1st is grouping- grouping in this program does not work like in other programs and I don’t really know what the point of it really is. I use grouping a lot in my modeling workflow for organisational reasons, manipulating multiple objects under one group including its translation, as well as being able to select and isolate a portion of my model at any given click of a button. Maya, Max and even Zbrush has a form of doing this without having to join the model or parent.
2nd is pick walking- May not be important to many but I was curious if this was a function in blender somewhere. Pick walking in Maya or max allows me to select one vert and with the use of the arrow keys I can select the neighboring vert within the direction of the arrow keys.
This helps when modeling and needing to adjust verts on a dense mesh without attempting to select them manually. I could not figure out how to do this so if anyone knows this would be a great help.
3rd UI configuration- I like the changes in the UI, but I was curious if there was a way to configure the tool bar and tabs horizontally at the top of the screen? Just a way to switch it if I so please.
Why? Well I think it would be cleaner if when I hit T it appeared at the top as just tabs with a drop down and sub categories. Just as an option anyways to give more real estate when working in Blender.
4th Active mat cap selection- I like having everything use the matcap, but I found it useful to know instantly what I had selected in huge seen by having the matcap completely change the material of what I selected. Is there a way to turn this option on.
5th- a universal manipulator. I saw an addon for this but it seems to not work at the moment. Just reaffirming that this was a good tool.
Also is there a GOZ for Blender?
I am not bagging on Blender and really love what I have been able to accomplish thus far in blender but the first thing on my list is my truest complaint. The rest are nice to haves and some of you may have solutions for these, but the grouping thing for me bothers me a ton!
Dupligroups make duplicating or linking object sets really, really simple. If you want classic grouping functionality, you have to just parent everything to an empty. On a side node, this is essentially all the group command in Maya does. It just streamlines it a bit.
#3, currently no way to put the N or T panels at the top/bottom of the screen. Sorry.
#4. I don’t think so? When matcaps were first implemented they only affected the active object. I think when global-matcaps were added, they just got stuck that way. Might be a nice feature.
#5. See those icons at the bottom of the 3D view that set whether the manipulator is in translate, rotate, or scale mode? You can shift-select those and have more than one on at a time.
1st is grouping- grouping in this program does not work like in other programs and I don’t really know what the point of it really is. I use grouping a lot in my modeling workflow for organisational reasons, manipulating multiple objects under one group including its translation, as well as being able to select and isolate a portion of my model at any given click of a button. Maya, Max and even Zbrush has a form of doing this without having to join the model or parent.
That is correct, grouping in Blender is inferior.
2nd is pick walking- May not be important to many but I was curious if this was a function in blender somewhere. Pick walking in Maya or max allows me to select one vert and with the use of the arrow keys I can select the neighboring vert within the direction of the arrow keys.
Try the EWOC blender addons. One of the tools there works in a similar way. It’s not updated for 2.70 yet though. Alternatively ctrl-click to path-select.
3rd UI configuration- I like the changes in the UI, but I was curious if there was a way to configure the tool bar and tabs horizontally at the top of the screen? Just a way to switch it if I so please.
There is no way at the moment, except for manually scripting in python.
4th Active mat cap selection- I like having everything use the matcap, but I found it useful to know instantly what I had selected in huge seen by having the matcap completely change the material of what I selected. Is there a way to turn this option on.
Currently matcap turns on for all objects. To quickly find the currently selected object, use the View Selected command.
5th- a universal manipulator. I saw an addon for this but it seems to not work at the moment. Just reaffirming that this was a good tool.
on the first one- grouping in blender is more like “tagging”. You are tagging objects in a scene , so later you can refer to them when you render for example- for a render pass. Or when you use a simulation. Or when you need to reference/append them from another blend file.
The easiest way to emulate maya like grouping in blender is to just parent your stuff to an empty and treat the empty as if it is a group.
I wish blender had the ability to do all that work automatically with a keyboard shortcut (make selected objects children to an empty that it created upon issuing the command). Its one of those things that maya users would appreciate more than anyone else.
Pick walking- it is certainly a nice feature in maya. Recently blender got the ability to “grow” and shrink a selection.
There is currently no way to edit the tabs in the toolbar and the toolbar is vertical. There are however extra features that are to be considered in the future. Jonathan Williamson has them in his “tabs” wiki page. Somebody needs to fish the link out.
As to the reason- monitor screens are wide, but not very tall. So vertical space is precious. Humanoid characters are more tall than they are wide, so vertical space is precious if you are working with characters.
on the matcaps- Not sure on that one. It would be nice if it was optional. I guess blender devs dont want to clutter the ui.
no GOZ for blender, but there is a plugin for 3d coat.
EDIT: well what do you know, there is a GOZ for blender.
thanks for above post for sharing it while i was typing this
Do you guys think that blender’s command for grouping should be renamed to “Tag” ? and call it “tagging”?
This threw me off at first and it seems to throw off most other people who are used to the idea that a group is a folder that parents objects in the outliner.
That is how photoshop layer groups act as well.
Is there really any other 3d software out there that refers to the word “group” the same way as blender does?
In Blender groups are used to put a set of objects under a category, and are mainly used for stuff that is linked (referenced) from another file. For example, you have a mech model made up of many little details, and importing 1 or 3 of those as a prop in a scene for a character to bump into is normally a major hassle. Well, with groups you just import the group and it places a “Group Instance” - basically an Empty gizmo that has everything from that group attached to it and can be moved around, cloned etc. You can add a group instance locally, but it not of much use since its not editable and means having a duplicate around .
In your case, if you want to “glue” a set of objects together for easy translation, better just parent them to eachother, or to an Empty. If you want to “Isolate” an object, press “/” on the Numpad and it will hide everything that’s not selected. Press “Numpad /” again to exit. Alternatively you can use H and Alt+H to hide/unhide stuff. To select all objects that share a similar trait to the selected one (like same group, same mesh data , same material), use Shift+L.
3rd UI configuration- I like the changes in the UI, but I was curious if there was a way to configure the tool bar and tabs horizontally at the top of the screen? Just a way to switch it if I so please.
Customization of hotkeys, colors etc. is done from the user preferences menus, but if you want to customize the panels, pop-up menus and stuff like that, you’ll have to edit the python scripts these panels are auto-generated from. It’s not that hard, but having to replace python files every time you update blender is no fun. No harm in trying it though - personally, i use a custom-written pop-up menu with favorite functions that opens up with a rightclick.
5th- a universal manipulator. I saw an addon for this but it seems to not work at the moment. Just reaffirming that this was a good tool.
What the others already said, shift-click the buttons and make your own combined manipulator. This works with the Vert/Edge/Face buttons too - like if you want to select and move a single vertex and a face at the same time.
thank you guys for the responses. I will try what you guys have mentioned above. Some of these things I did not no of.
I have googled this before asking and have installed that addon, but it was not working and I just realized that it may not be working because this is a new release in blender.
Growing and Shrinking selection I have tried but it works a bit diferently. What I am looking for is when I select a vert and hit arrow or plus sign it deselects the previous vert and then selects the next one in line. the grow and shrink seems to select a cluster of verts which is also helpful, but not exactly what I am looking for.
@blurymind- you are correct. this is very confusing and I have used a multitude of software before coming to blender. I will try the parenting to a empty though. Its not quick but I guess it works for now.
pardon me to hijack a bit, I have a question to the other direction, going from blender to maya (not permamently, just trying the trial). Is there any way in maya to transform with shortcuts like in blender? (g+x+num), maybe a plugin … or the only way is to use the manipulator?
Maya is very click, menu, and manipulator heavy. There are a few plugins (http://rd3d.com/dtools/?page_id=29) that help to make the modeling workflow of Maya less… strenuous… but overall Maya isn’t the most artist friendly modeling suite by any means.
@mzprox- I wouldn’t say maya was strenuous. What I would say though maya, max, modo and cinema kind of act in similar ways. They are mainly revolved around the qwerty keys for manipulator tool and translation. It is more menu driven, but the menus are set in a more ergonomic way so that you can find things easier.
To quickly answer your question though, No not that I know of. If manipulator is selected you can either move it manually by selecting handles, you can also again after object is selected hit cntrl A until you get into the attribute editor and either type your numbers there in the translate, scale or rotate regions. Also in that same menu you can click on the words translate X for example or X and Y and middle mouse drag in the viewport to move the object.
I hope that makes sense, if not just let me know. Maya controls are the more standard among the industry so once you learn that, you will have a good idea on how to use all the other software that exist commercially. Blender is unique in its controls and terminology, but that’s not what holds it back, because to tell you the truth I get why things are set up the way they are and I think it is very useful in some ways. The UI and some of the terminology is what needs more development, which I believe has already been brought to light.
I am not a fan of Maya and I do think Blender is quite a bit more thoughtful and efficient in its UI. But being able to select ‘next element’ is something that would make keyboard intensive tasks - like weighting - something like one billion times faster. :evilgrin:
The arrow keys are useful for fine adjustment… so maybe with a modifier key?
I can see a smart version of this being used to step through parallel loops and rings very usefully as well.
As for the manipulator - Maya - and a Maya user - is seriously slowed down by dependence on it. Blender’s KB shortcuts make for a much smoother workflow. The only use for it in Blender is as an indicator of normal directions and custom orientations.
I disagree with you there, translation along two axes is way more cumbersome when using the keyboard. The manipulator’s biggest advantage is that it lets you pick an axis right away - for example clicking on the x axis, typing “90” and letting go of the mouse is way faster then pressing R, then X, then 90, then Enter.
“The manipulator’s biggest advantage is that it lets you pick an axis right away” so does a keyboard, and you don’t have to move your mouse to do it. And with the manipulator you have to switch between modes for loc/rot/scale. But it’s all personal preference really. The manipulator slows me down, I’ve had it disabled ever since I started using blender.
The good thing about the Blender manipulator is that you can turn it on and off with a simple keyboard command. As for “switching between modes for loc/rot/scale” – nope, just turn them all on at once and all 3 are readily available on one manipulator, as has been stated several times here.
I don’t know why people have such a problem with the way Blender does things; I guess it’s just… different from the way everyone else does it, so that makes it wrong? To me, it’s an easier setup to use than having to click a hundred menus or switch through a billion tabs to find the command you want. Why do you think Maya implemented the pie menus configuration? Because people complained about having to search through all those menus and tabs to find out how to select 1 vertex.
Add that custom transforms are easier to see when using the widget when all options are turned on, and you get a better visual feedback experience when switching between custom transforms.
Thank you guys who have answered my questions. It has helped me a lot. I don’t prefer manipulator over blender’s method I just needed for something I was doing. I do think though having the option of the active matcap and pick walking would definately be an awesome thing though, but my main thing was the grouping. I rather enjoy working in Blender, but there are a few things I am still trying to adjust to.
Please lets not start any fanboy wars. Between Maya and Blender I don’t care what I use if it gets the job done. No one said Blender was wrong in anyway or because they don’t follow the norm they must be wrong, but UI is a general thing and is one of the most important things. When it comes to software and websites many people will not spend more than 5 sec on a site if it is not layed out in an intuitive manner. In the end it is all about user experience just as much as it is capability.
And I have been using Maya since 3 and professionally since 5. Since I remembered the pie menu has been there so please only speak on what you know. Coming to Blender for the first time I had no intention of learning KB shortcuts but to play around in it and see what I could do. That was not possible for me instead I had to learn the short keys and change my user preferences before I could even manage to start. I love the modelling workflow in Blender but I had enough patients to learn it through my busy schedule and adjust the UI to my liking as much as I could. I hated the fact that I had to spend my first adventures in Blender doing tutorials on how to setup Blender to something I could use. And then I spent the next stages of my journey relying on the search to help me find things, ( which I am grateful that feature existed) but was not a fast way of modelling for the first time out.
Blender does not need to be like any other software It just needs to have a more engaging and intuitive default UI (which many people have already agreed on) and when you are ready to take off the training wheels and rely on shortcuts then you can do so with confidence. The Blender team did a great job roughing out a killer program and now it needs the polish.
Doesn’t matter what the product is there is a certain element of design, psychology and science that goes into a product to make it great. Visual things use design and or User interface layout and physical things use ergonomics, layout and materials. Hope this is not taken out of context. I love Blender and this is why I give my 2 cents.
