts and for now I need to use them alongside each other so that I can still do stable work...

[StompinTom]

Also:

"Error%nBroken installation of Blendigo, please reinstall"

Code: Select all

----------------------
BLENDIGO v2.3.1
----------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "C:\Users\Tom\Documents\Utilities\Blender 2.49b\.blender\scripts\blendigo
.py", line 85, in <module>
    class IndigoPaths(PathsBase):
NameError: name 'PathsBase' is not defined

No dice.

[Doug Armand]

S@*t....

Mind your language - they're may be kids reading this stuff

I fact I'm sure Ben is really only 10 years old

[StompinTom]

Ok, re-installed and it throws the same error message but still works...

[StompinTom]

S@*t....

Mind your language - they're may be kids reading this stuff

I fact I'm sure Ben is really only 10 years old

Which explains his child-like fascination with shiny things...