It's a big fail of the Apple management to not support the metal development for apps like Blender, they gonna lose a generation of creatives.
I think they're focusing most of their resources on ARM.
Or, I'm probably just crazy.
#1 is billed services (iCloud, Apple Music, etc)
#2 is iOS devices (mostly iPhone)
a very distant #3 is laptops and desktops
macOS is nowhere on the list because it doesn't make them any money.
They also do not directly sell iOS or its upgrades but we'd hardly say iOS isn't making money.
Threre are two mobs... one of "They changed it, now it sucks" and on the other "They didn't change it, and now it sucks".
They ditched OpenGL? how does that work?
I don't know if one already exist for OpenGL, but for Vulkan there's MoltenVK: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK
Apple abandoning OpenGL sucks a lot, but them not supporting Vulkan is much worse.
I believe the answer for blender is https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-prorender-downloa...
Which I think is ready now as well.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
The issue that we had was that a lot of functionality that works in Cycles didn't work in ProRender, which would have required our artists to rework potentially large parts of their 3D scenes, and to also use different techniques to accomplish certain affects in the future (meaning many tutorials or examples might no longer match up).
I'm not sure what the specifics are, since I didn't really understand how 3D scenes are made, but basically something like some texture effects or something (??) weren't available in ProRender, and so those effects would have to be removed or redone. Unless they've changed something since then (added support for whatever it is), I think this will still be the same issue.
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-prorender...
Everything I've heard says that Vulkan and Metal both are far more efficient, let you get more out of the hardware with less CPU time, and can more easily support newer features.
OpenGL as a major target platform is dying, it's just a question of how long the tail is.
Even from the perspective of bringing people smoothly to their proprietary API, they have failed miserably.
Haven't they already?
I don't do 3D but anecdotally the 3D guys I know all use Windows.
> Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Lucasfilm computer division, before its spin-out as a corporation in 1986, with funding by Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs, who became the majority shareholder.
"Steve wasn’t capable of being friends. That wasn’t his personality. Besides the Apple stuff, I had a lot to do with his Pixar thing. I was contacted by the people who became Pixar–I knew them well, and they wanted to get out of Lucasfilm. They called me up and asked me for advice, and so I said, I can talk to Steve. I explained very carefully to him who these people were, and you shouldn’t fuck around with them, like he did with his normal employees. He did a good job with them. [Pixar] was the most honest billion he ever made, because he put a lot of his own personal money into nurturing those guys. They got fabulous. That was Steve’s best hour."
Alan Kay - https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-ab...
It is true that we have Mac systems here, that's no secret. But all 'real' film production work is completely Linux based with a completely custom infrastructure.
Source: Currently at Pixar
(Also almost every single one of those is from a CEO or VP, not someone who's job it is to actually use these things.)
3D motion design was actually quite Mac centric, because many people came into it from 2D graphic design where Macs are widely used. Folks just kept their old Mac Pros and went with fat GPU's for rendering in the last 5 years or so. But with Nvidia dominating in the GPU rendering space and Apples stance against Nvidia it's kind of a roads end for professional 3D people.
It's not that it would cut into Apples profits directly, but good artists and designers are taste makers, it hurts Apple as a brand going forward, 3D is only getting more popular with AR.