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> That's been precisely tackled in Blender 2.5 complete interface overhaul.
> I
> mean, all your 3 points.
>
> I'd actually say Invisible to try it rather than learn the old shoe going
> out of
> style, except it's still alpha, buggy and lacking most other features.
I wish you could have the right button to open up the menu that space bar
used to bring up, don't they realise how utterly stupid it is not to have a
menu appear when the user presses right button?
And for god sake use the windows API for menus, so they don't close randomly
just by hovering the mouse over the wrong thing.
I hope the new complete interface overhaul fixes these things.
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> 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...)
If you use the mirror modifier you can work on half/quarter/eighth
(depending how many axes you mirror it on) of the model and have the
modifier automatically generate the rest on the fly. When drawing the mesh
for cars I usually mirror from left/right of the car as for most parts it's
totally symmetrical.
Looking good though, just set the normal mode to "smooth" rather than
"flat", add a few more sub-division levels and you'll have created your
first "obviously totally impossible million triangles placed by hand" :-)
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>> 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.
Doesn't seem to work.
What I have discovered, however, is that you can do the following:
Assuming the thing you want to move is selected, press the LMB and drag.
Nothing happens. Release the LMB, and *then* the selected item(s) move
as you move the mouse, even if the mouse is nowhere near them. Click the
LMB again to stop moving (or ESC to cancel).
Seems like a pretty screwy choice, but hey, it works I guess...
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>>> 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.
Oh, right. So if I drag with the RMB, it should just move like you
expect it to?
Was whoever designed Blender left-handed or something?
(On the right hand, the LMB is operated by a much stronger finger than
the RMB, and so it's much easier to hold down while moving the mouse
around. Basic HCI.)
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>> 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.
Usual practice is to design a UI which is intuitive and easy to figure
out using the mouse, and to label the keyboard shortcuts on the UI. That
way, if you constantly find yourself clicking the same button or menu
item, you can learn the shortcut.
Blender, on the other hand, seems to take the view that memorising pages
of key combinations is the default way to operate the program, and a few
items also have a UI in case you want it.
(People have actually done studies on UI design, you know...)
>> Currently my main problem is with figuring out the general principles
>> the UI works under.
>
> That too.
Well, it could be worse.
I could be using Linux, where seemingly *every* individual program
operates in a completely different way. :-}
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> If you use the mirror modifier you can work on half/quarter/eighth
> (depending how many axes you mirror it on) of the model and have the
> modifier automatically generate the rest on the fly.
Can you do that to a model that already exists? Or do you have to
manually cut it in half before mirroring it?
> Looking good though, just set the normal mode to "smooth" rather than
> "flat", add a few more sub-division levels and you'll have created your
> first "obviously totally impossible million triangles placed by hand" :-)
Now to make it circular...
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nemesis wrote:
> That box donut sucks.
Sure. But it's still one of the most complex mesh objects I have ever
constructed in all the years I've been playing with mesh editors.
As I say, if I wanted an actual torus, I could just click "add torus".
I'm trying to see if it's possible to model nontrivial shapes using only
a mesh editor. A torus is about the simplest shape that isn't completely
trivial. Next I might try a genus-2 surface. (I've never seen one
offered by any package, ever. And it's not a SOR.)
> Should`ve listened to my advice, added a circle, enter edit mode (tab),
> grab it to the left (g), go to front view (1), hit spin button in the
> panels below 4 times, hit w and select "Remove doubles", select all (a)
> and hit ctrl+n to recalculate the normals. This is how you do surfaces
> of revolution and is precisely what the "Add torus" script does.
I haven't come across this in the documentation yet, but what does
Blender mean by "grab"?
Also, IME pressing "a" seems to mean "UNselect all". Some of the
documentation indicates it's supposed to invert the selection, but that
doesn't appear to be the case...
>> Sounds easy, right? Well let me tell you: it isn't.
>
> Of course it isn't easy doing something the wrong way.
Well, they say you learn by your mistakes... or something...
>> Next, punch a hole in the middle.
>
> forget it: this isn't CSG, don't try to treat it like one.
Well, there are two ways to make an object. One is to start with nothing
and slowly build it into something. The other is to start with something
and slowly cut it down to the thing you want.
I did try taking a cube and extruding it multiple times. I managed to
make a closed curve, but I couldn't figure out how to join the ends
together properly. So I tried the subtractive approach instead.
I guess the other thing I could have tried is drawing points and lines
one at a time, but I have no idea how to do that yet.
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Forward Kinetics - you're doing it... horribly, horribly wrong,
actually. o_O
(OTOH, I made a shape with vaguely resembles a gingerbread man, which is
highly implausible. Now, if I could just get rid of the polygon edges...)
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On 12/18/09 01:32, scott wrote:
> I wish you could have the right button to open up the menu that space
> bar used to bring up, don't they realise how utterly stupid it is not to
> have a menu appear when the user presses right button?
Somehow, I've never been sympathetic to this kind of complaint. Maybe
I'm an "old fart" (who's not that old in age) who remembers the time
when this was not the default behavior of apps.
From my perspective, the question isn't "Does this conform to the
Windows interface standard (which may not be that great)?" but "Is it
really hard to learn?" and "Is their choice of deviating from the
standard efficient?"
But then again, I'm also a GIMP user...
--
Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream...
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On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:08:13 +0100, Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
>
> I haven't come across this in the documentation yet, but what does
> Blender mean by "grab"?
It means you grab something and move it around, i.e. what some others call
"translate".
> Also, IME pressing "a" seems to mean "UNselect all". Some of the
> documentation indicates it's supposed to invert the selection, but that
> doesn't appear to be the case...
If anything is already selected, "a" clears the selection. If nothing is
selected, "a" selects everything.
> I guess the other thing I could have tried is drawing points and lines
> one at a time, but I have no idea how to do that yet.
Ctrl+LMB in Mesh Edit mode adds a new vertex.
--
FE
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