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Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 12:17 pm
by joepal
This isn't a formal announcement, but 1.2.0 alpha 1 has been uploaded. We have sneakily named it with a date stamp for windows and hidden it in a new PPA for linux.

The windows build is here: http://download.tuxfamily.org/makehuman/nightly/ ("makehuman-community-*-win32.zip")

The PPA is here: https://launchpad.net/~makehuman-offici ... -community

We're in the process of validating a few last things, and are finishing the release notes (which are here: http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/Releases:120a1). But if nothing unforeseen happens, we'll simply rename the already uploaded binaries and announce them as 1.2.0-alpha1.

So if you want to help out, testing is welcome. We're particularly interested in knowing if the asset downloader is a smooth experience in the new build as some things have changed around regarding hosting and initial seeding.

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 1:50 pm
by joepal
So far we've got a report that the first synchronize in the asset downloader may cause python to run out of memory in windows 10, if the machine has a limited amount of memory.

(On my 32 gb gaming rig it works perfectly fine though. But that's probably not a fair test environment)

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 4:42 pm
by MargaretToigo
The assets downloader works pretty well on my Windows 10 system, but I don't see anything on the modeling screen. Am I supposed to? I mean, it loaded up really fast -- a lot faster then the current release -- but is that because not all the parts are in there yet?

This is what I see when the program first loads...

Screen Shot 2018-11-21 at 11.37.31 AM.png


and here is the log...

log.txt
(27.4 KiB) Downloaded 1079 times

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 5:09 pm
by Aranuvir
Hi Margret,

thanks for giving feedback! I'm sorry for you having problems with the program. Checking your log file it indicates an OpenGl problem. We are aware of that problem. In fact the Gl-Code needs to be rewritten, which are greater parts of MakeHumans libraries. And finding the right API for the refactoring task, that support multiple platforms and also older hardware, will not be that easy.
Perhaps you could provide some further Information about your system (which CPU and GPU). Is there a possibility to switch to another GPU? Can you retry on that one?

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 9:54 pm
by MargaretToigo
Aranuvir wrote:Hi Margret,

thanks for giving feedback! I'm sorry for you having problems with the program. Checking your log file it indicates an OpenGl problem. We are aware of that problem. In fact the Gl-Code needs to be rewritten, which are greater parts of MakeHumans libraries. And finding the right API for the refactoring task, that support multiple platforms and also older hardware, will not be that easy.
Perhaps you could provide some further Information about your system (which CPU and GPU). Is there a possibility to switch to another GPU? Can you retry on that one?


My Windows 10 system has just one GPU, and it's not a very good one.

I use a Mac for most of my work, and the Windows system is located in another room for when I need Windows for something, like MakeHuman, which doesn't seem to run quite as well on a Mac.
I use CoRD to access it over my home network and sometimes I use it as a sort of crude render farm.

I made a screenshot of the system config, I hope it's useful....

Screen Shot 2018-11-21 at 4.44.28 PM.png


Screen Shot 2018-11-21 at 4.58.07 PM.png

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 11:06 pm
by Aranuvir
Well, this time it's AMD causing problems. Actually the GPU should be enough to display MH, this is not hardcore gaming. I once successfully ran MakeHuman on an Atom 2600, without extra graphics card. Though the performance left a lot to be desired. The basic problem is MakeHuman uses deprecated (legacy) OpenGL functions. That means functionality heavily depends on the support and implementation of the graphics card vendor, with e.g. Apple completely removing all GL support. Writing further platform independent code isn't that easy. Best choice would be using Vulkan API. It should then run on Linux and Windows and there will hopefully be a compatibility library for Apple products. But if we should switch to Vulkan, which for sure will take a bunch of time (Joel will mostly has to implement it), you and I can throw our systems out of the Window, due to lacking Vulkan support...

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 3:57 am
by RobBaer
MargaretToigo wrote:
My Windows 10 system has just one GPU, and it's not a very good one.

Aranuvir wrote:Well, this time it's AMD causing problems. Actually the GPU should be enough to display MH,

... That means functionality heavily depends on the support and implementation of the graphics card vendor, ...


Aranuvir's comment reminds me to suggest updating to the latest drivers for the system graphics card if you have not already done so. Sometimes it has been just the needed fix.

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:16 am
by Aranuvir
RobBaer wrote:Aranuvir's comment reminds me to suggest updating to the latest drivers for the system graphics card if you have not already done so. Sometimes it has been just the needed fix.

Given the fact that we talking about the implementation of deprecated stuff in the drivers, I'm not sure that newer drivers will necessarily be doing better, if there are any. A quick check showed me that Margaret won't get newer drivers. Though, it could make a difference if the driver is provided by Microsoft or the vendor.

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 10:24 am
by joepal
I had hoped things would work at least on nvidia and amd chips now, eventhough some crappy intel graphics chips might still fail.

There's no avoiding it: We'll have to dig into this part of the code too. We'll just create more problems for ourselves if we release something that fails on a large subset of all graphics cards.

This is really depressing, but also the reason for having alpha builds.

Re: Alpha 1 sneak preview

PostPosted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:03 pm
by MargaretToigo
I am sorry to be the harbinger of bad news, but at the same time I'm kinda glad I helped to find a problem that might affect a lot more users than just me and my ancient GPU.

According to Windows, I have the latest and greatest driver and everything is all up to date. The driver I have is from AMD, the GPU vendor. I don't know if one is available from Microsoft or some other vendor.

Here's a screenshot...

Screen Shot 2018-11-22 at 8.00.41 AM.png


Now, I have to go and cook a big meal for Thanksgiving, so I probably won't be online again until tomorrow.