Rez has released v3.0.0, a notable update that progresses Python support to version 3.7 and above. Check out the full release notes here.
Rez is an open source, cross-platform package manager that creates standalone configured environments for third-party and proprietary digital content creation software. Rather than installing packages directly into environments like most other package managers, rez installs all package versions into repositories on disk and references them in dynamically-created standalone environments. Rez is widely used in the pipeline community and solves countless package management problems for visual effects and animation production developers.
Initially developed primarily by Allan Johns in 2010 as an in-house solution for Dr. D Studios, rez was later open-sourced in 2012, and adopted by the Academy Software Foundation in 2022.
The rez 3.0.0 release marks a big turning point for users by eliminating support for Python 2, in favor of Python 3.7 and above. This decision will allow maintainers to streamline their ongoing development to have the greatest impact for the majority of users going forward.
Additional updates in rez 3.0.0 include:
- The default shell on Windows is now PowerShell.
- It is now possible to configure the execution policy used when starting PowerShell (and pwsh) shells by setting the execution_policy setting in the shell’s config file. This should help to smooth the transition from the cmd shell to powershell/pwsh.
- Built-in bind modules can now be overridden by adding custom implementations to bind_module_path.
- New documentation dedicated to caching.
Another significant update for the community is new documentation which moves the old GitHub Wiki to ReadTheDocs and reorganizes the content, making it easier to update and search moving forward. Documentation improvements include the addition of cross-references, new type hints for package attributes, and new docs for the Python API.
Thanks to all of rez’s contributors for this version update. Visit https://www.aswf.io/ to get involved in rez or any other Academy Software Foundation projects!
