"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:4b2a60a3$1@news.povray.org...
>
> > There's nothing *wrong* with keyboard shortcuts, but it does make the
> > learning curve rather steep.
>
> There's something wrong on relying on keyboard shortcuts, as that's a
> symptom of the lazy programmer, who cannot spend the time and effort to come
> up with an intuitive *and* efficient graphical user interface. Yes, keyboard
> shortcuts can be efficient in the hands of a power user, but I think there
> are three cardinal rules for GUI applications which use them 1) Make them
> completely complementary/optional 2) Make them customizable 3) Use platform
> defaults and don't reinvent the wheel.
>
> With 3D applications, mousing (for navigation and selection) should ideally
> be fully customizable - although nobody really does it properly, AFAICS.
> Alternatively, major vendors should get together and decide, say, RMB drag
> is tumble, and that's that.

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.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> > forget it:  this isn't CSG, don't try to treat it like one.
>
> I *will* say that I wish Blender implemented all the cool operations that
> Wings3D implements, like the bevel and bridge and intrude and all that stuff.

Perhaps it'll get those, thanks to the new BMesh system that's likely getting
into 2.5.

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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] devnull> 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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Invisible escreveu:
> (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...)

I don't see polygon edges, just smooth curved surfaces.  Glad to see you 
finally managed to use subsurf modifier and Set Smooth.

Gingerbread Man is like that as far as I remember.  I mean, front and 
back are pretty flat and thus the edges are not as curvy as you could 
probably get with a more spherical/round surface.  Which you can, by the 
way.

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

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Invisible escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
> 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.

Yes, but you still got it wrong on a matter of principles:  you know a 
torus is the result of rotating a circle around an axis, you knew I told 
you about the very useful spin button, and yet you felt like it'd be fun 
to try to make it out of a hole through a box.  Doesn't make any sense.

> Next I might try a genus-2 surface. (I've never seen one 
> offered by any package, ever. And it's not a SOR.)

Povray SDL is more well suited for math surfaces, you'll be boring 
yourself with a mesh editor for that.

> 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...

a either selects all or unselects all in case there's anything selected.

ctrl+i inverts a selection.

>> 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.

Cuts don't really work fine in mesh editors.

> 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.

Sure you know, I told you how to to so before:  when either in top, side 
or front view, select a single vertice and go ctrl+LMB clicking 
throughout the viewing plane.  Each ctrl+click will automatically 
extrude each vertice/edge/face.  Have you actually managed to get your 
belt this way?

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

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scott escreveu:
>> 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?

I'm already pissed enough that the easy space keypress to bring on the 
main menu has been replaced with a ctrl+a and no, I don't think it'd be 
more useful to have a menu showing up when I press right button:  I'm 
expecting the 3D cursor to move, which in the context of a mesh editing 
software is far more useful than menus readily found otherwise.

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

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Invisible escreveu:
> Was whoever designed Blender left-handed or something?

I don't know, perhaps the same other 80% of guys in the industry who 
don't use povray's convention.

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

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>> Was whoever designed Blender left-handed or something?
> 
> I don't know, perhaps the same other 80% of guys in the industry who 
> don't use povray's convention.

...actually I was talking about using the RMB for all the most important 
functions, rather than the LMB like every normal application on the planet.

-- 
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http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
>>> 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.

Yes. That's what I was describing, and what Blender does for the stuff that 
has menus.

-- 
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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nemesis wrote:
> That's been precisely tackled in Blender 2.5 complete interface overhaul.

Because, you know, the UI was so well done in earlier versions, and nobody 
ever complained about it. :-)

-- 
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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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> who remembers the time when this was not the default behavior of apps.

Dude, the guys who invented menus did it this way. It has never *not* been 
the way to do it. :-)

>     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?"

Those are subjective. Following the Windows standard makes it easier to 
learn for windows users.


-- 
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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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 12/17/09 10:22, Darren New wrote:
>> But yeah, you have to use it, and when you stop it goes away again,
>> because there's no mnemonic way of using it. (Unlike wordstar, whose
>> keyboard commands I still remember 30 years after I stopped using it.)
> 
> Really? In 1979? 

Yeah. I used it from 79 to about 84 or so.

> You used it for at most 1-2 years? What was its replacement?

Ummm... Oh, I think PMate was the next editor I did lots of work with. It 
was TECO-like only for PCs.

-- 
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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Invisible wrote:
> 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.

Try Wings.  Or try going thru a tutorial on Blender, just following the 
steps without trying to memorize anything, and then try Wings. It's 
basically the same ideas.  Each takes a bit of time (like, maybe, 6 hours) 
of playing with it to get to the point you're not breaking the model every 5 
minutes.

> I haven't come across this in the documentation yet, but what does 
> Blender mean by "grab"?

Translate.  Except they already used the T key, so they called it grab.

-- 
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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>> 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.
> 
> Try Wings.  Or try going thru a tutorial on Blender, just following the 
> steps without trying to memorize anything, and then try Wings. It's 
> basically the same ideas.  Each takes a bit of time (like, maybe, 6 
> hours) of playing with it to get to the point you're not breaking the 
> model every 5 minutes.

Isn't Wings the one written in Erlang?

I believed I tried it also, and it was similarly non-intuitive to 
operate. (But I don't recall it having any documentation, whereas 
Blender clearly does.) I managed to get a cube and move the verticies 
around a bit, but I'm not sure how you'd do anything useful with it.

>> I haven't come across this in the documentation yet, but what does 
>> Blender mean by "grab"?
> 
> Translate.  Except they already used the T key, so they called it grab.

Fail.

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

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Isn't Wings the one written in Erlang?

Yes.

> I believed I tried it also, and it was similarly non-intuitive to 
> operate. 

You know, I thought they were all unintuitive until I played with it a bit 
and figured out the operations. Really, go thru (say) the gingerbread man 
tutorial, or the "create a blue alien guy" tutorial, and then suddenly it 
seems to make sense.

> (But I don't recall it having any documentation, whereas 
> Blender clearly does.) 

It has an entire 130-page textbook it comes with.

> I managed to get a cube and move the verticies 
> around a bit, but I'm not sure how you'd do anything useful with it.

Uh, read the docs? :-)

-- 
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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Darren New escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
>> That's been precisely tackled in Blender 2.5 complete interface overhaul.
> 
> Because, you know, the UI was so well done in earlier versions, and 
> nobody ever complained about it. :-)

No need for sarcasm, they are obviously tackling common complaints.

I'm glad though that vim doesn't get too many whinning users about its 
quirks that just work right once you use them.

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

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nemesis wrote:
> No need for sarcasm, they are obviously tackling common complaints.

Only because earlier it sounded like some Blender aficionados were arguing 
that anyone complaining is just a whiner and it's really not a problem after 
all. I might have been reading into it. :-)

> I'm glad though that vim doesn't get too many whinning users about its 
> quirks that just work right once you use them.

Oh, they do. The difference, I think, is that the quirks in VI aren't 
arbitrary and unnecessary. :-)  I think if you hung out on an elisp 
programming group, you'd hear lots of flamage of vi.

There are several things VI does (and always has) that bug me, but if anyone 
changed it, I'd be completely screwed, because I've trained myself to avoid 
the problem. (Sort of like what would happen if you put the control key back 
where it belongs at this point.)

-- 
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 12/18/09 13:20, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> who remembers the time when this was not the default behavior of apps.
>
> Dude, the guys who invented menus did it this way. It has never *not*
> been the way to do it. :-)

	So tell me: How do you right click on a Mac?

>> 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?"
>
> Those are subjective. Following the Windows standard makes it easier to
> learn for windows users.

	Look, I agree Blender's interface is horrible. No arguments there. But 
I don't feel deviating from a standard is bad in and of itself. Learning 
a slightly different interface is not a major deficit.

-- 
Row, row, row your bits, gently down the stream...

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On 12/18/09 14:45, Darren New wrote:
> Oh, they do. The difference, I think, is that the quirks in VI aren't
> arbitrary and unnecessary. :-) I think if you hung out on an elisp

	Hence the two questions in my other post. ;-)


-- 
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On 12/18/09 13:22, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> On 12/17/09 10:22, Darren New wrote:
>>> But yeah, you have to use it, and when you stop it goes away again,
>>> because there's no mnemonic way of using it. (Unlike wordstar, whose
>>> keyboard commands I still remember 30 years after I stopped using it.)
>>
>> Really? In 1979?
>
> Yeah. I used it from 79 to about 84 or so.

	Fair enough ;-)

	What did you use before Wordstar, though. If WS was your first major 
word processor, that may be why you remember the keybindings.


-- 
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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Dude, the guys who invented menus did it this way. It has never *not*
>> been the way to do it. :-)
> 
>     So tell me: How do you right click on a Mac?

What has that to do with what we're talking about?

>     Look, I agree Blender's interface is horrible. No arguments there. 
> But I don't feel deviating from a standard is bad in and of itself. 
> Learning a slightly different interface is not a major deficit.

Agreed on all three points.  If it's designed for professionals and hard to 
use without practice, sure. I can't think of any programmer that uses 
something like Notepad to write code.

-- 
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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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     What did you use before Wordstar, though. If WS was your first major 
> word processor, that may be why you remember the keybindings.

No, it's because they were actually intuitive. I used about three other 
screen editors at the same time, but wordstar is what stuck.

Heh. Googling for it shows that KDE and EMacs and a number of others support 
wordstar keyboard bindings still.

-- 
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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Darren New wrote:

> I can't think of any programmer that uses something like Notepad to write code.

{...Shuffles back into the corner...}

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

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Darren New wrote:

> There are several things VI does (and always has) that bug me, but if 
> anyone changed it, I'd be completely screwed, because I've trained 
> myself to avoid the problem. (Sort of like what would happen if you put 
> the control key back where it belongs at this point.)

Heh. Kind of like the Java code that's *designed* to work around the 
bugs in the standard APIs, and actually breaks if Sun fixed them...

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

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Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> Darren New escreveu:
>>> 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.

Then buy an Optimus keyboard. I'm sure someone must have made a Blender 
layout for it. :)

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 12/18/09 13:20, Darren New wrote:
>> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>> who remembers the time when this was not the default behavior of apps.
>>
>> Dude, the guys who invented menus did it this way. It has never *not*
>> been the way to do it. :-)
> 
> So tell me: How do you right click on a Mac?

You press the right mouse button, if your mouse has one. Or you hold Ctrl 
while clicking.

Or, on modern laptop Macs, you can click while another finger is on the 
trackpad (if that mode is enabled). Or click on the bottom right corner of 
the trackpad area (if that mode is enabled).

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>> I believed I tried it also, and it was similarly non-intuitive to 
>> operate. 
> 
> You know, I thought they were all unintuitive until I played with it a 
> bit and figured out the operations.

Other modellers I've used seemed reasonably intuitive (once you grok the 
basic way the abstractions work). It's only really Wings and [now] 
Blender that seem baffling.

Then again, I don't think The GIMP is especially user-friendly...

> Really, go thru (say) the 
> gingerbread man tutorial, or the "create a blue alien guy" tutorial, and 
> then suddenly it seems to make sense.

I made a gingerbread man. (Not that it looked remotely like the example 
picture, mind you.) It's nice that you can put 6 cubes together and get 
something that vaguely approximates a recognisible object, but it still 
doesn't really tell me how you're supposed to construct the ludicrously 
complex shapes everybody claims you're supposed to be able to put 
together in 30 seconds flat...

>> (But I don't recall it having any documentation, whereas Blender 
>> clearly does.) 
> 
> It has an entire 130-page textbook it comes with.

Really? I had no idea. When I installed it, it didn't seem to provide 
any documentation. (Unlike Blender, which has a big "help" button on it 
even if you're too daft to notice the prominent links right there on the 
website you just downloaded it from...)

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

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Heh. Kind of like the Java code that's *designed* to work around the 
> bugs in the standard APIs, and actually breaks if Sun fixed them...

Yep, that's exactly the why you can talk all you want about "upward 
compatible changes" and how to write version numbers and all that, and it's 
still not going to work. Hence MS's "side by side" stuff.

In particular, in vi, moving the cursor left after you insert something is 
*wrong* but also the sort of thing that I've found breaks my fingers in the 
version I found where they'd "fixed" that.

-- 
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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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> There are several things VI does (and always has) that bug me, but if
>> anyone changed it, I'd be completely screwed, because I've trained
>> myself to avoid the problem. (Sort of like what would happen if you put
>> the control key back where it belongs at this point.)
> 
> Heh. Kind of like the Java code that's *designed* to work around the
> bugs in the standard APIs, and actually breaks if Sun fixed them...

Two words: CSS hack.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> together in 30 seconds flat...

I don't think people say 30 seconds.

>> It has an entire 130-page textbook it comes with.
> 
> Really? I had no idea. 

That's because you never tried google. :-)
http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/project/wings/manual/1.6.1/wings3d_manual1.6.1.pdf


-- 
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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>> Heh. Kind of like the Java code that's *designed* to work around the
>> bugs in the standard APIs, and actually breaks if Sun fixed them...
> 
> Two words: CSS hack.

One word: hack.

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

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>> I can't think of any programmer that uses something like Notepad to 
>> write code.
> 
> {...Shuffles back into the corner...}

I know of lots of other types like Andrew who enjoy being miserable 
while editing code.

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"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:4b2ba981@news.povray.org...
> On 12/18/09 01:32, scott wrote:

> 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.

It's not a matter of liking this or that. I'm not crazy about driving on the
right or 110V. And it was a bad old time when software did not follow UI
standards - I don't remember having to learn hundereds of different and
incompatible key combinations fondly. Standards are, most of the time,
somewhat arbitrarily established. But them's the standards, and makes life
easier for all if followed.

> 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?"

Yes it is, and it's hard to retain, when everybody else follows a standard.
If one's life revolves around Blender, that's different, but many
professionals and amateurs alike use several different applications to get
their work done. Switching between them is no fun when they all implement
arbitrary interfaces and try to be overly clever or cute.

> and "Is their choice of deviating from the
> standard efficient?"

No, hardly. No matter how efficient or consistent Esperanto may be, if you
speak Esperanto on your establishment and everybody in the country speaks
English, it's not efficient when you consider the big picture, even if it
might be efficient for those who never leave the office.

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] nospam-gmailcom> wrote in message
news:4b2c0883@news.povray.org...
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> > Darren New wrote:

> >> I can't think of any programmer that uses something like Notepad to
> >> write code.

> > {...Shuffles back into the corner...}

> I know of lots of other types like Andrew who enjoy being miserable
> while editing code.

I think he enjoys being miserable.

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>>>> I can't think of any programmer that uses something like Notepad to
>>>> write code.
> 
>>> {...Shuffles back into the corner...}
> 
>> I know of lots of other types like Andrew who enjoy being miserable
>> while editing code.
> 
> I think he enjoys being miserable.

Or rather, sometimes Notepad is the only thing installed. :-P

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

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On 12/18/09 14:57, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>> Dude, the guys who invented menus did it this way. It has never *not*
>>> been the way to do it. :-)
>>
>> So tell me: How do you right click on a Mac?
>
> What has that to do with what we're talking about?

	I was pointing out that it's not that much of a standard.


-- 
Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help 
the rabbit.

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On 12/18/09 15:39, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>> So tell me: How do you right click on a Mac?
>
> You press the right mouse button, if your mouse has one. Or you hold Ctrl
> while clicking.
>
> Or, on modern laptop Macs, you can click while another finger is on the
> trackpad (if that mode is enabled). Or click on the bottom right corner of
> the trackpad area (if that mode is enabled).

	Umm...Sure. My point was that using the right mouse button to get a 
menu isn't always expected - given that most Mac users (at least that I 
know) don't even have a right mouse button.

	Of course, perhaps bringing up Macs was a bad idea, since I think 
software on it follows standards more rigorously than on Windows.

-- 
Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help 
the rabbit.

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On 12/18/09 17:58, somebody wrote:
>> 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.
>
> It's not a matter of liking this or that. I'm not crazy about driving on the
> right or 110V. And it was a bad old time when software did not follow UI
> standards - I don't remember having to learn hundereds of different and
> incompatible key combinations fondly. Standards are, most of the time,
> somewhat arbitrarily established. But them's the standards, and makes life
> easier for all if followed.

	None of which is disputed. I'd just add a sentence: "Sometimes life is 
made easier if a standard isn't followed".

>>  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?"
>
> Yes it is, and it's hard to retain, when everybody else follows a standard.

	Not monolithically. Blender's may suck, but I refuse to take as an 
axiom that all such apps that don't follow some aspect of the standard 
make learning difficult.

	Here's a hint: In many games, the right mouse button has nothing to do 
with menus. Few complain about them being hard to learn.

> If one's life revolves around Blender, that's different, but many

	I wasn't talking about Blender.

>> and "Is their choice of deviating from the
>> standard efficient?"
>
> No, hardly. No matter how efficient or consistent Esperanto may be, if you
> speak Esperanto on your establishment and everybody in the country speaks
> English, it's not efficient when you consider the big picture, even if it
> might be efficient for those who never leave the office.

	Let's not jump to extremes. Learning another language is much more 
difficult than small deviations from the standard.

-- 
Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't help 
the rabbit.

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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> 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
> 
> 
> 
Well... Yes and no. Problem here is I want to export the "mesh" UV map, 
with the color overlayed, so that when I take it into a more complex 
application, which I can use real image editing, etc. on, I can see, 
generally, where things where in the 3D version. Closest you can 
probably get is to export the vertex paint map, and the mesh map, 
separate, then overlay them in the application. Depending on which sort 
of export you use though, this isn't going to necessarily work.

Actually, better idea would be something that let me treat the 3D 
surface as a canvas, while still *using* the tools from something like 
Paintshop Pro. I am sure there is something out there, in the $500-$1000 
range that supports this, maybe, but for the rest of us... All you have 
is exporting of the edge lines, in one of several forms, and *trying* to 
match what ever you are editing on the image to those lines. 
Unfortunately, in something like PSP, you are stuck with the flat 
version, unless you hand draw everything, because it has no awareness 
that the lines define curvature, so you can't bend your textures to fit 
the shape. Tools to do that, for the most part, don't exist, except, 
again, in the same high-level apps that probably already work with 3D.

Given what I do most 3D in, most of my time is spent making things 
"look" like they have more structure than they do, without being *able* 
to add real geometry. This puts me in a conundrum. Either I have to 
unwrap something into a flat surface, then apply details, which is 
frustrating, since its hard to tell which bits you are working with, 
or.. a better solution would be some way to take a "real" 3D result, 
warped to fit the "shape" I need, then applied that way. Needless to 
say, while POVRay's camera system is real neat, it doesn't have a "make 
a camera whose lens looks like an entire {insert general shape of the 
object needed}. lol I can't think of a good way to manage that, at least 
not with anything that has any sort of complexity. A sphere, cylinder, 
or other simple object, fine, you just make it reflective, sit the 
camera in the middle, with 360 degrees of view, then make the object you 
are trying to "copy" have no image. All you get is the reflection. But 
something with dips, bumps, or other complex shapes? Just really doesn't 
work, in most cases.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> range that supports this, maybe, but for the rest of us... All you have 
> is exporting of the edge lines, in one of several forms, and *trying* to 
> match what ever you are editing on the image to those lines. 
> Unfortunately, in something like PSP, you are stuck with the flat 
> version, unless you hand draw everything, because it has no awareness 
> that the lines define curvature, so you can't bend your textures to fit 
> the shape. Tools to do that, for the most part, don't exist, except, 
> again, in the same high-level apps that probably already work with 3D.
> 
> Given what I do most 3D in, most of my time is spent making things 
> "look" like they have more structure than they do, without being *able* 
> to add real geometry. This puts me in a conundrum. Either I have to 
> unwrap something into a flat surface, then apply details, which is 
> frustrating, since its hard to tell which bits you are working with, 
> or..

Some reasonable seam choices plus AO baking seem to do the trick to me. 
  They make a good work of providing good references for when you begin 
editing the UV map later on a bitmap editor.

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On 18-12-2009 21:45, Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> No need for sarcasm, they are obviously tackling common complaints.
> 
> Only because earlier it sounded like some Blender aficionados were 
> arguing that anyone complaining is just a whiner and it's really not a 
> problem after all. I might have been reading into it. :-)

You might ;)
I have been using blender for some time now and I never complained, I 
think. For me it does not matter much if something is intuitive or not, 
if it is, the key bindings will become reflexes in two weeks, if not: 
three. What is the point if you are using it for many years? And yes I 
am using the hardcoded alt-mouse movements to turn my 3D objects in 
Marlab and that invariably fails.

Ok, that is not completely true. It was my second attempt. First one 
failed because I couldn't get long enough motivated. Partly because of 
the UI and partly because 3D sculpting is inherently difficult with a 
lot of knowledge that got into it to make it simpler. E.g. an edge loop 
was not something I was familiar with before that. The main reason, 
however, was of course that I did not need it, it was just for fun. 
Second time I really needed a 3D mesh manipulation tool.

So, If you need 3D modelling, Blender is OK, with this or a better UI. 
If you want to attract a new group of users, changing the UI to comply 
to standards developed after the first implementations of Blenders 
ancestors is a good idea.

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