Apologies if this is not the right place for this thread…
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to this site, so I’m very out of the loop. I’m asking all the devs and those in the know…
I have heard the news that Brecht has left Cycles for a new job (congrats, Brecht.) So, I suppose it means Cycles development will slow down some for a while…
Although I’ve been excited about Cycles for years, and have spent the past couple of years learning and using Cycles almost solely, everytime I make a new animation I end up going back to BI in frustration at the long rendertimes and unsupported gaps in Cycles. BI has always been able to do things very easily that Cycles has huge problems with, and do them VERY fast. Although, not as “realistically” as Cycles.
But you pay for all that “Cycles awesomeness” by panicking at the thought of the months a short animation will cost in Cycles rendertimes.
I’ve experimented lately with Cycles baking. But it’s not a solution, it takes time to bake objects too, and there are always problems and trade offs and more hairpulling.
And, although my computer is still relatively new, I’m not in the mood to start throwing money at the problem by buying an expensive graphics card or multiple computers with multiple graphics cards. I’m not Andrew Price, I don’t live in a computer lab in grad school, and I’m not rich.
And everytime I go back to BI it’s with a nostalgic feeling of returning to a lost love, coupled with tears of joy at the INSANE SPEED of BI rendering. It might not look perfect, but I’ll take those gorgeous painted BI renders (and five-ten minutes to get them) over extremely grainy 2-hour Cycles renders ANY day, no matter how much “photorealism” they have.
I make animation. And I work alone. That’s why I started using Blender in the first place. I don’t use the software to make pretty magazine covers.
All this would be well and good.
Except for the rumors, old rumors at that, that BI will be “discontinued” in Blender. “No longer supported.” Use whatever euphemism you please. I don’t really know what it means.
Does it mean that the Devs will no longer work to improve BI? That they will no longer increase the efficiency of BI?
Or does it mean what I fear most: that BI will be pulled completely out of Blender?
That, if you want to render something in Blender, you can only use Cycles, or some version of GSL?
I suppose, worst case scenario, I could just hang on forever to some 2.7* version of Blender, even as the software improves over the years, like some of the better artists who still use 1.49 to this day…
Anyway, sorry for the long editorializing. I’ve been trying to love Cycles over the years, and I have, thinking it was just a matter of time before Cycles was as fast as BI, that there would come a day when the fireflies and the grain just aren’t there anymore after about five minutes, that making animation would mean Cycles, and without expensive graphics cards, render farms, etc. But, no matter how good I’ve gotten with Cycles, that day just has never come for me. Going back to BI, I’m floored at the beauty of BI renders of some of the huge Cycles sets I’ve spent months building for the animation I’m working on, and the fact that they come out in five minutes, where it takes Cycles nearly an hour, complete with ugly grain. And all for just a single frame…
So, what date is the BI Apocalypse slated to take place?