Invisible escreveu:
> Well, I don't know. All the other 3D modellers have their quirks, but in 
> all of them, once you've selected the right mode, clicking on a point 
> and dragging it makes it move. (And also any edges and faces associated 
> with it, obviously.) In Blender, this basic operation doesn't seem to 
> work...

click with LMB and drag it around while holding LMB.  I don't know if 
this can be changed, never bothered to find out because it seems just ok 
to me.

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Invisible wrote:
>>> There's no way you can learn this program just by playing with it.
>>
>>     I'd suspect quite the opposite. I've heard the only way to learn 
>> is total immersion - via numerous tutorials. Then you keep working on 
>> Blender building whatever you wanted, and don't ever take a 2 week 
>> break.<G>
>>
>>     Reading isn't going to make the keybindings/interface stick. Using 
>> them a lot (tutorials) will.
> 
> I think knowing the logic behind the interface (assuming there *is* 
> some) will probably help a lot. But sure, if you want to become _expert_ 
> you're going to need to practise a lot. Currently I just can't make it 
> to *anything* interesting, because the UI is getting in the way too much.

Heck. I tried following a tutorial *twice*, just to recreate the 
identical object, and got lost *twice* at one of the steps, resulting in 
an error that was nearly unrecoverable. I agree, the program needs a 
*little* bit of a rethink on some of its parts, especially in trying to 
differentiate between stuff you do in the actual texture/UV window, and 
all the damn settings "for" that, which are plastered every place else, 
but which are not used in actually setting up any of the textures/UV 
settings, when initially applying them. And that is just the start of 
the mess (but a critical one, for what I was trying to get done).

Oh, and what is it with applications that can "unwrap" a mesh to a UV 
map, but do so either using an ugly form that you can't be precise with 
(since all the surfaces have curves that prevent it), or a completely 
flat one, where you can't tell what surface you are *actually* looking 
at? lol Got to be a better way to do that, even if its just "let me 
paint some basic colors on this damn thing, then export the mesh *with* 
the colors, so I can tell what the hell I am doing."

-- 
void main () {

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

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Darren New escreveu:
> Hey, don't get pissy at *me*

I'm not pissy at you.  I'm obviously directing the comments at Orchid.

> just said the UI is hard to learn and to remember, which I think you'll 
> find most people agree with. In part because it *does* do so much.

Yeah, but I was just pointing out there's some easily remembered 
mnemonics to go with each keycombo.

-- 
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Invisible wrote:
> Well no, I mean for example: If you press [space], a whole bunch of 
> stuff appears. I can't immediately see any other way of getting at any 
> of those commands.

The "view" and "select" and "object" buttons down at the bottom are menus.

> There's nothing *wrong* with keyboard shortcuts, but it does make the 
> learning curve rather steep.

Yes. Faster to use once you put them in your brain, but harder to learn. 
Unless they're written on the menus, so you learn the ones taht are useful 
to you in particular.

> Currently my main problem is with figuring out the general principles 
> the UI works under. 

That too.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:07:57 +0100, nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>
> click with LMB and drag it around while holding LMB.  I don't know if  
> this can be changed, never bothered to find out because it seems just ok  
> to me.

Do note that the default is RMB, even though there is a setting to switch  
that.



-- 
FE

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Fredrik Eriksson escreveu:
> On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:07:57 +0100, nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>
>> click with LMB and drag it around while holding LMB.  I don't know if 
>> this can be changed, never bothered to find out because it seems just 
>> ok to me.
> 
> Do note that the default is RMB, even though there is a setting to 
> switch that.

ouch!  True, don't know why I wrote LMB.  RMB is the default to select 
and while holding, also grabbing.

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On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:15:05 +0100, Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom>  
wrote:
>
> Oh, and what is it with applications that can "unwrap" a mesh to a UV  
> map, but do so either using an ugly form that you can't be precise with  
> (since all the surfaces have curves that prevent it), or a completely  
> flat one, where you can't tell what surface you are *actually* looking  
> at? lol Got to be a better way to do that, even if its just "let me  
> paint some basic colors on this damn thing, then export the mesh *with*  
> the colors, so I can tell what the hell I am doing."

Something like this?

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



-- 
FE

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nemesis wrote:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> Hey, don't get pissy at *me*
> 
> I'm not pissy at you.  I'm obviously directing the comments at Orchid.
> 
>> just said the UI is hard to learn and to remember, which I think 
>> you'll find most people agree with. In part because it *does* do so much.
> 
> Yeah, but I was just pointing out there's some easily remembered 
> mnemonics to go with each keycombo.

Sure.  But you have to remember the mnemonics.  Unlike, say, arrow keys, 
which need no mnemonic to remember which is which.  And they're not all 
mnemonics, either, which also makes it difficult.

Plus, the fact that I have to remember D from ctl-D from Shift-D from 
ctl-shift-D and they all do slightly different things? Difficult. But again, 
it's because it does so much.

Also difficult is the number of buttons that influence the behavior of other 
buttons, down in the lower windows, and the lovely labels like "VColPai" 
that are supposed to be informative. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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I finally managed to make a torus. (Yes, I realise you could just click 
"add torus". But I wanted to see if it's possible to model it by hand.) 
It's not an especially rounded torus, and it's taken about 20 minutes to 
do, but it's vaguely torus-shaped. (See attached.)

My method was to start with a cube [since every tutorial I've found 
always starts with a cube], scale it, and punch a hole through it.

Sounds easy, right? Well let me tell you: it isn't.

First, I want to scale it on just two axies, not all three. Apparently 
you can do this by pressing the letter of the axies you want to scale 
along. (Still not sure why the Y axis is drastically less sensitive than 
the X axis. I specifically put the mouse pointer in exactly the just 
spot before hitting the scale button...)

Next, punch a hole in the middle. Now the ideal thing to do here would 
be to just draw a circular hole in the top and delete the face inside 
it. But I have no clue how to do that. After much searching [earlier 
today], I discovered that you can do an "edge subdivide", which takes an 
edge and puts a new vertex in the middle of it. If you select the top 
face of the cube and hit subdivide, the face turns into four smaller 
faces. So far so good.

However, this operation also "shatters" all the other faces that touch 
the top. And after a considerable length of time, I was utterly unable 
to find a way to remove the extra unwanted edges without also removing 
the faces they form part of. (WTF?)

After a while, I discovered that if you select the top and bottom 
surfaces of the cube simultaneously (yes, apparently you can do that), 
and subdivide both faces at once, you get a reasonable grid of points 
that you can then work with.

Subdivide again and now the top and bottom each consist of 4x4 squares. 
Now delete the middle four faces from the top and button surfaces.

This kind-of works. You now have a gaping hole in the middle though. 
After a refreshingly brief search, I was able to determine that [space] 
-> edit -> faces -> make face/edge will add a new face, so long as you 
have two edges selected. At least, it seems to work in this instance.

Turn on the subsurf thingy and the result is a slightly torus-shaped 
thingamy.

Now, if I can determine how to move all the existing geometry around 
without completely destroying it, I might be able to rearrange all the 
points into a more circular configuration. (Although obviously it'll 
never be symmetrical...)

FWIW, it also took a Google search to figure out how to *save* the 
rendered image. o_O Pretty obvious once you already know the answer 
though...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Attachments:
Download 'torus1.jpg' (31 KB)

Preview of image 'torus1.jpg'

This didn't happen on the VM at work, but on my home PC Blender has 
chosen to render the panels at the bottom of the screen so that there's 
a 2-inch gap on the left, and the last panel is half-way off the right 
edge of the screen. Anybody have any clue why?

(I did try just dragging the panels back to where they should be, but 
nothing happens.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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