3D character in Raspberry Pi using Blender, feasible?

[tiancaipipi110]

Can I build 3D characters/animations with Blender(or any other supported modeling software) and deploy and run in Raspberry Pi ? I know there're some hardware limitations, not sure if there's a workaround. Thanks in advance.

[Gavinmc42]

Can I build 3D characters/animations with Blender(or any other supported modeling software) and deploy and run in Raspberry Pi ? I know there're some hardware limitations, not sure if there's a workaround. Thanks in advance.

Yes you can and there is not even much work around needed any more
viewtopic.php?f=68&t=214695

If you know Blender, use it, if you tried and failed to learn it, try BforArtists.
This is pretty much new stuff, pushing the VC4 GPU to the max
The main trick seems to be taking the obj files and parsing them into a form the VC4 can handle.
We are all waiting to see Tim's code for the "ah, hah, that's how you do it" moment

[Imperf3kt]

Can I build 3D characters/animations with Blender(or any other supported modeling software) and deploy and run in Raspberry Pi ? I know there're some hardware limitations, not sure if there's a workaround. Thanks in advance.

Yes you can and there is not even much work around needed any more
viewtopic.php?f=68&t=214695

If you know Blender, use it, if you tried and failed to learn it, try BforArtists.
This is pretty much new stuff, pushing the VC4 GPU to the max
The main trick seems to be taking the obj files and parsing them into a form the VC4 can handle.
We are all waiting to see Tim's code for the "ah, hah, that's how you do it" moment

I'm not sure if Blender runs on a Pi too well.
I use it on my old desktop PC which has severalfold more CPU and GPU power, as well as 8GB of RAM, and it takes up a lot of system resources, just siting the program at idle.

[tiancaipipi110]

Can I build 3D characters/animations with Blender(or any other supported modeling software) and deploy and run in Raspberry Pi ? I know there're some hardware limitations, not sure if there's a workaround. Thanks in advance.

Yes you can and there is not even much work around needed any more
viewtopic.php?f=68&t=214695

If you know Blender, use it, if you tried and failed to learn it, try BforArtists.
This is pretty much new stuff, pushing the VC4 GPU to the max
The main trick seems to be taking the obj files and parsing them into a form the VC4 can handle.
We are all waiting to see Tim's code for the "ah, hah, that's how you do it" moment

Nice. Thanks for the info:)

[Gavinmc42]

I'm not sure if Blender runs on a Pi too well.

Blander and BforArtisits use OpenGL in their UI.
Any improvement in that improves the Blender experience.
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=216804

Aarch64 OS's won't run faster due to Pi's using only 32bit DDR memory, but stuff in cache and b4a lite verson compiled specifically for Aarch64 does seem to make a BIG difference
I don't have a Gentoo32 bit OS to compare it for real, but Sakaki does have a way to run 32bit code on Gentoo64.
viewtopic.php?f=54&t=211260
So you could test the Raspbian Blender on Gentoo64.

The VC4 V3D driver is being worked on by Eric Anholt, I already feel it is stable enough for testing and even learning mesa3d coding.
If I knew lots more about Gentoo64 I feel I could even use it as a decent Desktop.
A the moment I play and break it weekly as I learn Gentoo's way of doing things.
Just yesterday I learned Sakaki has a page of kernels, followed the instructions and upgraded from 4.14.44 to 4.14.54 in minutes
https://github.com/sakaki-/bcmrpi3-kernel/releases
It takes much longer in Raspbian to do that.

[Imperf3kt]

My concerns actually lied with the amount of RAM available. 1GB (less what the system needs) is not really enough for editing 3D things beyond the simple stuff.

[Gavinmc42]

My concerns actually lied with the amount of RAM available. 1GB (less what the system needs) is not really enough for editing 3D things beyond the simple stuff.

Never really noticed Gentoo64 running out of memory when looking at Tim's starship model in b4a, about 10% usage.
Some tricks people have tried is zram, ie compression turns 1GB into about 1.5GB?
Eric's OpenGL driver only needs min 16MB and assigns more as needed.
I had a real reason to go to Gentoo64, more registers and faster access to the NEON, which I think happens when GCC 7.3 compiles b4a on Aarch64. Can it be tweaked even more?

Mesa3d libs/examples compile fine on Gentoo64, more deps needed in Raspbian.
Have not got around to bench marking the mesa3d code.

How far can a Pi be pushed for 3D modeling, no idea, this is all new to me.
To do Tim's texture baking with fog and lighting probably going to something bigger than a Pi?
But Tim has proved displaying it on a Pi even a Zero is not a problem.

Simple 3D modeling yes, making a Blender movie? Who knows, let's find out
A Pi Blender render farm? A stack of Pi3B+ could do it?
If one Pi can only render at 1fps, 24 Pi's will make it real time?

1GB is not a small amount of memory, if used well

[Gavinmc42]

BforArtists 0.95 compiled in Gentoo64.
viewtopic.php?f=54&t=216279&p=1343118#p1343118
See if it can do these?
https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/pro ... 5D=blender