The best way to let FBX die is to support other formats! I hate autodesk more then Ton hates installers and progress bars.
2016-02-10 16:44 GMT+01:00 Ton Roosendaal <[email protected]>: > Hi, > > Money is very welcome. Industry users can do two things: > > 1) Let their company sign up for the development fund: > https://www.blender.org/foundation/development-fund/ > > (We get about 100 grand per year, which is 1% of what C4D users give to > Maxon annually). > > 2) Hire developers yourself! Or assign your own developers part time on IO > for Blender. > > A crowd-funder for 1 feature only is very risky. What precisely do we > define to fund? Who would crowdfund a developer to just fix bugs and > maintenance for 2 years? I doubt people would pay for that. I wouldn't even > know where to find such a coder... > > For 2.8 we can do a big fund raiser, and include this on the work > planning. I think professionals rather see us to keep working on the whole > pipeline, starting with good PBR shader editing in viewports. > > -Ton- > > -------------------------------------------------------- > Ton Roosendaal - [email protected] - www.blender.org > Chairman Blender Foundation - Producer Blender Institute > Entrepotdok 57A - 1018AD Amsterdam - The Netherlands > > > > > On 10 Feb, 2016, at 16:13, Fergal Gribben <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I agree with Fabio and David - if industry users are so reliant on FBX > > support within Blender, then crowdfunding/hiring a developer to work > > specifically on FBX support is probably worth investigating. From what > > Bastien has said, keeping up with the latest FBX format sounds like a > major > > pain, and from what I can tell, focusing efforts on supporting glTF or > USD > > would be time better spent. > > > > A professional Unity license costs $75 a month, a 3DS Max subscription > with > > basic support costs €238 a month, and a Maya LT subscription with basic > > support costs €35.70 a month > > > > If lacking FBX support in Blender would cause people to switch to > > expensive, proprietary software, is it too much to ask that they instead > > donate to FBX development within Blender? If industry users were to > donate > > a fraction of the aforementioned licensing costs on a monthly basis, > > perhaps that would be enough support for a dedicated FBX developer? > > > > I believe EpicGames donated €10k to the development fund for better FBX > > support in the past ( > > https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/485431565447868416) - is that > too > > ambitious a goal for crowdfunding? > > > > And just to weigh in with my own personal experiences as a hobbyist game > > dev: the FBX format terrifies me! :) Personally, I couldn't make sense of > > the file format, especially when it came to animations, so I instead > > decided to create my own file format for my game engine. At least that > way > > I know exactly what information is available to me, and I know that any > > bugs I encounter are related to my game engine's implementation, and not > > due to how Blender has exported the scene. The same applies to a lot of > > other hobbyist/home users I know, either they get by with the .obj > format, > > or they roll their own. Furthermore, any inconsistencies with my own file > > format are easily identified and fixed, whereas FBX to me was a bit of a > > black box. > > > > I guess what I'm trying to say is, the FBX format seems much more > important > > to users who work in the industry, rather than home/hobbyist users, and I > > think if the demand was there as much as industry users have conveyed, a > > push for donations/crowdfunding would be enough to achieve better FBX > > support. > > > > On 10 February 2016 at 14:57, Vicente Carro <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> Well, instead of crowdfunding, that I think it's not going to work, I > would > >> suggest to officially (Ton) talk with Unreal, Unity, Valve and maybe > some > >> of the blender partners and expose the problem to them. If possible make > >> them talk all together. Since all of them have some interest in FBX > working > >> in Blender probably they can agree to have a guy maintaining FBX for > >> Blender or to give us other solution. > >> > >> Vicente > >> > >> On 10 February 2016 at 14:48, David Fenner <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> > >>> 2016-02-10 11:28 GMT-03:00 Fabio Pesari <[email protected]>: > >>> > >>>> , but if it "dies" in > >>>> terms of fewer contributions due to poor funding, it will be exactly > >>>> because of people who would rather buy* expensive proprietary programs > >>>> than donate at least 1/3 of that money to Blender. Why the double > >>> standard? > >>>> * = in some cases, rent, because many of those other programs use DRM > >>>> and are subscription-based. > >>> > >>> > >>> Talking about double standard here is waaay too idealistic. Users buy > >>> software when they need to, and when open source software meets all > their > >>> needs, they donate when they can or want. Still, having thousands of > >> users > >>> using blender is still better for the software, since studios do > develop > >>> for blender for time to time, they also contribute bug reports, ideas, > >>> sometimes money, and they spread the use of the software, which makes > big > >>> studios start to develop also for blender. Is an ecosystem based on > >> users. > >>> Sadly, people don't appreciate what they have until they can lose it, > and > >>> that's what I'm saying that maybe fbx export should be crowdfunded. > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Bf-committers mailing list > >>> [email protected] > >>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers > >>> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Bf-committers mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers > >> > > _______________________________________________ > > Bf-committers mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers > > _______________________________________________ > Bf-committers mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers > _______________________________________________ Bf-committers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
