Cheetah3D 8.0 Public Beta (with native Apple Silicon and Metal support)

Martin

Martin

0
Hi,
I'm truly sorry that the native Apple Silicon and Metal version took so long. Unluckily that was unavoidable due to a myriad of reasons. Nevertheless I think that I've finally reached the point were v8 is better than v7. And that was actually the only goal of v8, to bring Cheetah3D safely on the other side of the river (Apple Silicon and Metal).

While the port to Apple Silicon was quite easy the port from OpenGL to Metal turned out to be a true nightmare. It looks like Apple didn't have developers of 3D animation apps on their radar when they created Metal. So I had to spend a lot of time searching for wired work arounds. My intention to support small-breasted integrated Intel GPUs (which are used in tens of millions of MacMinis and MacBook Airs) didn't make things easier.

This Beta version is not feature complete yet. Especially the shaders are pretty rough and there are also some performance optimisations which I still want to implement.

Due to the massive changes in Cheetah3D this Beta version might be rougher than my usual Beta version. So please take it with care.

New in v8:
-Native support for Macs with Apple Silicon (M1, M2)
-Metal 3D viewport

Unluckily I don't have a detailed change log for this version since the changes were that excessive that I lost oversight in the middle of its development.

The good thing is that I managed to support a pretty wide range of Macs. I'm also pretty happy how small the file size of v8 turned out. So there is no system requirements explosion.

System requirements:
-Intel or Apple Silicon CPU
-Intel, AMD or Apple GPU
-macOS 10.15.7 or better

Who can participate at the Beta test:
You just need a valid Cheetah3D 7.x registration number to use the Cheetah3D 8.0 Public Beta.

Pricing:
I made no decision about the final price of Cheetah3D 8 yet. But if you purchased Cheetah3D 7.x after Jan. 1st 2021 the Upgrade will be for free.

Attention:
THIS IS BETA SOFTWARE. USE THE SOFTWARE AT YOUR OWN RISK AND DON'T USE IT ON ANY IMPORTANT DATA.

You can download the Cheetah3D 8 Public Beta at:
The beta test has been ended. The final Cheetah3D 8 is available.

Please let me know about your experiences.

Kind regards
Martin

P.S. A special thanks goes to Frank who was brave enough to test the extremely rough early Alpha version for over a year. Thank you very much.:)

Bildschirmfoto 2022-11-07 um 23.32.01.jpg
 
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Excellent!

Downloaded… launched… the 7 files that were open when I quit v7n to run 8b2 (all safely backed up elsewhere) opened upon launch. This took a while, just as it did with v7. Four of those files have at least 10 million polygons each, one more than 25.

Wonderful to see the HDRI lighting and background live in the viewport…

Navigation around the scene fast! Pan, dolly, zoom. Really fast. Not just fast considering the poly count as compared with v7. Just fast!

This experience using… my 2019 Mac Pro - 160GB RAM - AMD Pro Vega II 32GB

Thanks!

cheers,
gsb
 
Looks good, so far. It really rotates complex models much faster on my Mac Studio. Thanks for releasing this beta.
 
In a recent email you told me very soon on the forum. It was true. Cheer. I am impressed and very happy to be able to test this beta. Everything works perfectly. It's really very responsive and having HDR in the viewport is really great. I'm using a 2021mac pro M1.
Nothing to do with the beta ... I think the future is real time rendering do you have a project in that direction?
Thank you very much for all the work done.
Thanks also to Frank.
 
Hi Martin and Frank.

Not sure if this will be of interest to anyone, but I run a Mac Pro 3.1 (from 2008). This computer is not supported for Catalina, but I have installed that OS by using the Catalina patcher tool from dosdude1. I have an Nvidia GPU which is not Metal capable. I can install and launch Cheetah v8 without issue. There is nothing visible in the 3D view port, and I only tested for a very short time. I was able to add a few primitive objects (cube, sphere), and render them. Nothing visible in the view port, but the render manager shows the rendered objects.

Just thought I would let you know.
 
Thanks Martin for your work!
After some initial testing the only problem coming up so far is window size.
V8beta refuses to open a maximized window like v7.5.1, instead there is always a gap at the bottom, sometimes the top of the screen:C3D751.jpgC3D802.jpg
MacBook Air M1, OS 12.3.1

Native Metal viewport works great so far, HDRI background is awesome (skylight background would be welcome too!).
While the rendering of reflections in the viewport is nice to have, more important for serious texturing would be normal/bump shading and procedural textures showing up in the viewport finally!

Anyways, though somewhat late, this is still a promising start, I'll buy the upgrade once available.
 
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That looks like the exact space for the dock. 7.5.2 shows the same space here.
Once started Cheetah3d - drag the bottom of the window to the bottom of screen and next time Cheetah3d will open maximised - here at least. (M1/BigSur)
 
frank beckmann said:
drag the bottom of the window to the bottom of screen and next time Cheetah3d will open maximised
Click to expand...
Doesn't work for me, after manually maximizing the window and closing the beta it will always reopen showing the gap, also same when closing the file and opening a new one without quitting the app. Other Window size reductions are correctly memorized, only the fully maximized state to the bottom is not so you're probably right suspecting it somehow relates to the dock.
 
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I have the same persistent 'dock-sized' space here (M1/Ventura). Manual window resize doesn't fix it. 'Save Layout' after window 'zoom' (opt-green button) or manual resize doesn't fix it either.

I worked all day yesterday with the beta and the better viewport lighting and seeing normal maps on the model is nice!

-- Shift Studio.
 
misoversaturated said:
more important for serious texturing would be normal/bump shading
Click to expand...
Shift Studio said:
seeing normal maps on the model is nice!
Click to expand...
Oops, I'm sure I tried bump mapping yesterday and it didn't show, now I tried again and indeed it works which is great!
One problem though: scaling the map in the image node doesn't show in the editor view but in the render.
Scaling shows in the editor when done in the image tag properties and also for images plugged into the diffuse channel.
Currently trying reflection and roughness maps and getting weird results, I'm assuming this is not yet properly finalized which is no problem.
 
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Martin said:
Thanks for the positive feedback. I was really worried that I would be hit by a bug report tsunami. :)
Click to expand...
Hello,

Given that the goal of your significant efforts was to achieve native M chip support and have the 3D viewport use Metal… And that Frank expended extensive efforts in testing… My box only benefits from one of those goals, but the harder one to acomplish, so I am still over-the-top happy and looking forward to buying the new version. Thanks to you both!

As misoversaturated implied, it seems reasonable to figure, since we are using an unfinished work, that many less-than-stellar representations of aspects of a scene in the 3D viewport, will be resolved when you have finished your shader work and performance optimizations.

So, in addition to thanking both of you again for what seems to be a great success in this first public beta version, are there specific areas that you wish to be “tested”? There seems to be no need to load you up with observations of things already on your list to be addressed.

Thanks again and cheers,
gsb
 
Paul P said:
Not sure if this will be of interest to anyone, but I run a Mac Pro 3.1 (from 2008). This computer is not supported for Catalina, but I have installed that OS by using the Catalina patcher tool from dosdude1. I have an Nvidia GPU which is not Metal capable. I can install and launch Cheetah v8 without issue. There is nothing visible in the 3D view port, and I only tested for a very short time. I was able to add a few primitive objects (cube, sphere), and render them. Nothing visible in the view port, but the render manager shows the rendered objects.
Click to expand...

I would have been surprised if that would have worked. I guess you overstressed the system requirements a little bit.
 
misoversaturated said:
Thanks Martin for your work!
After some initial testing the only problem coming up so far is window size.
V8beta refuses to open a maximized window like v7.5.1, instead there is always a gap at the bottom, sometimes the top of the screen:
Click to expand...

That is very wired problem. I can't reproduce it on my M1 Mac Mini with 4K monitor. But I can reproduce it with my MacBook Air Ventura. Even stranger the problem doesn't appear if you are in "Icon + Text" toolbar mode. I can only recreate it when in "Icon only" and "Text only" mode.

Bildschirm­foto 2022-11-10 um 23.50.55.png


Even Apples own Preview app shows that strange bug. While Mail and Safari seem to work properly. It's very random.

The recoding of the window size is done by Cocoa automatically. At least it was done in the past. Looks like it is sort of broken under certain wired circumstances. Maybe it's just a new magical feature.:rolleyes:

7.5.2 was compiled on Catalina with a pretty old version of XCode. Since it used an old Base SDK it might not be effected by that new shiny feature.
 
Martin said:
I would have been surprised if that would have worked. I guess you overstressed the system requirements a little bit.
Click to expand...

Hi Martin. Thanks for that. I'm not a coder or a computer whiz, but I would imagine if I installed a Metal capable AMD gpu that Cheetah would have full functionality ? I'm not sure exactly when I will upgrade my gpu or computer, but the days are numbered for OS El Capitan. I'm starting to have problems with some emails and websites that don't show up correctly, and the day will soon come when I will need a newer computer or a hack to install a more modern OS on this computer.

I realise that this is a very low priority for you. The world has moved on, and your users are mostly using much more recent Macs. But it may be of some interest for those old dinosaurs like me that are still hanging on to old equipment.
 
Martin said:
That is very wired problem. I can't reproduce it on my M1 Mac Mini with 4K monitor. But I can reproduce it with my MacBook Air Ventura. Even stranger the problem doesn't appear if you are in "Icon + Text" toolbar mode. I can only recreate it when in "Icon only" and "Text only" mode.

Even Apples own Preview app shows that strange bug. While Mail and Safari seem to work properly. It's very random.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply!
I found a workaround: When I open Cheetah and drag the window bottom to maximized view and then open the pig file it will appear maximized too. When closing Cheetah and starting again it will now open fully maximized, even with icon only toolbar.
Like the window size memory needs to be triggered two times to register ?!?
So this problem is now solved for me.

When fiddling with the toolbar settings I found that "use small size" does not register too: every new window will open with big size icons/text.
 
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