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kilon / pyEphestos

A visual programming language for python and blender
30 stars 2 forks source link

Is this project still active? #8

Open thefotolander opened 11 years ago

thefotolander commented 11 years ago

I'm very interested on a Blender-like UI toolkit as a library for future app development, A lot of people could benefit from the awesome Blender UI paradigm.

Just wanting to know if this project is still under development.

kilon commented 11 years ago

Hi , yes Ephestos is in development but because I do it in my free time as you can imagine it moves rather slowly. Ephestos utilises its own GUI API called "Morpheas" which is a very diffirent structure from Blender GUI. My emphasis is simplicity and customisability. In order to achieve that I create an interface that is based on the composition of simple elements together to form more complex GUI elements. Ephestos already work as a blender addon and inside blender but because all I do is use OpenGL it could as easily operate outside Blender. Curently I fight with some bad performance , my code is slow and I have not figured why yet. If I can solve this problem and design a few widget it should have a release in the next year or so library wise (because you could use Ephestos as a python library ). But yeah the project is ambitious and in no means planed to be finished in a few months. It will probably take years if not centuries :D

The GUI API is already ready at foundation level the only thing left is to design more complex widgets and of course solve the performance problems.

thefotolander commented 11 years ago

Excellent! thanks for the thorough response. I'm currently learning C++ and I'm interested in a Blender-esque UI framework for some projects I have planed (kinda far into the future as well), so something that can render an OpenGL UI like blender's, fast, light and easy to use would be ideal to me. I also researched the Blender UI but it seems it's pretty tied up to the core functionality, which is a bummer if you want to use it for other projects.

I'll keep watching your project and start using it when I get some time off studying, thanks a lot! :)

kilon commented 11 years ago

The problem with Blender GUI is that is monolithic , which means it does not really allow you to customise anything. The GUI is basically C/C++ that is then wrapped for python. You can use the GUI elements and design your own GUI with them, but you cannot modify those elements in anyway hence why I bother creating my own GUI API.

Ephestos also is all about minimalism , I truly try to create something that is very easy to learn and only offers a limited set of features instead of gazillion things. I want to make the experience of making code very pleasant and easy for a beginner coder. Thats the central goal of my project.

I do believe in the power of using very simple elements to design more complex ones. The same way a painter uses just a extremely simple tool , a pencil to create awesome art. That approach is something that I am very interested in exploring and I think the code so far accomplishes that.

I am also interested when I am happy with my code to attrackt more developers to the project. I hope that users of Ephestos will become its developers so that Ephestos become a self feeding tool.

Yes all I am really using is Opengl. Also I see you are a web developer so you may be interested to know that I am exploring the idea of bring Ephestos to the web as well. Webgl looks very promising and certainly javascript is the future , so I am still trying to figure out a proper way to bring blender to the browser.So there is a lot of potential here. Learning C++ is definetly a wise move if you really want to dive into Blender source.

The idea of Ephestos is also to bring diffirent projects together, I dont care just to bring developers to my project I also care to utilise existing projects for Ephestos. That means one does not have to code for Ephestos to be useful for it. External libraries play a crucial role , so if you have any project that makes coding fun and easy I more than welcome it. Its afterall just python that I am using, nothing special.

I believe that nothing should go to waste.

thefotolander commented 11 years ago

Awesome!

I will indeed take a look at your toolkit as soon as I can. very interesting concepts there, I'm also a UI designer, so if you want me I can contribute with UX advice and even actual designs for base widgets and the like. You can get to me at jonathan aT poifox [dot] com :)

I also work at p3d where we use WebGL to show in-browser live 3D model previews, so I'm sure we could also greatly benefit from Ephestos!

Cheers!

kilon commented 11 years ago

We definetly have common interest , I do believe sites like p3d are extremely important. As I said , I am not looking into ways to lure people into my project what I am looking for is for people already coding projects similar to mine how we can unite our code so we minimize reinvention of the wheel. This is why I try to depend as much as possible on third party code, I think there is execellent effort out there towards similar direction. The problem I see is that it does not get the attention it deserves because its scattered.

So yes I think we need to keep in contact and cooperate as much as we can towards our command goals. I love to hear your ideas about the direction you want to go when you have more time and what you aim for with your coding.