Practical Info
This is a weekly video chat meeting for planning and discussion of Blender Viewport & EEVEE module development. Any contributor (developer, UI/UX designer, writer, …) working on Viewport & EEVEE in Blender is welcome to join.
For users and other interested parties, we ask to read the meeting notes instead so that the meeting can remain focused.
- Google Meet
- Next Meeting: 24 March 2025, 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM Amsterdam Time (Your local time: 2025-03-24T10:30:00Z → 2025-03-24T11:00:00Z)
Attendees
- Clement
- James
- Jeroen
- Miguel
Intel driver issues
A workaround for driver issues has been added to Blender 4.4. But we won’t be able to back porting the fix to previous versions. Blender 4.2 LTS will be broken.
Cleanup
[#135577 - Refactor: DRW: Replace by enabled engine list by static members - blender - Blender Projects] Draw manager API has been rewritten to share more code, by using an CPP interface.
[#135875 - WIP: Draw: Skip empty passes - blender - Blender Projects] There is a PR in the making to not submit empty passes.
[#133674 - Material compilation cleanup - blender - Blender Projects] Continue refactoring GPU materials and shader compiler. Adding support for compiling shaders in its own thread in cases where compiling didn’t succeed. Did review other platforms to look for an API that is more in line with the different requirements.
EEVEE
Looking into the self shadow issue, but it is more complicated as expected. The solution that Cycles uses would not be performant for EEVEE. Looking at the industry working on the topic: There are always expected to be issues. We should find a way to limit most issues and be performant.
GPU Subdivision
[#133716 - OpenSubDiv: Metal + Vulkan - blender - Blender Projects] GPU Subdivision has been implemented for Metal and Vulkan, and user feedback is now awaited. Render tests still require cleanup, primarily because the code supports more scenarios than can currently be configured through the UI or geometry nodes.
Vulkan
[#133717 - Vulkan: USD/Hydra - blender - Blender Projects] The Hydra render delegate library in Blender is currently compiled without Vulkan support. The platform team is working to ensure Vulkan compatibility before further progress can be made. A patch to select the correct Hydra backend is complete, but additional changes may be required.
[#133718 - Vulkan: OpenXR - blender - Blender Projects, #133824 - WIP: Vulkan: OpenXR support - blender - Blender Projects] OpenXR integration is underway. Since OpenXR cannot run within an existing Vulkan instance, a new Vulkan instance will be created specifically for displaying rendered results. The rendered output’s memory will be exported from Blender and transferred to OpenXR, then returned once OpenXR processing is complete. This requires support for VK_KHR_external_memory, dedicated memory, and a custom allocation pool. The project is proving more complex than initially anticipated.