If the majority of the branch-only stuff gets into master (which they aren’t now because of Bcon 4 and all that), then no.
The majority of branch work in every Open Movie project except Sintel wound up in master in one form or another, there’s a rather decent track record in that respect.
Git makes branching/merging trivial so a ton of development happens in branches rather than master now. It’s why there is UI-experiments and UI-graphical-redesign and all sorts of other specific branches.
Without Gooseberry, the ViewportFX project would only be further behind most likely. The real problem is not enough developers to spread the workload. Its why the devs need to bounce around to so many different projects in the first place.
I just want to point out that I didnt say “only” priority. That is something you added Ace. I said it messes with them (priorities) and the time that can be allotted to them…and just the general interest level of taking on key developments, especially those with “design” holding it back. Its not really up for questioning anymore, and its frustrating that they say one thing in the attempt to get more funding for their Open Film and constantly do the opposite once after the fact.
I don’t see why Gooseberry should’ve slowed down Blender development? There are currently exactly 2 developers working full time on Gooseberry: Lukas and Antony. Antony has worked on tons and tons of small features and fixes in the past months, he improved many different parts of Blender many of them wouldn’t have been touched without the “pet-movie” as you called it. Lukas kept working on the simulation front and he somehow managed to add lots of new features as well as an entire Alembic Cache system for the probably most “broken” part of Blender - the particle system.
Both have developed lots of things that ended up in master and the tools that are currently in the Gooseberry branch (and in other branches) are mostly developed towards a merge into master.
I see however that you guys are not really happy with the current state of the viewport project, which is a big project that really needs a lot of time and attention. I talked quite a bit about this with Antony on my visit in the Institute, so that’s shortly what I think/know: Antony has successfully updated and refactored most of the ViewportFX work which was the first big hurdle. The next hurdle is to find a good design and I think this really isn’t an easy task. The goal - a workflow oriented, node based OGL shader system - is really high but if done well, I personally think we’ll be way ahead of many other 3D apps out there. So spending a lot of effort and time on creating a solid design is crucial.
Antony also wasn’t that happy about the current state of the viewport project btw, but I think this really isn’t because of Gooseberry, it’s just because we can’t copy & paste developers (or because the BF can’t hire more devs financially).
You could of course argue that without Gooseberry Lukas maybe would’ve found the time to finish Particle Nodes or started a particle rewrite. I even kinda agree with this, but still — I would never say that the Gooseberry project had slowed down Blender development.
Of course, not everything went perfect and some priorities had to be tweaked to finish the movie in time (as promised to donators and sponsors) but if you spend some time to look on what we’ve gained from it already, you can clearly see that Gooseberry has improved Blender as a 3D suite a lot, and a lot more is coming still!
finally! 
it’s well-known that the open movies push blender forward in huge leaps. yet some people speak of gooseberry like it’s Ton’s personal project and he’s stealing our devs and distracting them from their work 
I love the way goosberry looks,
and I want the viewport to be a priority,
I just really really really want the bge on android,
I really really want more polygon/fps in the game engine
I want realtime rendering for animations, as I am impatient.
I see blender games on android as a potential source of funds
for blender, as well as a potential hook to snag bge developers that want to make games for android.
(they add pet features for themselves that we all benifit from)
BPR; Please note that repeating the same things over and over again is not going to make things get done faster.
Work has been done and the developers are aware that there’s been some issues with planning and as such know what will be needed to get it done. Also, I don’t think much of the current progress so far as been the result of people being broken records about it, big coding projects take time (especially if you want to do it the right way and not in the form of a crappy hack).
With all due respect Julian, that only two developers are explicitly tasked with being full-time on Gooseberry in no way changes that the other developers have had their priorities managed with Gooseberry at or near the top of the list during it’s progression. Campbell himself has mentioned (briefly but multiple times) working on features/bugs that were Gooseberry related. The commit logs also show that he is not the only one. Hell, simply following the Gooseberry weeklies trounces any argument that Gooseberry priorities aren’t being spread across the Blender Foundation’s development team. Unless Gooseberry is committing all of the code to trunk at the end (and we all know it isn’t), the only way it isn’t slowing down development of Blender is if the developers are somehow more productive in their time pushing Blender forward than is lost in the time committed to Gooseberry work… and I don’t see evidence of that (nor expect it, especially given even Campbell is only working three days a week now).
No-one is saying that the entire of the Blender Foundation’s time is dedicated to the project. That’s an extreme strawman brought in to beat upon because addressing the actual point isn’t going to work. Gooseberry was always going to diminish focus on general Blender development. It’s the nature of the whole open-film method sold to contributors - the project focuses development on what the real production requires.
Simple question, for those buying into the whole “it’s just two developers” argument. Ton is producer, clearly involved in the project on more than a cursory level to anyone following it (and sort of obvious to anyone giving it ten seconds thought). He is also lead developer and BDFL who has been definitely involved in decisions regarding development during the course of the film. You reckon that maybe, just maybe, he’s priorities are somewhat less than 100% Blender development (perhaps, you know, slowing down his contributions in that regard)? And that’s just the lead developer. What about the others? How do you think cutting the hours of the other developers affects development progress?
From the commit logs, it seems that most of the commits in the last month pertaining to Gooseberry work are indeed from Lukas and Antony. Campbell and the other devs. meanwhile made a lot of commits that were not explicitly tied to the movie (with Campbell not even being on a paid contract at this time).
Also, I believe that developers like Severin are indeed knowing what they’re talking about, we have channels like developer.blender.org, the commit logs, and the weeklies, but we stil miss a lot of direct discussion between them in placed like in IRC chat or even in person like in the Institute. I really get the impression that some here think the developers are dumb and are always trying to hide something (and then those people wonder why they won’t post in the forum).
Also, with the notion that Gooseberry code will not be committed to master, so I must’ve imagined it when I read about the branch code developed for Elephant’s Dream, Big Buck Bunny, and Yo Frankie! being committed to master, right?
You beat on the strawman, Ace. You beat him up good. Then when you’re through beating the snot out of an argument no-one is making, perhaps you might read what was actually said?
Once again, for the fanboys, the point is not and never has been that all the focus from the Blender Foundation is being directed at Gooseberry. No-one has stated that all of the commits have been Gooseberry related. No-one has stated that Lukas and Antony aren’t responsible for most of the commits to Gooseberry related code (it’s kind of expected given their full-time role is working on that).
The point is, and I really don’t think I can make it any simpler, that the other developers are providing code for Gooseberry branch. Not that it is their sole focus, not even that it is their primary focus, but that it is a focus. By adding that focus to their list of priorities, and it being one a paid developer cannot really ignore when Ton is lead developer, producer, and paymaster - their non-Gooseberry development is slowed down. The only way this is not going to happen is if they spend extra time on non-Gooseberry work to make up for the time spent on Gooseberry and the time switching between tasks.
Please show me where I said Julian didn’t know what he was talking about. More than happy to apologise if you can find that. If you can’t, the polite thing to do would be to retract the insinuation I was insulting him with such an accusation.
What I said was, although what he said was correct, it wasn’t addressing the point being made by others. It’s not that he doesn’t know what he is talking about regarding Blender development - it’s that what we’re talking about isn’t what he is and, as such, what he said doesn’t actually negate the logic I lay out for him in detail (so he can address it).
If you believe ALL of the code created for those productions was committed to trunk, you were indeed imagining it. Just like you’d need to be imagining someone claiming that none of the Gooseberry code will be committed to master branch.
I’d suggest, if you like threads that don’t derail into flamewars, that you stop projecting arguments onto others they are not making and focus on what they said instead. If accidental, it’s just annoying. If deliberate, it is against the forum rules and trolling. Either way, it isn’t going to help your cause.
You still seemed to have given the hint that a rather good majority of the code of least will never see the light of day in master (what with the conditions that needed to be met so that Blender development isn’t considered slower than usual).
Also, I wasn’t targeting you specifically with the statement that some here believe the developers don’t know what they’re talking about, but you seemed to have also hinted that Severin is absolutely wrong with his statement the distribution of developer resources along with much of the rest. I see the same thing in a lot of replies to Campbell as well.
Just let the game engine die peacefully xD
psht horrible graphics
Careful with those statements, otherwise it might become yet another thread about BPR defending the BGE (that is unless he can control his urge to go off on that tangent this time).
To BPR; spamming that video now and then in various threads is not going to help your cause, rather it might lead to people thinking you’re not interested in serious discussion.
Cmon man, the graphics on that video were horrible xD
And there is where you go off the rails. I clearly didn’t say it, so you now it’s about “giving hints”? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I have no problems (at all) with explicitly & without any ambiguity writing what I think about a subject on these forums. I’ve even had posts removed because of it.
If I wanted to convey the message “a rather good majority of the code of least will never see the light of day in master” - I’d have said it outright. If wanted to convey “that Severin is absolutely wrong with his statement the distribution of developer resources along with much of the rest” - I’d have said that too. Finally, given I have the greatest of respect for Campbell, what he does, and the conditions he does it in (something I have expressed explicitly numerous times in this forum), I believe you’ve stepped from plausibly ignorant arguments about the subject being discussed to outright attacks on the character of those you disagree with.
I repeat, no-one is making the exaggerated claims you are projecting on them. No-one has stated that the developers don’t know what they’re talking about. No-one has stated that most of the code for Gooseberry is being written by developers other than Lukas & Antony. No-one is saying that nothing else in Blender is being done outside Gooseberry code. No-one has stated the none of the Gooseberry code will make it into master.
If you believe otherwise, you need to back that up (quotes from the thread will suffice) or back off. I, personally, am not going to fold in my opinion because you’ve decided to don the (unrequired) role of white knight. The more you try to smear my comments, the harder I will push back. Your call.
Psy-Fi was the one working on ViewportFX and he’s a Gooseberry dev, so I’m not following exactly how Gooseberry is slowing something like that down. Realtime AO/DoF is even in 2.74.
What is an example of a feature/bug request other developers did for Gooseberry that you feel slowed progress on Blender development?
lol, but their do for a upgrade! http://www.slashfilm.com/new-evil-dead-tv-series-characters/
J/k
ace, it’s called humor. Look it up in a dictionary.
about viewport itself.
I have a scheme.
and in that scheme…
the gpu calculates a list of close objects, and also culls faces from a ‘bank mesh’
all faces are not drawn on ‘dummy’ mesh instead faces are moved from the bank to populate where the faces would be…
there is a huge ‘max poly’ bank somewhere (1 mesh)
each ‘dummy’ object has a list
‘Faces’
and another property ‘index’
faces are moved from the ‘Bank mesh’
and aligned to the ‘empty’ meshes
as objects ‘fill’ with faces they are removed from the processing,
this has to happen fast enough that the draw distance fills up, over time…
so no freezing, stuff just may not be drawn
now here is the part I don’t know if it’s feasible,
using a property in each face that is populated, to build a draw list, for materials,
(sorry if I explain myself terribly)
He’s not working solely on ViewportFX though is he? As a Gooseberry dev, his primary role is to look at (& address) the issues affecting Gooseberry development. If ViewportFX were all that affected Gooseberry, you’re 100% right - it wouldn’t slow down development. A simple perusal of the commits made by him shows that is not the case however.
When a developer has to divide their efforts between two tasks, one of them will be adversely affected in terms of how fast it progresses. The more tasks the developer has to undertake, the more adversely affected that one task’s progress is going to be. The more focus (& resources) one project gets from a team, the less focus (& resources) the other projects can get. It’s not complicated and I’m struggling to see how people miss that.
Individually, none of them rank highly enough to rate. Just like discussing one voter in an election is missing the forest for the trees, I think that quibbling about each individual commit would miss the point for the minutia. I’m not interested in a back & forth over that level of detail.
The fact is, 10% of commits on Gooseberry come from developers other than the two hired for the job. That’s ignoring any changes made directly in master branch & merged across. 10% is not a huge amount out of a day, but it adds up over time to a project. I can’t be the only one on this forum who has had to manage project timeframes before and knows 10% is significant can I?
More importantly, we know that developers that were once hired for more hours developing Blender have had their paid efforts cut back. Resources are limited and resources going towards Gooseberry support and development are not going towards general Blender support & development. Again, it’s not rocket science, so I’m bewildered how people are missing the connection. Ton can afford X man-hours of development, if Y% of that has to go on Gooseberry development, it cannot go to general Blender development - that’s how limited resources work!