Traces - The beginnings of Blender

[emufan]

Traces has been rescued.
I made this request since it's not yet released and to bring it to your attention

You know that I am a fan of Blender and Amiga, what can be better than combining both passions? On October 30th, I was at the Blender Institute headquarters in Amsterdam, where the core Blender is coded and where animated films are made in the Blender Animation Studio and I had the pleasure of talking to the Blender artist Ton Roosendaal.

We talked about the old Amiga times when Ton coded Traces, or the progenitor of Blender on his Amiga 2000. A few years ago I was looking for this program and I could not find it. Now it's clear - it was soft written for the internal needs of the Dutch animation studio and was not publicly distributed, so the chances that someone from outside had it were close to zero. Only later version on Silicon Graphics was probably sold externally, but I will not give you a head. Hence, without much conviction, I mentioned to Tonomy that I would be very happy if you could find this ancient, Amiga version. What Tone reacted with enthusiasm to, that he has here his Amiga 2000 somewhere in the backroom, we will start it soon and see what is there.

Despite the search (what were there for the miracles, even some historic Silicon Graphics workstation), the Amiga was not there, probably someone borrowed it and did not give it back. I thought it was over, but Ton did not give up and found on the other computer old backups that he got from Amiga around 1997. Bingo - we found not only Traces but also its source code plus exemplary scenes and benchmarks.

After some adventures I managed to run it and it is impossible to hide that it is the progenitor of Blender. Who knows Blender will feel at home, basic shortcuts (G, R, S, rotate the view with a numeric keypad, menus under the space) are identical, there is also a 3D cursor, snapping to cursor, layers, etc. Even objects are marked with the right button the mouse! Mind-blown, for me it is just an early Blender regardless of the name. As you can see many things unique in Blender, like the right-click select mentioned above, it is derived from the Amiga. More details soon.

By the way, I used a skill that I've been refreshing for two years, that is knowledge of Sculpt 3D from 1987. Traces reads the objects from Sculpt 3D directly so I could move my scenes there that I did on Decrunch. The snake from the boing comes from my scene in Sculpt 3D (at the bottom of the page).

[malko]

[Amiga1992]

That's amazing!
So, can it be downloaded, or not?

[emufan]

Originally Posted by Akira

That's amazing!
So, can it be downloaded, or not?

not yet. he later wrote (17/11/2017)

As for the program itself and the source code, I will describe it and make it available to everyone in my time.

no idea, what he is waiting for.

[emufan]

is there any member of ppa.pl, who may ask here for the release of Tracer?

[peceha]

I've just asked.
Hope he's going to answer shortly.

[Sinphaltimus]

This would be pretty awesome, especially in this day and time when many Amigas and emulation are up to the task of hearty applications.

[emufan]

Originally Posted by peceha

I've just asked.

thank you

[ascp]

Wow, great work! Hope to see it out soon.

[peceha]

Small update from "jubi" on ppa.pl:

"...powstał z tego wywiad z twórcą Blendera. Wywiad będzie dostępny po angielsku i jego częścią będzie program i kod źródłowy wersji amigowej Traces"

More or less:
"...Traces (binaries and source for Amiga) will be avaible together with an interview (in English) with the author of that program"

There is no date given, only information that he has not forgotten.

[emufan]

Originally Posted by peceha

Small update from "jubi" on ppa.pl:

thanks.

There is no date given, only information that he has not forgotten.

he could at least specify a timeframe. but do not tell him.
hopefully we do not have to wait for years

[gulliver]

Looks very interesting.

Two more weeks?

[emufan]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Two more weeks?

*ahhhh* don't say that

[SnkBitten]

Here's a youtube video/interview about Blender where they mention it started on the Amiga (coding 3d software) but moved to SGI as soon as they started making money.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Sinphaltimus]

Looks like it is available for download now - and with Source!

http://zgodzinski.com/blender-prehistory/

[borchen]

To get things running, here's:

- iff.library http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/iff.library-23
- univers font: http://cd.textfiles.com/amigaplus/sonderheft26/FONTS/