SGI: Computer Graphics

eMails Between Ton Roosendaal And Diego De Giorgio wrote: De: "Ton Roosendaal" <[email protected]>
Asunto: Re: Blender3d.org News Submission
Fecha: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 10:31:17 +0100
A: "Generatrix Dev. Co." <[email protected]>

Hi,

Sure you can quote my message, but fix the typo in it;

>> reason we cannot an SGI

Should be; "reason we cannot support an SGI"

I occasionally read Nekochan forums too, but it's not always
encouraging! For some reason people think "we" have abondonned the SGI
version, which is - apart from using it personally - just not true. For
any SGI developer with knowledge of the SGI internals and OpenGL, it is
relatively easy to get Blender up and running. At Siggraph I demoed the
latest version we had on a Prism to a SGI sales person, and apart from
1 glitch (border select) it worked like a charm.
Another topic is of course that people also like to use older machines,
with OS versions that are not maintained anymore, so falling behind
with support for essential support libraries Blender needs (SDL,
Freetype, Python, cc (gcc), libc++). Even this could be still possible
to get a running Blender for, but that would require substantially more
development time.
The entire SGI series of the 90ies are incredible cool machines, so I
really understand why people still love to use them. But making such a
choice, also means to accept that you won't easily get new software for
it either.

(you can quote that too!)

Best regards,

-Ton-

On 4 Nov, 2005, at 11:45, Generatrix Dev. Co. wrote:

> Hello Ton;
>
> I'm glad that you have answered my message
> personally!
>
> I want to share with you my high concepts by your
> work, I really like Blender, and all the move
> surrounding your project.
> I'll follow your advice, and I'll post my message on
> the 'news' forum!
>
> I'm also developing. I have a few apps, specially
> related to SGI IRIX, on the arena of particle systems
> and image composition; young projects compared to
> Blender, but with a lot of potential. I've always
> appreciated the way on which my tools can work as
> complementary apps at some areas with Blender, and I
> have your program always close to my heart!
> You can see my work at: http://www.generatrix.net/
>
> I'm coding on a freelance basis, as member of the SGI
> Global Developer Program PLUS, and I'm happy with the
> degree of assistance and help that I'm getting from
> SGI, in the form of tech resources and support. I hope
> you can reach some level of agreement with SGI too, in
> the form of official support.
>
> I coul wish to have more time, to help actively in
> your project too, since I have skills on C++, OpenGL,
> OpenML, DigitalMedia and so on; but I'm already too
> bussy sourcecoding for my apps, and since I've
> assisted to the birth of my first son only three
> months ago, I have almost zero spare time!
>
> I'll not blame you by abandon IRIX because at least
> you still run a UNIX flavour, and these is already a
> good thing by itself!
> As you could guess, I like IRIX, but I also use LINUX
> as my second platform.
>
> If you like it, I could quote your message on
> Nekochan.Net ( http://www.nekochan.net ), the forum by
> excellence for SGI developers, porters, and users; and
> then try to gain some support from those developers
> actually porting apps to IRIX. I'm sure that your sign
> will attract some developers! ...And you have my
> invitation to post there too!
>
> Also, at some point (maybe when my own project can
> reach the next level of implementation) I could wish
> to try some way of mutual collaboration to develop
> compatibility for my app PartixFX to/from Blender, in
> the form of plug-ins, importation/exportation modules,
> and all the needed to benefit both apps with new
> feature presents on each of them.
> My software app is not OpenSource, but I always have
> freeware versions for hobbyists. Anyway, I'll release
> an SDK as OpenSource for plug-ins development and
> other modules.
>
> Well; I hope I've not take too much of your time!
> I'll stay tunned to see how we can improve the IRIX
> support, and I'll let you know.
> Greetz; best regards,
> Diego
>
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> You best post this on our 'news' forum, that's where
>> this message
>> belongs best.
>>
>> On last Siggraph, and the IBC tradeshow in
>> Amsterdam, I had meetings
>> with SGI to get them moving into some kind of more
>> official support for
>> Blender. Nothing resulted from this sofar, but I
>> won't give up!
>>
>> What we need for our releases is only *one* active
>> SGI developer who
>> keeps track of the platform related issues with
>> Blender (like
>> libraries, makefiles, opengl). This is the only
>> reason we cannot an SGI
>> version at the moment. There seems to be a large
>> user community still
>> out there for SGI, but only consumers... no
>> developers.
>>
>> I've been developing with an SGI up to 2001, but
>> switched to OSX
>> instead in 2002. For that reason you could blame me
>> that SGI support
>> halted... but I don't do anything for the windows,
>> linux, freebsd and
>> solaris versions either.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> -Ton-
>>
>> On 4 Nov, 2005, at 8:08, Diego Alberto De Giorgio
>> wrote:
>>
>>> NAME
>>> Diego Alberto De Giorgio
>>> EMAIL
>>> mailto:[email protected]
>>> CATEGORY
>>> Development
>>> TITLE
>>> IRIX Support For Blender 2.40
>>> SUMMARY
>>> I don't know how much users for Silicon Graphics
>> (SGI) MIPS/IRIX
>>> releases of Blender there are actually over their
>> global user base,
>>> but I think it is just the right time to show up
>> more interest.
>>> STORY
>>> I've not noticed any kind of mention by now about
>> IRIX support for
>>> Blender 2.40...
>>>
>>> ...Anyone has any info about that? ...I think it
>> is just the right
>>> time to show up some interest on the IRIX version
>> of Blender from part
>>> of the folks actually working on MIPS/IRIX for
>> imaging related works;
>>> I think Blender is a valuable tool for everyone
>> working on areas as:
>>>
>>> 3D Modelling/Animation/Rendering
>>> 2D/3D Composition
>>> Non Linear Video Edition
>>>
>>> ...And it runs well on our workstations, allowing
>> to resolve tasks
>>> with professional results, and taking advantage of
>> the amazing
>>> graphics performance of our beloved SGI machines.
>>>
>>> Support the IRIX release of Blender!
>>>
>>> (Silicon Graphics IRIX is a completely reliable
>> and powerful UNIX
>>> Based Operating System, running on platforms
>> Silicon Graphics MIPS.)
>>
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>>
>> --
>> Ton Roosendaal Blender Foundation mailto:[email protected]
>> http://www.blender.org

eMails Between Ton Roosendaal And Diego De Giorgio wrote: De: "Ton Roosendaal" <[email protected]>
Asunto: Re: Blender3d.org News Submission
Fecha: Sun, 6 Nov 2005 11:00:24 +0100
A: "Generatrix Dev. Co." <[email protected]>

Hi,

> Of course; I'm wondering that your app must run just
> perfect on a Prism, a machine plenty of power to
> attack any graphic app. I've not tried one of those
> beasts by now, but I guess they are great. Anyway,
> these is a LINUX box!

This prism ran Irix, it seems it can emulate that.

> I think the more extended fear from the IRIX/Blender
> users is the possibility to be phased-out the newer
> MIPS/IRIX releases, by the addition/replacement of
> newer OpenGL releases, extensions, and other features
> depending of the graphic hardware. But I guess we
> can't demmand to freeze the progress of the program,
> just to be able to run it with our boxes!
> Even my maxed-out 600MHz SGI O2 has an OpenGL Version
> 1.1, even when this box runs the latest IRIX version,
> and so happens with the rest of libraries and
> compilers, all latest versions; but I guess with
> OpenGL they have freezed it there.

Blender is still mostly in OpenGL 1.1, with only very few 1.2 features.
I purposedly keep that compliant with old OpenGL versions for
portability.

On our roadmap is support for OpengGL 1.5 and 2.0, of course. We need
to
design a good migration for it, with user-defined "Profiles" for
example.

> I think that the first thing needed from us (the
> percentage of SGI Users visiting Nekochan), is some
> kind of understanding of the Blender's architecture,
> to be able to tent bridges if the sourcecode leaves
> out our hardware.

It's better if you collectively search for Nekochan member who
has a lot of experience with OpenGL, Irix, X11, C and C++.
Someone who understands makefiles, libraries, and building of binaries.

There's not much you need to know about Blender's internals... the
"Platform Maintainers" in our team all are developers who don't really
code in Blender, but just maintain the compilation and linking of the
software.

> And the second thing is the ability
> to add patches, bug-fixes, and the required minor
> additions to the Blender's tree; knowing that they'll
> be rispected on future releases to keep easier the
> port's maintenance. Of course, assumming that our
> contributions are revised, and correctly implemented,
> following the same standards that those behind
> Blender.

If someone contacts us to become official Irix maintainer, he can get
cvs write access for all platform related issues. Provided - of course
- that
he knows what he's doing!

-Ton-

>
> Well, I only can help laterally with this, because I
> already have my own software development project; but
> I'll see what can I do, and if some others are
> interested to help with this too.
> Thanks in advance by you time reading me; and I hope
> we'll can make some collaborative work at some point,
> either keeping the IRIX version of Blender alive, or
> working towards some ways of complementation between
> our projects.
> Greetz from Argentine, best regards,
> Diego

Building Blender on Irix
------------------------

Requirements
------------

* Compiler: MipsPro 7.4 or 7.3.1.3m with C++ ISO headers
ISO headers can be obtained here:
http://octave.sourceforge.net/MIPS73-isoheaders.tar.gz

* Python 2.3.x. For a very general build, compile with -mips3 flag.
Also, maybe after configuring the python sources, modify the file
pyconfig.h to have either "#undef HAVE_SNPRINTF" or
"#define HAVE_SNPRINTF 0" (probably
the first case). Also, patch source to fix the socket module.

* From irix freeware, fw_gettext packages (make sure to get hdr/dev).
Maybe some other stuff from freeware too (zlib? Certainly cvs is needed).

Instructions
------------

1. Create a directory to put your sources and then enter that
directory, e.g.:
mkdir bf-blender
cd bf-blender

2. Checkout the blender module from the bf-blender tree using cvs
(use password anonymous):
cvs -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/bf-blender login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/bf-blender \
co blender

3. Checkout the lib/irix-6.5-mips module from bf-blender using cvs:
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:[email protected]:/cvsroot/bf-blender \
co lib/irix-6.5-mips

4. Enter the newly created blender directory:
cd blender

5. Time to build... issue the command:
gmake

6. Wait for it to either finish compiling or to fail compiling ...
seek help in the later case. If successful, the blender binary will

be in obj/irix-6.5-mips/bin/blender

7. If you would like to make a release tarball, type:
gmake release

This will create a tarball in obj/{version number}

* Compiler: MipsPro 7.4 or 7.3.1.3m with C++ ISO headers
ISO headers can be obtained here:
http://octave.sourceforge.net/MIPS73-isoheaders.tar.gz

* Python 2.3.x. For a very general build, compile with -mips3 flag.
Also, maybe after configuring the python sources, modify the file
pyconfig.h to have either "#undef HAVE_SNPRINTF" or
"#define HAVE_SNPRINTF 0" (probably
the first case). Also, patch source to fix the socket module.

ChiaHos wrote: It would be a trivial thing for me to create a 2.40 version
of blender, but you guys aren't pulling your weight, so
why should I bother?

GeneratriX wrote: Same as you say above: the IRIX community HAS to show some active interest.

The title of this thread could be replaced by:

"Requesting Volunteers To Keep Blender Alive For IRIX"

skywriter wrote: as for the 'pulling our own weight' crack - i don't think you'll get much pursuing that line of inquiry.

skywriter wrote: so if you want to keep your dignity, the choice is very simple; fork and do what we know is best for the platform.

skywriter wrote: i paid my $2,000 USD to be a Blender Foundation Gold Sponser. i got about what i expected; the priceless graditude of a long time good friend in Ton, and the freedom to be able to allow our community to make our own choice for our own good.

mainframe.ai wrote: Hm… to contradict Diegos argumentation that only a few members are engaging in this discussion…

mainframe.ai wrote: sgi… which I keep for emotional, aesthetic and nostalgic reasons.

mainframe.ai wrote: and who will be doing modelling on IRIX in the future… ?

mainframe.ai wrote: But our beloved boxes are simply not really up to it anymore… (i fear… )

mainframe.ai wrote: So… I would be happy to use blender… BUT I don't want to cause that much effort without being involved enough…

GeneratriX wrote: To be honest; the only thing of which I'm actually conceirned, is about the fact that the only guys talking about this are ChiaHos, you, and me. Nobody else seems to have interest... then I can't avoid to agree with ChiaHos about his concepts about the apathy and indifference of the average IRIX user.

skywriter wrote: me; i have important stuff to deal with, family, job, and nice car

skywriter wrote: there's more than enough talent to SGI the heck out of blender on nekochan. you just have to be patient

skywriter wrote: - it's just not a priority.

GeneratriX wrote:

skywriter wrote: - it's just not a priority.

...And it is not my priority at all, just a good wish.

skywriter wrote:

GeneratriX wrote:

skywriter wrote: - it's just not a priority.

...And it is not my priority at all, just a good wish.

Yeah, and i got my new honey-of-a-car-Volvo spend all my time building in horsepower, torque, valentine one radar detector, and 10 cd track changer *once a gearhead always a gearhead*

oooh! i hit a penquin the other day, but he washed right off, didn't even leave a scratch. hmmm vanity plates? TUXITUP ??

GeneratriX wrote: CONGRATULLATIONS; ENJOY YOUR NEW CAR!!! :lol:

skywriter wrote:

GeneratriX wrote: CONGRATULLATIONS; ENJOY YOUR NEW CAR!!!

it's a 2001, and good share lot's of fun

skywriter wrote: ok, after about a year or more, who's going to setup up the independent CVS for the IRIX only blender fork?


viewtopic.php?t=2643&start=0

skywriter wrote: Great! I'll clip a version of the tree that "works", and document the freeware source versions required this week. i would like to get this project based on irix development tools:
MipsPro7.3.1.3m
WorkShop_2.9.1
SpeedShop_1.4.3
dbx_7.3.3
and either 6.5.15 or 6.5.21 which are the two version sof irix i have. .21 has wierdness from the 7.4 runtimes, and i have to resolve that somehow. but .15 worked up until blender 2.33 library update.

i'm not sure if workshop requires standard make, but the makefiles with blender only work with gmake (blah). they will be the first thing to fix if that gets in the way.