Blender 2.70 GPU render in Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) with GTX 750ti

This is how I got Blender 2.70 to render with Cycles GPU (CUDA) with an Nvidia GTX 750ti in Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) amd64. I hope the new drivers (with less bugs) will be ready when Trusty gets released.

Test environment

UbuntuStudio 13.10 amd64 (3.11.+ kernel)
Blender 2.70 64 bits
Graphics processor: GEForce GTX 750 ti
Nvidia driver version 334.21 (xorg-edgers ppa)
CPU: Core i7 4770

Installation

1. Install x-edgers ppa 334.21 nvidia driver from https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

2. The patch buildfix_kernel_3.12.patch failed in nvida-334-uvm above, so I modified the deb file and removed the patch and instructions associated with it. Download and install the following deb file http://www.mediafire.com/download/eluzj8umso9ym20/nvidia-334-uvm-nopatch.deb

Warning: Installing this deb may cause your system to throw up three error notifications associated with nvidia-uvm on startup. I just cancel all the dialog boxes.





3. Download Jucyfruit's precompiled cuda kernel for linux at http://martijnberger.nl/file/2.70_sm50.tar.gz . (see in context http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?327909-Cycles-NVidia-MAXWELL-Benchmarks&p=2602924&viewfull=1#post2602924)

Copy the X86_64/kernel_sm_50.cubin to blender-2.70-linux-glibc211-x86_64/2.70/scripts/addons/cycles/lib/


4. Open a terminal and run blender as root one time (nvidia-uvm seems to need this). Use "sudo blender".

Verify by using "ls /dev/nvidia"; (or use 'lsmod | grep nvidia')
"/dev/nvidia-uvm" should be listed.


Note: It appears that this needs to be done over again every time the computer is rebooted. There seems to be a solution here https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/699610/334-21-driver-returns-999-on-cuinit-cuda-/?offset=6  ; but I have not tried it.

My GPU Render benchmarks

BMW1M-MikePan.blend - 1:11.63
cycles_cornell_bench_27.blend - 2:59.52

Compare your results with these http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?331149-The-new-Cyles-GPU-2-70-Benchmark&highlight=cycles+benchmark

Monkey mesh complete

I finally finished my monkey mesh. I would need to give it fur and materials later.

Update on matsing (monkey) head

While working with sculpties in Blender I thought I update my matsing character in Blender 2.5. This use dummy materials for editing purposes.

Prim horse version 0.1

Here are the imprudence xml, iar and blend files of my sculptie prim horse. All files are released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines license. To attribute you may use the following:

Cantada, Roel. (2010). Sculptie prim kabayo. Licensed under CC-by-SA 3.0 Philippines. Available at http://matangdilis.blogspot.com.

 Downloads:

kabayo.iar (129.9 kb) - To upload this file to OpenSim, issue the following command in the OpenSim console:

save iar    kabayo.iar

kabayo_xml.zip (130.79 kb) - Unzip then import the xml file into OpenSim with the Imprudence viewer.

horse.blend.zip (295.42 kb) - this blend file requires the primstar plugin to be installed in Blender. You may want this if you wish to generate sculpt maps in different resolution, modify the mesh and make it better, or create a different texture.

I must warn you that the prim mesh is my first try at sculpties. The head in particular needs improvement because I failed to take into consideration the geometry of the eyes and nose.

Have fun :-)!

Prim horse's mesh is complete.

Next I would need to texture it.

Blender's new uv texture button is a bad interface design.

I really find the uv texture new button badly designed. When you're in object mode it copies an active uv texture but when you're in edit mode it creates a new uv texture. Why not just put a copy uv texture button so we don't have to remember if were in edit mode or object mode before we hit new uv texture?

There should be one function for one button, this has two. Very frustrating at times especially when you're engrossed in the work.

Blender 2.5 animation with shape keys

I'm trying to familiarize myself with the Blender 2.5 beta UI. I think it is better than the older UI, it just needs some getting used to.  Here is an animation of the default cube using shape keys.

Some more daga renders

It also appears that lighting have a lot to do with the appearance of the fur. These were done with the default lamp:



Compare with these done with 2 hemis, top and bottom:





And these with 2 hemis top and bottom, plus 1 spot:

Daga blend file release 1.0

Download link:

daga01.zip (2.69 MB)


I am not particularly happy with this release but I have to suspend my tweaking of this model to move on to the last main character. This is a dirty rat, licensed under licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Please document any modifications in the text info file.

Includes footroll.py from http://graphicall.org/bbb/chars/pyconstraints/footroll.py which is
copyright Blender Foundation|www.bigbuckbunny.org | http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/about/. footroll.py python script is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

Problems that I could not solve at the moment includes:
1. The bone driver for blinking doesn't work.
2. The tail flattens when in a particular position like so:



3. The shoulders have ugly deformations in some positions:

Rest position



Deformed position, thankfully the fur hides some of it:



On the positive side is that I did manage to implement footroll, I just don't know if this is correct:



I also made use of a normal map for the details of the ears. The normal map was made using the procedure in Ken Bayer's tutorial "Baking normal maps from a high poly model" in BlenderArt magazine 20 (www.blenderart.org).

Rat fur

I still need a few tweaks. But something odd happened to my cameras. I can no longer render with more than one camera. When I ctrl-0 another camera, it still renders the view of the last camera. I wonder if this was caused by mesh deform or I accidentally enabled/disabled something.

Test pose for dirty rat.

Working with the mesh deform modifier is difficult because it cause some unwanted deformations. In this model, I had to exclude the arms from the mesh deformer because it was flattening out the arms. Perhaps this is the reason why the Big Buck Bunny characters had a python script for keeping the volume of the arms.

Mesh deformer of daga

This is the first time I'll be using the mesh deform modifier. Here is the cage of the dirty rat.

Final mesh for Daga

This first render was done in gelato.



The rest are blender internal render.

Dirty Rat Character mesh