Darren New escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
> Contrast with (for example) Wings3D or POV-Ray, where there's actually a 
> reference manual where you can say "What does this button do" or "how do 
> I get reflection to work?"  Figuring out how to make a surface 
> transparent shouldn't require 20 minutes of groping around the internet. 
> It should require 20 seconds of grepping for "transparent" in the user 
> manual.

20 minutes?  You gotta be kidding!

Blender > Help -> Manual -> Contents -> Materials -> Raytraced Transparency

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Materials/Properties/Raytraced_Transparency

pretty quick and direct to the point.  If that doesn't suffice, google it.

I wouldn't even say the interface itself is an obstacle to that:  you 
have the main 3D view and below quite a lot of buttons organized in 
panels.  Right above the panels there's a menu bar of sorts and 1 item 
is toggled:  "Editing (F9)" as you pass the mouse above it.  You pass 
the mouse among the other options and see "Shading" which should mean 
something to any CG enthusiast -- and if you're not a CG enthusiast, 
what are you doing in Blender then?  So, there the enthusiastic guy can 
see right in front of his eye a Mirror Trans panel with "Ray Mirror" or 
"Ray Transp" options.

Someone can learn most of Blender without ever going through any 
reference manual or tutorial.  It's just a matter of sitting down and 
playing with it.  The most important keystroke to n00bs:  CTRL+x.  Erase 
all and restart anew to learn your way whenever something goes wrong.

> why. And that's why I find blender unusable for even simple things. 

Well, you may find it unusable, but the Blender n00b made some 
impressive animation with it all by himself.

Come to think about it, I've seen some broken but impressive Blender 
physics simulation from you before, but nothing of povray.  Surely 
povray is not that much more unusable, right?

> Maybe I'll try ramping up again, one more time, just to see if I can 
> model something simple I want to model.

Some people can only draw sticky figures no matter the pencil.  You 
either have some talent at a particular area or try to get some formal 
education.  Complaining that the pencil is not as smooth as other pencil 
will bring you nothing except headache.

>> And the proper links are just there in Blender's Help menu.
> 
> Not really. Again, contrast with POV-Ray, for example.

Relevant stuff, I see "Help on Povray" in 3.6.

I see "Blender/Python scripting API", "Getting Started", "Hotkey and 
MouseAction Reference", "Manual" and "Tutorials" among a few others in 
the Blender Help menu.

I don't see the difference behind too-many-stuff syndrome.  The fact 
that neither of these Blender documents are physically local to your PC 
is meaningless.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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