Indigo Renderer Forum

http://www.blendernation.com/2009/06/09 ... o-blender/

Topics covered:
* Getting into Blender: Introduction to Blender
* Getting into Blender: Menus and Views
* Getting into Blender: Navigation
* Getting into Blender: Components

The blender UI is very intimidating at first.

Godzilla wrote:The blender UI is very intimidating at first.

That's an understatement. When I first saw it, it didn't really strike me as an creative application for digital art.. More so, It reminded me of when I was little and when the pilots let me go into the cockpit to marvel at the jumble of instruments, guages, and knobs that let them fly the plane. My head spun just looking at it.

The problem with many UIs for 3D applications i that they are designed by programmers. Programmers are good at getting things to run smoothe and fixing compatability issues, but they do not know about how to make a UI easy/enjoyable to use. UI design should constitute an entirely separate area of skill and it's own part of a package's development.



Complete nonmodality is a myth. Sure, it's nice to think "what if we designed the UI so that you never had anything blocking anything else and you didn't have to constantly shift your attention around?" It would increase productivity. Well, the reality is that if you wanted to put every tool, every control, etc. On screen at once, it would go off the screen.. Or you would need to make everything tiny to the point of illegibility.

There are some absolutely retarded things about blender - but it wouldn't take much to take a fork of 2.5 and make it very noob friendly. Anyway - I find blender pretty good now that I'm used to it - I can see why people like using it.

What I like most about blender is how there are shortcut keys for just about everything. At first I agree its annoying to learn but once you know them its awesome, it speeds up your workflow a lot. I tried 3dsmax lately and it was pissing me off just in all the tutorials they used the panels to do everything (extrude, scale, rotate, ....) I mean in blender all i have to do is press E, S, R, ... it is sooo easy.

The stuff I end up using most often though (apart from the general rotation and basic mesh transformations) are the constraints to the axis like x,y,z or shift-z,y,z (so that say shift-z will constaint to everything but that, so you'll move along x & y but not z. shift-x along y,z but not x etc).

Borgleader wrote:The stuff I end up using most often though (apart from the general rotation and basic mesh transformations) are the constraints to the axis like x,y,z or shift-z,y,z (so that say shift-z will constaint to everything but that, so you'll move along x & y but not z. shift-x along y,z but not x etc).

C4D has exactly THAT when you hold down shift before clicking on an axis to drag and I use it a lot, too!
In addition, every command (button/menu option) has a hotkey, too - so it's up to you what you like better - clickety or pushy
For example, extrude is M~T or just D, rotate is R

I agree with Borgleader

edit by fused: spam

Bots grew a brain

Borgleader wrote:What I like most about blender is how there are shortcut keys for just about everything. At first I agree its annoying to learn but once you know them its awesome, it speeds up your workflow a lot. I tried 3dsmax lately and it was pissing me off just in all the tutorials they used the panels to do everything (extrude, scale, rotate, ....) I mean in blender all i have to do is press E, S, R, ... it is sooo easy.

I agree completely.

I sometimes try to learn 3ds Max, and when I'm watching tutorials I'm always saying to myself, "Isn't there a shortcut key to do that?"

HA! In blender you just left-click on the axis and drag! Impossible to make it more easy!

Polinalkrimizei wrote:HA! In blender you just left-click on the axis and drag! Impossible to make it more easy!

If you're referring to the move and scale tools, this is the case in almost every major modelling app.