Blender 3.0 Shines As A Huge Update For This Leading Open-Source 3D Modeling Software

[microcode]

Blender keeps breaking its Python API. So none of the older guys can be arsed with it anymore. They leave it to the next generation to have fun with.

Myself, I gutted an old Quake III level editor just so I don't need to touch a Blender since 2.4. I also wrote my own lightmap baker in C++ to go with that Quake 3 level editor. Blender broke/removed the internal "Blender Render" (terrible visuals but great for fast lightmap generation).

I mean, if you're going to be generating lightmaps and env maps, you might as well use cycles. It's not that much slower than old blender render at this point, and the point of lightmap generation is not realtime. If you want fast lightmaps maybe you could use Eevee though, it's more similar to Blender Render in terms of minimum quality (though it can use GI probes and other things for enhancement), and is much faster.

If you can at all accept the performance cost, real global illumination is one of the most useful things about lightmap baking. Have a look at The Lightmapper (Blender addon), it produces good lightmaps automatically with Cycles.

[MadeUpName]

Screwed again for buying AMD.

[aufkrawall]

Michael Can you test AMD RDNA2 HIP on Windows vs. Nvidia Ampere CUDA/Optix?

[Michael]

Michael Can you test AMD RDNA2 HIP on Windows vs. Nvidia Ampere CUDA/Optix?

Wouldn't bother doing a Windows install just for Windows testing until it can be compared to Linux or the like.... I am sure some Windows review sites will test Blender 3.0 for those interested in just Windows numbers.

[aufkrawall]

Have just found this: https://techgage.com/article/blender...u-performance/
3.0 with HIP is a nice improvement for RDNA2, but 3060 OptiX still beats 6900 XT. Let's hope RDNA3 will deliver.

[tuxd3v]

Have just found this: https://techgage.com/article/blender...u-performance/
3.0 with HIP is a nice improvement for RDNA2, but 3060 OptiX still beats 6900 XT. Let's hope RDNA3 will deliver.

That article you provided is good..there are a big win for AMD there in EEVEE, in just one case..
I still think AMD has a lot to improve there, Nvidia Optix is a sort of Ipnotix , blazing fast..

The biggest difference is NVidia using around 10k cores(max ~1.7Ghz), while AMD using around 5K cores(max ~2.250Ghz)..when you go up in frequency too much, power consumption grows a lot..but AMD is gaining in the price the cards cost..
AMD can make the same thing, continue to throw in more cores lowering the frequency..

[kpedersen]

I mean, if you're going to be generating lightmaps and env maps, you might as well use cycles. It's not that much slower than old blender render at this point.[...]

If you can at all accept the performance cost, real global illumination is one of the most useful things about lightmap baking. Have a look at The Lightmapper (Blender addon), it produces good lightmaps automatically with Cycles.

Weirdly, Cycles didn't quite produce a result I was happy with. It was more accurate (I would assume) but I quite liked the big chunky dark splodges of Blender Render for shadows. Yes, I could maybe reproduce this using the nodes stuff but the fact that the nodes had to be placed via my Python script (rather than simply allowing my script to control the renderer directly) which was fairly horrific, I decided my time was better spent engineering a more long term solution.
I believe Eevee has similar problems in that its only API is dragging and dropping nodes rather than actual scripting.

I have two public projects when I was prototyping with the Blender renders for lightmap baking here:

https://github.com/osen/raptorbakery...python/bake.py (Cycles)
https://github.com/osen/software-3d-...cripts/bake.py (Blender Render)

The latter is using Blender Render so is much simpler. You can see the example of automating the placement of nodes in the former near the bottom of that script file in prepareMaterial(). Pretty gross.

[microcode]

Weirdly, Cycles didn't quite produce a result I was happy with. It was more accurate (I would assume) but I quite liked the big chunky dark splodges of Blender Render for shadows. Yes, I could maybe reproduce this using the nodes stuff but the fact that the nodes had to be placed via my Python script (rather than simply allowing my script to control the renderer directly) which was fairly horrific, I decided my time was better spent engineering a more long term solution.
I believe Eevee has similar problems in that its only API is dragging and dropping nodes rather than actual scripting.

I have two public projects when I was prototyping with the Blender renders for lightmap baking here:

https://github.com/osen/raptorbakery...python/bake.py (Cycles)
https://github.com/osen/software-3d-...cripts/bake.py (Blender Render)

The latter is using Blender Render so is much simpler. You can see the example of automating the placement of nodes in the former near the bottom of that script file in prepareMaterial(). Pretty gross.

If it's an artistic disagreement, you could increase the contrast after the fact. If you bake HDR lightmaps, you can tonemap those however you like (including very harsh shadow, by upping the exposure).

[piotrj3]

https://techgage.com/article/blender-3-0-gpu-performance/

Benchmarks for CUDA vs HIP vs Optix released.

In CUDA vs HIP, RX6900XT is around 3070 performance.

In Optix vs HIP, even 3060 is significantly faster then 6900XT.

[Danielsan]

Blender keeps breaking its Python API. So none of the older guys can be arsed with it anymore. They leave it to the next generation to have fun with.

Myself, I gutted an old Quake III level editor just so I don't need to touch a Blender since 2.4. I also wrote my own lightmap baker in C++ to go with that Quake 3 level editor. Blender broke/removed the internal "Blender Render" (terrible visuals but great for fast lightmap generation).

I tried to learn Blender several times across the years an with 2.80 I was able to go a little bit further but didn't have much spare time as I used to have before. But all those Blenderists look at least 20 years younger than me and they were able to get such knowledge that I cannot avoid to be so impressed every time they share a technical demo.