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makehumancommunity / mpfb2

MPFB2 is a free and open source human generator for Blender
http://static.makehumancommunity.org/mpfb.html
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Establish MPFB on the extensions platform #190

Open Vidyut opened 5 months ago

Vidyut commented 5 months ago

Checked out Blender 4.2 alpha - it introduces repositories for plugins so you can download and install plugins from inside blender - like wordpress, etc.

Should probably be simple enough to get MPFB there? (and any other plugins appropriate) It should increase adoption of the plugin considerably as well as make frequent updates from the nightlies easier. I don't know what is involved, but seems like a simple upload situation.

joepal1976 commented 5 months ago

There are a few parts of this:

The problem is that you can't combine having a) compatibility with the extensions platform and b) compatibility with blender 4.1 and earlier. So either two parallel builds will have to be maintained or support for blender 4.1 and earlier has to be dropped.

The Blender devs are sure keen on pushing everyone towards the extension platform. This includes calling every single today existing addon "legacy" and hiding the ability to install those addons in obscure corners of the UI...

Vidyut commented 5 months ago

Ah ok. So it won't simply be a matter of setting up builds for two platforms then... I was thinking that the one on the site would be as usual and an additional one would go there. Well, it was a thought. Thanks for accepting all these crazy ideas anyway.

joepal1976 commented 3 months ago

This is blocked by #208, but is now planned for a second beta early fall.

joepal1976 commented 3 months ago

With #208 done, I have now been able to refactor MPFB from legacy addon to extension. This works technically as far as I can see. The extension version is available in the "as_extension" branch: https://github.com/makehumancommunity/mpfb2/tree/as_extension

Blender gets very confused if an addon is suddenly an extension, so before testing this it probably makes sense to completely remove any currently installed legacy addon version of MPFB.

Still need to update build pipelines and figure out which guidelines are relevant before posting on the extensions platform.

Vidyut commented 5 days ago

Blender gets very confused if an addon is suddenly an extension, so before testing this it probably makes sense to completely remove any currently installed legacy addon version of MPFB.

I didn't read this! I think my issues with my old files looking glassy is probably because I didn't uninstall enough. Though I still haven't go time to figure out loading the data in 4.3. It is buggy with a few other things as well, so I'm not sure if this is blender 4.3 or some other addon creating trouble... On one hand I like the repository system with extensions - needing a new name because of the structure also makes sense, but the whole "legacy" thing and hiding the install button like it is a shameful secret... I think it might be a bit "political" - paid addons can't be on the free repository, so the users are being encouraged to use free ones by making the paid ones a bit inconvenient/worrying. Unfortunately, this also applies to loads of free addons, like ours.

The great part of Blender is that it is evolving so rapidly, with new possibilities opening up every moment. The downside is that by the time I get everything working in one version, it is time to update and they don't seem to care much about backwards compatibility, so something or the other will freak out. And now MPFB2 must also follow this curve... I'm thinking of stopping updating once I figure 4.3 out and just figuring out one thing and using it instead of a permanent figuring out curve.