Stefan Viljoen escreveu:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>>> I wonder if the upcoming 2.5 revamp is going to make it much easier or
>>> harder, and how well existing Blender experience will translate for users
>>> who must now use a new interface...
>> I must say, I was quite amused how one video talking about it said how
>> very cool it was that you could right-click on a button and tell it to
>> show you the documentation for it, like this wasn't technology back in
>> Win3.1. :-)
> 
> That's the thing! Read on their site the other day that the core Windowing
> system is based on some Atari ST (!) GUI library of twelve or fifteen years
> ago... so no surprise that such modern GUI features aren't there yet.

Funnily enough, it seems Microsoft Excell 2009 doesn't show offer you 
Help among the options when you right-click any of its "ribbon" buttons. 
  BTW, pretty much all 3D modellers are not based on overlapping windows.

> Hmm... never thought of it like that. I've used it a little bit and find it
> mostly useful and easy for constructing simple, odd geometry that would be
> hard or impossible (for me) to do with Pov code. But its textures and
> materials system I find -extremely- confusing and hard to understand. Never
> mind the "NLA" editor, and the real hard-core stuff like rigging and
> animation is completely indecipherable. But then, I've not really invested
> REAL time (years) to get to learn all of that. And some people (admittedly
> more dogged, hard-working and / or intelligent maybe?) can do AmAzInG stuff
> with it. I was blown away by the sheer quality of Elephant's Dream and Big
> Buck Bunny, but then, as you say, it was basically core contributors that
> did that, and were real hard-core blend-heads.

Here's an animation done by a brazilian Blender n00b:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_FMYYcbnsM
http://www.blender.com.br/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=10&func=view&id=8822&catid=5&limit=10&limitstart=0

yes, it's ugly for today's standards, but I myself can't even start to 
imagine how he did pull it off...

here's a much nicer one, from another brazilian guy:
http://www.epifania.art.br/

See Subtitled Short.

Point is that enoughly motivated people can do wonders with Blender if 
they just sit to learn to use it rather than complain of perceived 
limitations.  Isn't it true for everything we do, actually?  C 
programming, anyone? short code Povray?...

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

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nemesis wrote:
> Funnily enough, it seems Microsoft Excell 2009 doesn't show offer you 
> Help among the options when you right-click any of its "ribbon" buttons. 

I was referring to the little "question mark" icon up next to the minimize, 
maximize, and close buttons that used to be there. That's exactly how that 
icon is supposed to work - click on it, then click on what you want help for.

>  BTW, pretty much all 3D modellers are not based on overlapping windows.

I think the output is fine. It's the input that's a PITA with blender. :-)

> yes, it's ugly for today's standards, but I myself can't even start to 
> imagine how he did pull it off...

Having used Blender, it's not incomprehensible. Lots of character animation, 
lots of physics. That's the nice thing about blender, is it puts all that 
together.

> Point is that enoughly motivated people can do wonders with Blender if 
> they just sit to learn to use it rather than complain of perceived 
> limitations.  Isn't it true for everything we do, actually?  C 
> programming, anyone? short code Povray?...

Well, it's not "perceived" limitations. It's real live everyone-agrees 
limitations. Just because you can build a pyramid with enough slaves doesn't 
mean that other tools couldn't be better.

I *did* learn Blender, enough to consistently run into bugs in Blender that 
aren't in other packages that do the same sorts of things. The interface is 
awful, it's mostly undocumented, and it's *still* the most powerful package 
out there for the sorts of things I want to do. It's just a shame that if I 
stop modeling for six months I have to start over from scratch on the 
learning curve for a program that I haven't changed.  And *that* is 
objectively a sign of a bad UI.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New escreveu:
> I *did* learn Blender, enough to consistently run into bugs in Blender 
> that aren't in other packages that do the same sorts of things. The 
> interface is awful, it's mostly undocumented

I disagree.  It's probably much more documented than most other free 
tools out there, thanks to tons of community generated tutorials, 
video-tutorials, wiki entries, wiki learning trails etc.  "Manual does 
not come with the software" is not meaningful in this day and age when 
the every PC comes with "the internet".  And the proper links are just 
there in Blender's Help menu.

>, and it's *still* the most 
> powerful package out there for the sorts of things I want to do. It's 
> just a shame that if I stop modeling for six months I have to start over 
> from scratch on the learning curve for a program that I haven't 
> changed.  And *that* is objectively a sign of a bad UI.

or a sign of way too much features.  Kinda like C++... :) (it's a joke, 
Warp)...

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

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nemesis wrote:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> I *did* learn Blender, enough to consistently run into bugs in Blender 
>> that aren't in other packages that do the same sorts of things. The 
>> interface is awful, it's mostly undocumented
> 
> I disagree.  It's probably much more documented than most other free 
> tools out there, thanks to tons of community generated tutorials, 
> video-tutorials, wiki entries, wiki learning trails etc. 

I'll have to just disagree. There are lots of tutorials out there, but the 
reference manuals are pretty poor, especially for the more complex stuff. 
Most of the interface is fairly undocumented.

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. I mean, 
face it, if the reference material for Blender was good, it wouldn't be an 
exciting selling point that you can get help on what buttons do in the next 
version.

(Yes, I recognise it's FOSS. I'm not saying it's someone's responsibility to 
do this. I'm saying that's the facts, regardless of why. And that's why I 
find blender unusable for even simple things. Maybe I'll try ramping up 
again, one more time, just to see if I can model something simple I want to 
model.)

> And the proper links are just there in Blender's Help menu.

Not really. Again, contrast with POV-Ray, for example.

> or a sign of way too much features.  Kinda like C++... :) (it's a joke, 
> Warp)...

I think they do a decent job of stuffing a whole lot of features into little 
space. The abbreviations are awful, things aren't well explained in the UI, 
etc, but the windowing technology does an OK job of making a whole lot of 
options available, it seems.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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nemesis schrieb:

> I find myself often typing :wq to quit notepad.

I always suspect that there must be a causal connection between vi use 
and mental ailments... either you must /be/ insane to use it, or it 
/makes/ you :-P

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Actually, it looks like I can do the modeling in Wings and pretty trivially 
import it into Blender to do animations or whatever, so that's pretty cool. 
I'll have to experiment with that.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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clipka escreveu:
> nemesis schrieb:
> 
>> I find myself often typing :wq to quit notepad.
> 
> I always suspect that there must be a causal connection between vi use 
> and mental ailments... either you must /be/ insane to use it, or it 
> /makes/ you :-P

No, the point is that you always bring up your bias towards your 
favorite software when working with another one.

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

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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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nemesis wrote:
> 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'm pretty sure that wasn't there back in February when I was looking for 
how to do this stuff. :-)

> So, there the enthusiastic guy can 
> see right in front of his eye a Mirror Trans panel with "Ray Mirror" or 
> "Ray Transp" options.

Yeah, because it's real clear what that means, and what object it has to be 
applied to. :-)  I think I spent most of those 20 minutes trying to figure 
out how to get shadows to cooperate with transparency. I had a transparent 
ball and a pitch-black shadow, and it took a long time to figure out the 
shadow adjustments had to be made to the floor, not the thing casting 
shadows.  Or something like that.  It was overall pretty frustrating.

>> 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?

I have a bunch of povray stuff. It's more interactive, so I didn't really 
post it anywhere. One bunch is up on sourceforge under the "LOME" project, 
for example.

POV-Ray is hard to use for reasons entirely beside the UI or documentation, 
but because of its inherent nature. :-)

>> 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.

Yep. That's me. I shamelessly admit I have no talent along those lines. 
That's why I like architectural drawings - it's pretty easy to get a room to 
be square with any package. ;-)

> Complaining that the pencil is not as smooth as other pencil 
> will bring you nothing except headache.

I'm not complaining. I'm making observations. Complaining would imply I 
expected some result. :-)

> 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.

That wasn't what I was complaining about. For one, I suspect someone wrote a 
bunch of manual over the summer for Blender that wasn't there when I was 
playing with it before. (The whole "Summer of Documentation" effort sort of 
thing, you know.)

It's also probably, to some extent, the number of things that Blender can 
do. As I said, I got OK-comfortable with it after a while, just fiddling 
around with it. A lot of it was trying to get it to do stuff that's just 
broken, because that's the interesting part for me, since I don't really 
have a whole lot of artistic talent.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:
> I'm pretty sure that wasn't there back in February when I was looking 
> for how to do this stuff. :-)

Oh, there's the history button.  I see it isn't really substantially changed 
since I was working on it. There must have been something I was fighting 
with, probably shadows, that took me 20 minutes to figure out.

Given there's like 3 kinds of transparency and 5 ways to calculate shadows, 
I probably had the wrong combination and spent a long time figuring out why. 
Probably sitting down and going thru the manual a second time would help too.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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