Blender.org

I certainly think you're right to be using an external engine. My only suggestion (although I'm pretty sure it has been done) would be to look at the Unreal tools and see what ideas could be used, and those which don't work so well. Whilst not perfect these are the current industry leaders, and cert...

I think one major problem with using too much Python is that Python is about to undergo an enormous overhaul (in 3k) and it's multithreading, which is becoming increasingly important, isn't exactly hot. Sadly Jython appears to be dead in the water as well. The Java suggestion is one I would take muc...

Oh and I've mentioned it before, but in the book "inside Lightwave 6" is a brilliant photorealistic head tutorial.

Every feature in that tutorial is now in Blender, except the plugin they use to do the hair!

You certainly can do that kind of thing in Blender. It'll just take a while to make the models and texture it (it's going to take ages whatever software you're using, be under no illusions). Sub surface scattering is not all it's cracked up to be (except for gratuitous waxy candles), and certainly m...

I must confess to finding this whole thing simultaneously amusing and slightly wierd. Apologies for the randomness of my contributions, but here goes: * I think most of this boils down to the fact northern europeans are more offended by violence than sex, and americans are wired the other way round ...

OK, not sure if this is the place but . . . . . . tried this last night (ie turned the xml option off) and wow! What a difference this is already making for me. It makes tweaking materials etc. much quicker thanks to the fact you can usefully terminate the render after seeing random bits. Brilliant....

I have to say that for me this has made the internal raytracing unusably slow. (Mac version . . . don't know if it's been particularly badly hit??)

I am now looking more closely at getting into using Yafray . . . but in the mean time I'm back to using Blender 2.33.

Java is actually really quite fast, just memory hungry. It's things like Swing that are why it has a bad reputation. If you use Eclipse it's hard to believe it's in Java. Also see http://www.getamped.org/en/ . I'm a Java developer and I find it hard to believe that's in Java. The big thing is the sp...

I'll probably get laughed out the park for this, but I think there's a strong case for writing Blender 3.0 in Java, with one of the modern OpenGL bindings to do the UI. If you keep the rendering component, be it Yafray, or an evolution of the current one, native C/C++ then I think the performance wo...

I just got sent this as part of a Renderman promo thing: http://www.techimage.co.uk/resources/practical_ambient_occlusion_1.html With the great quote: "Ambient occlusion pass. Using raytracing can effect render times significantly. An alternative method would be to use depth maps. In this case Ray t...

I must admit most of what I'd want to be in Blender 3 is in Blender now already! I just don't know how to use all these new features . . . Anyway, the only real monster addition I'd like to see is multithreading throughout. This is going to become a real issue over the next 2/3 years, and is a funda...

it's obvious we will never agree Yes, because the basis of your point is flawed! Just because you can have stupid button styles like that doesn't make them good. When thick plastic rimmed glasses became possible they became fashionable, now no one wears them. It's all about thin metal strips. The s...

No. The gratuitous over contrasty graduated fills kind of give the fact that it's going to look a right mess straight away. Like WinXP.

Ironically, given the topic heading, that looks miles cleaner than any of the supposed alternatives.

Because they're not gorgeous. They're overdone. Subtlety is the key.

The current one is gorgeous by comparison with any of those screenshots you show.