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Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 9:55 am
by WytRaven
benn wrote:The new blender UI looks really sexy. Will it change the left/right mouse button behaviour though? TBH I think the right click to select is confusing - but I guess it's so ingrained in blenders users heads now.

:)
Yeah that was the thing I think I found the hardest to get used to at first. But it is switchable if you so desire. I chose to stick with it and now it's just second nature :)

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:10 am
by Borgleader
WytRaven wrote:
benn wrote:The new blender UI looks really sexy. Will it change the left/right mouse button behaviour though? TBH I think the right click to select is confusing - but I guess it's so ingrained in blenders users heads now.

:)
Yeah that was the thing I think I found the hardest to get used to at first. But it is switchable if you so desire. I chose to stick with it and now it's just second nature :)
my thoughts exactly. i figured there was probably a reason they made it that way so i stuck with it. the option to switch it isnt hard to find

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:24 am
by fused
Borgleader wrote:i figured there was probably a reason they made it that way so i stuck with it. the option to switch it isnt hard to find
lol, it took me about a year to figure out how to open the settings ;) :D

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:19 am
by neo0.
fused wrote:
Borgleader wrote:i figured there was probably a reason they made it that way so i stuck with it. the option to switch it isnt hard to find
lol, it took me about a year to figure out how to open the settings ;) :D
Yeah, that had me puzzled for awhile. I thought it was really wierd how you have to pull down the settings menu from the top. Like a lot of the UI, it had "there wasn't enough space on the scree, so we just said oh well and stuck it in a random place." "Nonoverallping" means that you have to have everthing on screen at once, whether it's being used. Part of the advantage of traditional UI paradigms is that you conserve screen real estate by only having things popup when they are needed. Still, no other free program can do half of what blender can, so im probably going to make the switch when they go 2.5.

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:40 am
by Kram1032
benn:
THAT's already changable since nearly forever... :P
My guess is, the default hotkeys/mouse-buttons will stay the same except some logic-overwork but the key-map will allow you to change as wanted :)

To switch to right-click, pull down the upper bar - it's actually a bigger menu ;)
There you can set many behaviours, one of them being the prefered mouse button action...

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:55 pm
by Borgleader
If any of you feel like following Blender 2.5's developpement closely you can head over to:

http://graphicall.org

There you can find the latest builds of the Blender 2.5 branch as they become available. I've downloaded one today (rev 19627) and there are still quite a lot of things missing but you can get a good feel of the interface and it's nice to play with :)

GL HF

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 8:22 am
by Borgleader
http://www.blendernation.com/2009/04/17 ... oosendaal/

Interview with Ton Roosendall. Worth listening to imo.

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 1:43 pm
by WytRaven
Thanx for that, top stuff.

I was particularly impressed with how clearly he described what I've been trying to say to people here for some time about the so called user un-friendlyness of blender; that being open source does not equate to being for everybody but rather that Blender is designed for experts so that they can best do what they do. I really love also, that he makes no apology for that; 10 points Ton!

Hopefully this interview will stop the whining and cause a little more learning to go on.

On the subject of Blender's interface...I was thinking this morning that I would kill for a blenderised photshop/gimp. I mean an image editor (bitmap/vector) that makes use of Blender's scalable free form panelised interface. If that were to happen I would think I had died and gone to heaven (and no, photoshop's "workspaces" are nowhere near the power of Blender's completely free form GUI).

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 4:02 pm
by Zom-B
its so simple, Blender is so totally awesome, that everybody who payed for some 3D app hvae some hard time to explain it to him/her self why not to go for a free 3d app ...

The Interface is quite easy to learn if you want to :!: ... I remember the hard time having to get used to C4D back in school.... me like you blender heads :D

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 7:24 pm
by suvakas
By calling Blender users experts doesn't make the UI any better. :D
But the thing that keeps me away is, that Blender has very bad connectivity to other industry standard CAD apps. It's much faster to do archi viz with Max than it is with Blender.

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:30 am
by neo0.
wow, I can hardly undershtand what that guy ish shaying. :?

The whole "blender is for experts" mantra might have applied when it was still a paid app, but with it going free, one of their goals was obviously to get it out to as many people as possible. In accordance with that, their UI should also be as user friendly to make it appeal to the widest possible margin of their potential fanbase (since the app is free, the potential fanbase is basically every 3d artist.) There is simply so sense in a poorly organised, hard to learn UI. It goes against the fundamental concept of making a good application.

Also, here's a thought. Maybe "experts" doesn't inherently imply the need for an an overcomplicated UI. In almost every interview, the pros behind movies like lord of the rings, transformers, etc have all said that they like tools that help them accomplish things more effectively. Experts aren't gods, and maybe "experts" should only say something about the quality of their work, not user friendliness.

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:36 am
by Borgleader
neo0. wrote:wow, I can hardly undershtand what that guy ish shaying. :?

The whole "blender is for experts" mantra might have applied when it was still a paid app, but with it going free, one of their goals was obviously to get it out to as many people as possible. In accordance with that, their UI should also be as user friendly to make it appeal to the widest possible margin of their potential fanbase (since the app is free, the potential fanbase is basically every 3d artist.) There is simply so sense in a poorly organised, hard to learn UI. It goes against the fundamental concept of making a good application.

Also, here's a thought. Maybe "experts" doesn't inherently imply the need for an an overcomplicated UI. In almost every interview, the pros behind movies like lord of the rings, transformers, etc have all said that they like tools that help them accomplish things more effectively. Experts aren't gods, and maybe "experts" should only say something about the quality of their work, not user friendliness.
1. Ok he has an accent but hes not that hard to comprehend.
2. When does he say it used to be a paid app? Either I missed it or ... he didnt.
3. No, did he say it was their goal? if not it wasnt.
4. He says it himself : The program is made by artists for artists, UI friendliness does not applied it is made for people who have the will (and the capacity) to learn it period.
5. There is no sense in arguing with you because you obviously didnt listen to what he said. His goal was not to make a frienddly app made for the majority. It was to make a 3d app for artists by artists PE-RI-OD.

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:57 am
by pixie
Borgleader wrote:5. There is no sense in arguing with you because you obviously didnt listen to what he said. His goal was not to make a frienddly app made for the majority. It was to make a 3d app for artists by artists PE-RI-OD.
You don't make it hard to use just for the sake of it, you make it hard to use because you don't possess the knowledge needed to make it any easier, otherwise you would have a much more productive tool... but the thing is, while the actual marketing on blender is that it's a hard made for artists who know their shit, under the bench their actually trying to make it more productive, ahem, easier... ;-)

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 8:29 am
by Meelis
:)

I hope that UV Editor can keep aspect ratio from starting next version.

:)

Re: Who else here is excited for Blender 2.5?

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 9:55 am
by handsomedave
I have found that the ui in blender is actually much faster to work with than some of the other "friendlier" 3d apps once you know how to use it. It being free does not mean it's for everyone just like 3d is not for everyone. Being great at 3d takes time, patience, practice, creativity, and skill. Any monkey can throw together some objects in a scene but to create models and arrange them in a scene that conveys a thought and feeling requires something that the majority of the public just doesn't possess.

Blender is a great app and will probly be the best 3d app available in several more years. No other 3d modeling and animation application has as many talented, dedicated, and passionate people working on it as blender. I only wish I had the time to do the research and contribute to the code myself.