In article <4846a690$1@news.povray.org>, jho### [at] northrimnet says...
> kike wrote:
> > Hi!!!
> > 
> > I'm trying to learn how to use blender... I have used Moray, Wings, Pov
 (of
> > course), even 3ds for a while... and my first impression is that it is 
not easy
> > to use... at first the interface is a bit confusing...
> > 
> > Well, the question is, is there an enough big community of Blender-Pov 
users to
> > open a thread on Blender here? I have seen forums on Blender, and I don
t like
> > them very much (I prefer this one, jajaja).
> > 
> > Well, if not, can you recommend a good forum on Blender?
> > 
> > Thanks in advance
> > 
> > 
> Stick with Wings... Blender has a very steep learning curve (I've been 
> using it for a few years now and still don't understand it all...) And 
> besides, Wings has fairly decent POVray support/exporting capabilities...
> 
Yeah. Been fiddling with Second Life and both Wings and Blender have 
"support" for the displacement map feature they call Sculpties. Some 
stuff about Wings bugs the hell out of me, not the least being that you 
can't arbitrarily rotate your view, but have to rely on "aim at", which 
doesn't always work as you want, and "auto-rotate" to control how you 
are looking at something like a cylinder, while trying to edit a path 
around its circumference. But, Blender is complicated, confusing and 
trying to follow a simple tutorial on using it to do the same thing led 
me to not have a damn clue "which" menus I was supposed to be looking 
at, what they where really talking about, or actually ever getting the 
UV map to appear, so I could save and import it. I gave up and started 
looking for something else. lol

I think now, that may have been a mistake, since I have "far" better 
control, and more things I can do in blender, not the least being making 
materials/images to map to the objects, which Wings.. doesn't quite do 
as well.

But, frankly, Wings' problem is that is missing stuff and adjusting 
"where" you are looking and working in the main 3D mode is funky and 
annoying, while "still" being far easier in general. Blender... has 
"design tool disease". Which is to say, its been "designed" to be a 
"design tool" by "designers", who have about as much clue about how to 
rig a sane and uncomplicated interface for people learning, or just 
trying to do things rationally, as a 16th century frigate captain would 
have trying to work out how to build a 21st century aircraft carrier. 
The over all design probably wouldn't be too bad, but having to use all 
the damn ropes and pulleys to run everything aboard the carrier would 
just get a tad annoying after a while. ;)

Its imho a common problem with tools made by the people that "use them". 
All too often how and why they work a certain way drives everyone else 
batty. Want a better example:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~elout/sculptpaint/

This is one of the first "official" tools made to let you make sculpties 
in SL... Its a damn nightmare!! You don't paint, the controls for doing 
stuff like rocks are not really "controllable", since you can't pick 
(that I can find) vertexes or faces to adjust, just do other less 
comprehensible things that don't quite produce the result you are trying 
for. Changing modes will actually "reset" your work in some cases, what 
vertex editing you can do works like a spline-path/lathe object, and it 
constantly fight with you if you try/need to place a point "higher" 
than, or "equal" to, the same height as another. Took me 10 minutes to 
figure out that I would go insane before I got it to work right, and 
less than half that time to figure out how to accomplish what I was 
attempting in Wings.

Why is it so bad? Because it "wrongly" presumes that you can "make" a 
sculpted object using a tool that mimic the behaviour of the objects you 
are sculpting, instead of letting you **actually** sculpt. Its function 
follows form type thinking, not form follows function. And while it 
works, it works badly, the way different elements interact isn't *quite* 
what you would predict having used any other tools, and it becomes real 
obvious, real fast, why "many" people don't use it any more.

But, got off track. Point is, Blender kind of suffers from this same 
issue. Too many *wrong* ways to get to what you think you are supposed 
to be doing, a few too many unclear "correct" ways, things that are 
"related" not in the same menus, etc., and the result is, its harder to 
use that it needs to be. Wings, is simple, clean, and its only "real" 
problem is that it may be a bit "too" simple, and clean in same cases 
(like the limitations on how to set where you are looking at things more 
flexibly in the 3D view).

Best advice, get used to using such programs with it first, then try 
Blender. lol

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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> Yeah. Been fiddling with Second Life and both Wings and Blender have 
> "support" for the displacement map feature they call Sculpties. Some 
> stuff about Wings bugs the hell out of me, not the least being that you 
> can't arbitrarily rotate your view, but have to rely on "aim at", which 
> doesn't always work as you want, and "auto-rotate" to control how you 
> are looking at something like a cylinder, while trying to edit a path 
> around its circumference. 

Just a clarification. Unless I'm misunderstanding, you can can do 
arbitrary rotations by pressing the middle mouse button, rotating the 
object/scene, and then press the right MB to finish...

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In article <4847f4a2$1@news.povray.org>, jho### [at] northrimnet says...
> > Yeah. Been fiddling with Second Life and both Wings and Blender have 
> > "support" for the displacement map feature they call Sculpties. Some 
> > stuff about Wings bugs the hell out of me, not the least being that you
 
> > can't arbitrarily rotate your view, but have to rely on "aim at", which
 
> > doesn't always work as you want, and "auto-rotate" to control how you
 
> > are looking at something like a cylinder, while trying to edit a path
 
> > around its circumference. 
> 
> Just a clarification. Unless I'm misunderstanding, you can can do 
> arbitrary rotations by pressing the middle mouse button, rotating the 
> object/scene, and then press the right MB to finish...
> 
Hmm. I'll have to try that. Though, on most mice the middle button is 
also the "scroll", which makes it damn hard to use for anything... 
Thanks for the tip.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott napsal(a):
> In article <4847f4a2$1@news.povray.org>, jho### [at] northrimnet says...
>>> Yeah. Been fiddling with Second Life and both Wings and Blender have 
>>> "support" for the displacement map feature they call Sculpties. Some 
>>> stuff about Wings bugs the hell out of me, not the least being that you 
>>> can't arbitrarily rotate your view, but have to rely on "aim at", which 
>>> doesn't always work as you want, and "auto-rotate" to control how you 
>>> are looking at something like a cylinder, while trying to edit a path 
>>> around its circumference. 
>> Just a clarification. Unless I'm misunderstanding, you can can do 
>> arbitrary rotations by pressing the middle mouse button, rotating the 
>> object/scene, and then press the right MB to finish...
>>
> Hmm. I'll have to try that. Though, on most mice the middle button is 
> also the "scroll", which makes it damn hard to use for anything... 
> Thanks for the tip.
> 
I NAK that. I don't have any trouble pressing MMB w/o scrolling. 
Scrolling with MMB pressed (not that I ever needed it) is another story, 
though :-)

-- 
You know you've been raytracing too long when...
you start thinking up your own "You know you've been raytracing too long 
when..." sigs (I did).
		-Johnny D
Johnny D

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> Hmm. I'll have to try that. Though, on most mice the middle button is
> also the "scroll", which makes it damn hard to use for anything...
> Thanks for the tip.

Not convinced you're both talking about the same thing (you can rotate the
camera around objects, right?), but those control settings at least are
configurable.

Edit menu >> Preferences... >> Camera tab, then the Camera mode box changes
which buttons control rotation and how rotation behaves by offering you a
choice of modes taken from other packages.

I use Blender mode (hold down middle mouse and drag to rotate), although I can't
remember if Blender mouse control actually does behave like that. You can see
how the camera responds to the mouse in a particular camera mode by checking
the status bar at the bottom of the display when nothing's selected. For
example, in Maya mode you'll see:

L: Select  [Alt]+L: Tumble  [Alt]+M: Track  [Alt]+R: Dolly  R: Show menu

If you want to keep the middle mouse wheel for zoom and don't want to use the
middle mouse button for rotation or whatever, you can set "Mouse buttons" to 2
in the drop-down list on the Camera preferences tab. You'll only be able to use
Blender and Nendo modes with two buttons (Nendo mode is quite unusual compared
to most other 3D apps).

Tom

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In article <web.484832e23e9934c97d55e4a40@news.povray.org>, 
alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom says...
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > Hmm. I'll have to try that. Though, on most mice the middle button is
> > also the "scroll", which makes it damn hard to use for anything...
> > Thanks for the tip.
> 
> Not convinced you're both talking about the same thing (you can rotate th
e
> camera around objects, right?), but those control settings at least are
> configurable.
> 
> Edit menu >> Preferences... >> Camera tab, then the Camera mode box chang
es
> which buttons control rotation and how rotation behaves by offering you a
> choice of modes taken from other packages.
> 
> I use Blender mode (hold down middle mouse and drag to rotate), although 
I can't
> remember if Blender mouse control actually does behave like that. You can
 see
> how the camera responds to the mouse in a particular camera mode by check
ing
> the status bar at the bottom of the display when nothing's selected. For
> example, in Maya mode you'll see:
> 
> L: Select  [Alt]+L: Tumble  [Alt]+M: Track  [Alt]+R: Dolly  R: Show menu
> 
> If you want to keep the middle mouse wheel for zoom and don't want to use
 the
> middle mouse button for rotation or whatever, you can set "Mouse buttons"
 to 2
> in the drop-down list on the Camera preferences tab. You'll only be able 
to use
> Blender and Nendo modes with two buttons (Nendo mode is quite unusual com
pared
> to most other 3D apps).
> 
> Tom

Found the problem actually. I use a Logitech mouse and automatically set 
it up to use middle = double click. Never changes it back to, "just act
 
as a middle button", after finding how big a pain in the ass trying to 
use the mouse wheel was. lol

Sadly, I have discovered that I "hate" the sculpting tool, which is what 
I needed to use in it. For simple objects with "roughly" similar 
dimensions in all directions, or where you can add more geometry, its 
great. For cases where you need to have a "fixed" number of acceptable 
vertices, and you can't break them apart to move them around, you kind 
of run into a problem... I have "no" clue how some of these people make 
one prim fracking dragons with these sorts of tools, unless they 
manually edit every single point on the mesh. Using sculpt to just make 
a butterfly wing resulted in so many points getting "stretched" past 
their usable locations that the view in Blender showed literal holes in 
the mesh, and there was no easy way to both a) select the points you 
want to move, and b) make the other points "stretch" and "follow", to 
form the correct design. I badly wish there was some sort of, "Stretch 
object to fit closed polyline" function, or something. So, you know, you 
draw the outer edge of the object, then it "fits" the selected line 
around the sphere, etc., to the polyline. Silly sort of time savers like 
that, for those of is without infinite patience and any clue. lol

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott napsal(a):
> In article <web.484832e23e9934c97d55e4a40@news.povray.org>, 
> alp### [at] zubenelgenubi34spcom says...
>> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
>>> Hmm. I'll have to try that. Though, on most mice the middle button is
>>> also the "scroll", which makes it damn hard to use for anything...
>>> Thanks for the tip.
>> Not convinced you're both talking about the same thing (you can rotate the
>> camera around objects, right?), but those control settings at least are
>> configurable.
>>
>> Edit menu >> Preferences... >> Camera tab, then the Camera mode box changes
>> which buttons control rotation and how rotation behaves by offering you a
>> choice of modes taken from other packages.
>>
>> I use Blender mode (hold down middle mouse and drag to rotate), although I can't
>> remember if Blender mouse control actually does behave like that. You can see
>> how the camera responds to the mouse in a particular camera mode by checking
>> the status bar at the bottom of the display when nothing's selected. For
>> example, in Maya mode you'll see:
>>
>> L: Select  [Alt]+L: Tumble  [Alt]+M: Track  [Alt]+R: Dolly  R: Show menu
>>
>> If you want to keep the middle mouse wheel for zoom and don't want to use the
>> middle mouse button for rotation or whatever, you can set "Mouse buttons" to 2
>> in the drop-down list on the Camera preferences tab. You'll only be able to use
>> Blender and Nendo modes with two buttons (Nendo mode is quite unusual compared
>> to most other 3D apps).
>>
>> Tom
> 
> Found the problem actually. I use a Logitech mouse and automatically set 
> it up to use middle = double click. Never changes it back to, "just act 
> as a middle button", after finding how big a pain in the ass trying to 
> use the mouse wheel was. lol
> 
> Sadly, I have discovered that I "hate" the sculpting tool, which is what 
> I needed to use in it. For simple objects with "roughly" similar 
> dimensions in all directions, or where you can add more geometry, its 
> great. For cases where you need to have a "fixed" number of acceptable 
> vertices, and you can't break them apart to move them around, you kind 
> of run into a problem... I have "no" clue how some of these people make 
> one prim fracking dragons with these sorts of tools, unless they 
> manually edit every single point on the mesh. Using sculpt to just make 
> a butterfly wing resulted in so many points getting "stretched" past 
> their usable locations that the view in Blender showed literal holes in 
> the mesh, and there was no easy way to both a) select the points you 
> want to move, and b) make the other points "stretch" and "follow", to 
> form the correct design. I badly wish there was some sort of, "Stretch 
> object to fit closed polyline" function, or something. So, you know, you 
> draw the outer edge of the object, then it "fits" the selected line 
> around the sphere, etc., to the polyline. Silly sort of time savers like 
> that, for those of is without infinite patience and any clue. lol
> 
You can create a curve object and convert it into a mesh object to close 
manually.

-- 
You know you've been raytracing too long when...
you ever saw a beautiful scenery and regretted not to take your 6" 
reflective ball and a digital camera, thinking "this would have been a 
perfect light probe"
		-Johnny D
Johnny D

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In article <484ab059$1@news.povray.org>, jan### [at] centrumcz says...
> Patrick Elliott napsal(a):
> > Sadly, I have discovered that I "hate" the sculpting tool, which is wha
t 
> > I needed to use in it. For simple objects with "roughly" similar 
> > dimensions in all directions, or where you can add more geometry, its
 
> > great. For cases where you need to have a "fixed" number of acceptable
 
> > vertices, and you can't break them apart to move them around, you kind
 
> > of run into a problem... I have "no" clue how some of these people make
 
> > one prim fracking dragons with these sorts of tools, unless they 
> > manually edit every single point on the mesh. Using sculpt to just make
 
> > a butterfly wing resulted in so many points getting "stretched" past 
> > their usable locations that the view in Blender showed literal holes in
 
> > the mesh, and there was no easy way to both a) select the points you 
> > want to move, and b) make the other points "stretch" and "follow", to
 
> > form the correct design. I badly wish there was some sort of, "Stretch
 
> > object to fit closed polyline" function, or something. So, you know, yo
u 
> > draw the outer edge of the object, then it "fits" the selected line 
> > around the sphere, etc., to the polyline. Silly sort of time savers lik
e 
> > that, for those of is without infinite patience and any clue. lol
> > 
> You can create a curve object and convert it into a mesh object to close
 
> manually.
> 
I am sure you can. The problem is, the imported meshes are "designed" to 
have the exact number of control points, in the correct geometry, to 
generate the displacement maps used in Second Life. If you use more than 
that, there is no way to know "which" points are actually going to 
translate, and if you use the wrong number, it breaks completely. So.. 
To do that, you would need to make such an line, loft a curved object 
from it, and build, section by section, the "exact" number of correct 
lines and points to generate the "same" number of correct controls. And, 
having done that, you *still* have to a) make sure you don't have any 
odd normals which will invert the final result (i.e., dents instead of 
bumps, etc.), b) hope that you didn't link something wrong, so that the 
export tool doesn't actually misread where certain things are, and c) 
hope that the result "actually" matches what you intended. Note, both A 
and B are even problem you can already get in POV-Ray, like having a 
normal pointing 180 degrees the wrong way, though the effect is less 
extreme. Even the existing tools can't make maps that look 100% like the 
ones in the 3D app you edit with. Its a serious pain.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Thanks all for your opinions, very usefull!!!

The thing is that I have arrived to Blender for several reasons. One is that it
is free (I cant afford 3ds) but the main reason is that it is supposed to do
things I can not do with Pov, Wings of Moray.

It is driving me crazy to learn how to do with Blender the things I know how to
do with those programs. I'm trying to do just simple things, texturing,
lightning and so on and for the moment it is quite difficult to get similar
results. I dont understand yafray either HOLY SHI..!!!

My aim is to animate a human-like guy and I wanted to learn to use things like
armatures (skeletons) and as far as I know that is nearly impossible with the
tools I know how to use.

So I have set myself a rule. Forget about Pov for a few months, try to reset my
brain and learn to use Blender. I know its going to be a nightmare, but I want
at least to try...

If I succeed I'm going to write a tutorial of Blender focused in people who
comes from pov, a kind of logbook!!!

Thanks!!!

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"kike" <dry### [at] hotmailcom> schreef in bericht 
news:web.484cf4043e9934c9be7bfb550@news.povray.org...
>
> Thanks all for your opinions, very usefull!!!
>
> The thing is that I have arrived to Blender for several reasons. One is 
> that it
> is free (I cant afford 3ds) but the main reason is that it is supposed to 
> do
> things I can not do with Pov, Wings of Moray.
>
> It is driving me crazy to learn how to do with Blender the things I know 
> how to
> do with those programs. I'm trying to do just simple things, texturing,
> lightning and so on and for the moment it is quite difficult to get 
> similar
> results. I dont understand yafray either HOLY SHI..!!!
>
> My aim is to animate a human-like guy and I wanted to learn to use things 
> like
> armatures (skeletons) and as far as I know that is nearly impossible with 
> the
> tools I know how to use.
>
> So I have set myself a rule. Forget about Pov for a few months, try to 
> reset my
> brain and learn to use Blender. I know its going to be a nightmare, but I 
> want
> at least to try...
>
> If I succeed I'm going to write a tutorial of Blender focused in people 
> who
> comes from pov, a kind of logbook!!!
>
> Thanks!!!
>

Just for the record, and because I am a very enthousiastic user, you may 
consider Silo. http://nevercenter.com/
It is very powerful, very easy to use, and very affordable in terms of 
price. It does not provide skeletons at this stage, but if I remember 
correctly that is something coming along.

Thomas

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