Great, I totally approve this development plan 
Yeah actually that does sound like a useful thing actually…
Seems amazing!
UI: I am curious about it as industry is moving to open standard QT (Maya, Modo, Houdini etc). Perhaps it is something worth building upon?
QT does run with Blender (and im using it with a few hickups) however should UI be built on it you can potentially open endless possibilities from enabling artists to use QT designer to create their popups with ease(char rigs, obj libraries) to mayas Shelf like drag and drop enabled functionality, or dynamic control over opening/closing/resizing tabs/windows with python like Outliner in Maya. Many more possibilities ofc but also worth noting some of the advanced functionality like QT Painter (e.g vector based icons) that will further add to flexibility/possibilities that custom UI will likely never address.
Might be a bit of a big bite and rewrite given QT already more or less works, but I am just wondering what the gurus think.
Thank you
cgstrive: You can find an answer to that here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/AskUsAnything#Why_not_use_an_existing_GUI_toolkit.3F
Personally I think the stripped down Blender is a really good idea. It might breathe new life into the project like the Mozilla to Phoenix transition did, if anyone remembers. Mozilla was this everything possible and the kitchen sink approach to web. Phoenix project took only the bare essentials and made it fast and focused. It was a considerable improvement on people who only wanted to browse the web. Nowdays Phoenix goes by the name of Firefox web browser.
Maybe it’s not completely related but it’s why I think it’s a good move to make a stripped down Blender.
On the Blender 101 thing. Seems redundant to me. The software should already work in a most basic case scenario as well as a more advanced one. If there are weaknesses here, this should simply come as a general fix to the UI in general. And as true for a pro as it is for a beginner in configurability.
High school kids do not need things dumbed down. That is absurd. I remember taking photography classes. I don’t remember being given a pin hole camera and told “this is all your little brain can understand”.
A 3D app is a 3D app. Already by nature it allows you to focus on smaller simpler tasks.
I have taught Blender to young people who do not even speak fluid English. One for one they are able to pick it up in days and hours.
If Blender is not being accepted in schools it has nothing to do with needing a 101 version. Quite the opposite. It would be because parents and teachers don’t recognize it as a professional tool, the knowledge of which can be carried through to college where students are prepared for getting jobs in the workforce using industry standard software.
Offering a dumbed-down version of what is essentially a professional software is not going to help that perception in a climate where Autodesk products are free to all schools and students and are prevalent and accepted as the “industry standard” for getting work.
This was the situation I found myself in. Teaching kids who had learned Maya 3d Max etc.
I have learned Maya, and it is a complex tool. And not at all easier to learn than Blender.
Yet it is taught in school.
And the kids I taught Blender to had not used it ever or learned it ever for only one reason.
There are no jobs for Blender.
End of story.
(of course there are Jobs for Blender but not broadly and no parent will pay money to have it taught to their kids until this changes)
The preparation for this starts in high school these days.
And no, they don’t get the concept that skills from Blender will transfer over.
Actually, the issue is not that Kids need Blender 101, but teachers definitely need it to convince their board and colleagues that Blender is a viable program to teach to kids. Having a specialised interface, that allows quick switching back to a normal interface, should help with that a lot.
Anyway, this means UI improvements(and the storing of super-customised versions of Blender)! I though blender artists like UI improvements?
Forget about the term “dumbed down” and consider the term “streamlined”. The idea is not to teach a dumbed-down version to the next generation of Ubernerds, it’s to teach entire classes of teenagers the concepts behind 3D. You do want a streamlined version of Blender for that. Didn’t many of you watch Andrew Price’s UI proposal videos? There were a lot of good points in there.
The current UI makes some of the most basic things non-obvious and way more complicated than they need to be. I’d wager that even someone familiar with CG would have a hard time reproducing a basic phong-like shader in Cycles without dedicated instructions. Then there’s the heaps of advanced settings that, while necessary, are cluttering up the UI to the point where ordinary people just run away in horror.
Most importantly, having a separate version of Blender to experiment with a streamlined UI is going to sidestep the next great UI flamewar.
Even if you’re not interested in using it, having a version of Blender dedicated for public education is a chance to get some of that sweet sweet EU/government funding. I think we can all agree that having taxpayers fund our favorite software hobby is a highly desirable thing.
Yes, the point is not in having “Blender 101” itself, rather to make the UI configurable to an extent that would allow such setups. Right now it’s configurable enough for me, but more options are always welcome.
Blender UI improvements should not come as a “special case” scenario. It is just needed. Period. This will help all users.
The interface is there to support tools. And the Blender tools need to be improved to the point that more smaller and mid-sized studios will start to use it.
This will improve over time. And Blender will fall into more and more use.
But it won’t happen by impressing kids, parents and teachers how easy and simple the interface is.
It is not lack of awareness or understanding of Blender that is holding it back, it is the level of development of tools.
What the teachers and board are interested in when it comes to something like this is job skills. They are not going to be impressed with an interface if no one in the industry is using it. And parents are a huge factor here. Autodesk products are free. They are used across the industry. It is a no brainier to adopt these tools and have the kid spending time learning something that will transfer down the line.
The Blender interface should get attention to the degree it helps an artist perform his task better. And it should end there.
If someone has a crazy idea to put a Blender 101 into schools and the interface happens to allow this, great. But as long as the work into this is improving Blender over all with a priority on time spent making better tools.
Just look at Zbrush and Houdini. Top apps in their field are very different to learn.
The adoption of tools in the industry is solely on the level of development of the tools first and ease of learning second.
Ain’t you guys getting a little hang up on Blender 101. Sure the deliverable of that project is Blender 101 but the actual goal that they what to achieve is to make the UI as highly customizable as they can and to have tangible proof of that. So in the end you can say Blender UI is highly customizable and here is an example of what you can achieve.
So instead of Blender 101 they called have just as well picked Blender for animators.
EDIT
I see Pesho is saying the same thing I am
Andrew eventually admitted that none of the ideas and feedback where useful or could be implemented. He already apologized and the community has moved on from that.
The result was Blender got some attention. Some for the better and some not so much - frankly. It is a red herring.
UI enhancements are always welcome. They are being worked on at a lower priority where it should be and remain.
I don’t care what they do outside of improvement of tools. Configuration of an interface is always welcome in any app. But I’d rather time be spent making better tools.
If the interface helps me work better, great. Bring it on. But not at the expense of better physics, animation, handling of Mocap data and retargeting, etc etc etc.
You say that as if “all” or even “some” users could agree on what constitutes an “improvement”. You ask ten Blender users on their opinion on UI, you will get 10! different answers. The last time the default UI was touched was when tabs were implemented, something which was discussed ad nauseam (and in the end, it boiled down to developers just making a decision for everyone else).
What the teachers and board are interested in when it comes to something like this is job skills.
That’s bogus. Blender belongs to art or “liberal arts”, not “job skills”. You’re mixing up “education” with “job training”.
Andrew eventually admitted that none of the ideas and feedback where useful or could be implemented. He already apologized and the community has moved on from that.
When did he say that? He did backtrack on his original proposal after talking to a UX guy on his podcast. He shouldn’t even have listened to him too much, because UX research is still utter pseudo-science and that guy had no real expertise in a program like Blender.
A lot of his proposal could obviously be implemented, even if it was just saner defaults, clearer feedback and the streamlining of repetitive boilerplate work. It’s really telling something that developers can’t make a decision on something trivial (but important) like an Ubershader, while implementing much more sophisticated features without conflict.
I think this approach is a really good idea.
I don’t know if somewhere in the list there is already included something like this, but it would be great to have a revised render layer system with complete layer override like in maya. This is something that would increase production efficiency A LOT. I already asked about this and the answer was that it would be hard to implement in blender because of how things works right now. Maybe with this major overhaul it would be possible, so I propose it again.
To give you a quick idea this is something like this.
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Render layers are not viewport layer dependent. You can just add or remove objects (mesh, lights, whatever) individually from each render layer. This gives much more versatility compared to the actual system
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For each render layer it is possible to override ANYTHING. Just to give some example: per object material override, transform overrides, any value ÿou can think of override.
I am not a maya fan at all, but I have to admit that its render layer system is much better than blender’s.
only thing not mention
is there enough devs to do it as expected
might be good to find other dev to get involved and dedicated on the long term to help
happy bl
It belongs to both. All job training belongs to both in the field of the arts.
But primarily as of this writing, 3D software is mostly job training.
If you don’t believe me just go down and talk to parents when it comes to flipping the bill for an education. And talk to some administrators about the “purity of art” when they know well the reason the parents are flipping the bill is because they can guarantee their child a job at the end.
I talk not of ideals, but experience. I have hired college grads, and I know what their parents expect. I have seen this play out in my own family.
If we are talking ideals you and I agree whole hardheartedly.
But I am not talking about my personal opinions on the 3D industry. I am just reporting what I know to be true in the real world. The way parents see this and the way the education system is set up.
There are liberal arts, that is true. And I am sure we could discuss the finer points of grey areas and cross over when it comes to 3D 2D and multi-media presentations, performance art and so on.
But I am just making broad statements about education and why one software is a part of a curriculum where another would not be considered. And it comes down to job placement when we are talking 3D as an industry and educational educations that teach it as a skill.
That may be less true in 10-20 years. But not today. Not quite yet. VFX skills are primarily vocational.
His entire presentation at the Blender conference was predicated on the apology that most of his ideas were unworkable. Not just because of the guy he consulted. But due to the fact that as a scientific survey it was flawed and a whole host of reasons inside of that.
Of course people like me were trying to tell him that in the beginning. But he ignored all of our feedback and great points we brought up and went for a few sensational sound bites from people with little or no experience with Blender. One of them came right out of the middle of one of the threads I participated in over at LightWave.
I remember that post. Something about hazing… anyway.
It was sandwiched in between a thread ripe with real good information and feedback he completely and utterly ignored until talking to a “pro” and then had to come up with an entirely different presentation than the one he planned. It was more about what not to do when trying to get feedback than it was about the Blender UI.
And I give him credit for at least being honest.
But he could have saved himself all of the grief by not going into the situation with a preconceived outcome. Which is a basic don’t of science 101.
This sounds exciting and probably perfectly timed. I will miss Blender internal renderer though…
This doesn’t really apply. In Europe, parents aren’t “flipping bills” for their children’s primary education (except due to taxes) and extracurricular courses are largely non-vocational and free/affordable.
This may well be different in education approaches that are financed by scamming students out of lots of money for questionable education in popular fields like CG/VFX, but these students are not the target audience. The goal is getting (younger) teenagers of all backgrounds a taste of 3D, not training them to get a job.
His entire presentation at the Blender conference was predicated on the apology that most of his ideas were unworkable. Not just because of the guy he consulted. But due to the fact that as a scientific survey it was flawed and a whole host of reasons inside of that.
You claimed this:
“Andrew eventually admitted that none of the ideas and feedback where useful or could be implemented. He already apologized and the community has moved on from that.”
Maybe you should watch the presentation again. He does point out problems with his proposal following what he “learned” from the “UX Guy”. (We also could point out problems with the existing UI all day, couldn’t we?) He also presents a list of salvageable ideas from his proposal. He did backtrack from the survey, but he never made any claims of it being scientific. Of course it was hopelessly biased. But that doesn’t change the fact that his UI proposal had some very valid points to it. At no point did he completely retreat from it or say that it couldn’t be implemented. A great deal of it could be implemented, it just couldn’t happen without a huge shitstorm in the community.
And that is the reason why Blender 101 needs to be a separate project.