Giving Up on Blender

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41

I was actually close to give up on Blender because I got tired of bad documentation broken plug-ins/scripts and lack of features.

I am also working in education. I use Blender as a subdivision surface modeler for product design and concept exploration.

However with the introduction of BMesh and Cycles render engine I found that Blender quite sufficiently now fits the needs of what I would like it to be.

As for teaching a simpler software would be nicer, the interface is still a struggle to the students increase the learning curve. But on the other side once you know the subject matter it is an incredible product and all this broken UI talk right now seems to be baby cries.

This week I introduced my students to product rendering with Cycles material generation 3D painting and they were quite impressed with what you can do - but they also expressed a certain level of exhaustion because you need to learn a lot to get far in 3D.

There are much easier 3D render tools out there but they cost around 1k most times are not faster and actually in terms of productivity less capable. I teach Blender not as a modeler or render tool.

In my lectures I stress the workflow and process I use as a designer so I connect certain design aspects or needs into Blender and how I can solve them there.

Really proper tutoring is key to make Blender a success. And if make a foam model and paint on it or sculpt a model and paint on it in 3D is the same, just different tools.

For me it is maybe a love and hate. A simpler interface could be easier for beginners but more limiting for advanced. And in my opinion students to often want something fast to execute an assignment without really strengthening their understanding and toolset.

Also the form of the educational system is important as I in Germany was given to study on my own and here in the USA the students are in my opinion overloaded with too much work and not given enough time to study and experiment. Failure is often a great learning experience as well.

So while the interface might make learning harder in the beginning because there is also just a lot to learn first before you can do something meaningful, if a student is really motivated then the tool will be a jewel in their toolset.

I also have the luck that at my department we do not teach a software so a company gets a student who learned their software. I teach a workflow that uses multiple software packages together and Blender is one. So again it is process/workflow orientated.

I strongly believe that once you understand how technology works the software you later need to use does not matter. When I started to teach Alias Automotive my Rhino and Maya background helped me to get into the software in 4 days.

42

+1000 I was so happy to see the tool menu when 2.5 came out, but so disappointed when I found out that it was broken (yes I used that word). It is definitely not a priority as it’s been how long since 2.5 came out? And it’s not like the developers don’t know about it:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Brecht/UI

Look under the “Tools” section.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Blender, I just wish it was more convenient for me to use. I have supported BF by donations and by purchasing things from the store, etc. But I have stopped because I just don’t see any forward movement on the things that are important to me. Maybe with Andrews videos and nudging BF will start working on the UI again. I just spent $130 on the Octane plugin for Blender, so I’m a bit committed to Blender now.

43

This leads me to ask the question, what exactly was it that got the devs. to recognize the need to get Bmesh and end the malaise suffered by the modeling area, was it the fact that they finally recognized the need for the system if Blender was to see improvement to its modeling tools, was it the fact that the progress they anticipated didn’t happen so it was taken over from Joeedh, was it the fact that the lack of progress threatened to throw Blender into the same level of obscurity and avoidance by professionals as the GIMP?

Today, Blender is not in the same level of danger that it faced before when it comes to suffering the same fate as nearly every other creative FOSS projects, but the lack of interest in making regular UI improvements seem to enforce the stereotype that the FOSS developer generally doesn’t care about how the tools are presented (nonetheless consistency). In my opinion, this is one of the few major things that might cause Blender to scream FOSS (which is due to shared problems and the sentiments of their developers and users, something which might be regarded as being of even lower standard than crippled freeware offerings).

Now if the UI development team does not come into fruition and UI patches not accepted, than we might as well cease all discussion on the UI because we’re all just talking to a brick wall, the message to Ton in contrast would be to let that not be the case, that the way the devs. listen to the user community would not send users screaming to Autodesk shouting “Fleece me for the privilege of using slowly-developed apps, I beg of you. Please take all my money, and my house, because it’s better this than dealing with the Blender Foundation”

I know, might be dramatic, but then again it wasn’t until after 6+ years of threads discussing why Blender is falling behind with no Ngon support and a render engine with GI before we got them.

44

This being the first CG tool I’ve really used, I came in expecting something quite a bit more daunting. Unlike a lot of kiddies whom go in thinking this will be easy, I had the exact opposite mindset. Once I got past the heavily-used hotkeys, learning to manipulate my polygons, and a few other things, the only real blockade has now shifted to laziness.

45

theres so many kids under 14 that make good videos about blender

46

You mean this 99% of bullshit youtube videos out there that nobody really understands? That`s not a big help really. It scares away from Blender when you have to dig through tons of trash first to find the one useful tutorial.

I gave up on Blender regularly before 2.5. I tried several times. And even with 2.5 i had a hard time until i started to customize it. I could never work with the standard Blender GUI. This starts with the almighty RMB select and continues with the grey in grey surface where the eye doesnt find a single useful anchor point. Its a pain to search for a tool in this surface, even when you know where it is.

Open Source software is unfortunately nearly always a good example how to NOT make a GUI. Blender is no exception here.

Which leads us straight back into the UI debate. It`s everything but baby cries. The GUI is what makes a software.

A simpler interface could be easier for beginners but more limiting for advanced.

Why? Easier doesn´t mean more limited automatically. In most cases you benefit in the same way from a simplified interface and workflow , no matter if you are beginner or an advanced user.

47

I’m a firm believer in the KISS principle. I don’t see why anyone would need anything more complex than this to get a beginner started. Just because an expert knows what to pay attention to and what to ignore doesn’t mean that a beginner should be hit with the default interface layout from the get go. It’s madness (pedagogically speaking).

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48

It’s great that that minimal layout works for you. It is easy to setup and save a startup file in which that is the ‘default’ screen. That customizability is already built into Blender. File>new, close whatever panels are too much to look at, and save startup file. Next time you open that’s what you’ll see. I would sooner see a ‘solo’ button on each frame that does exactly the same thing as shift-enter but I guess there’s no way to get anyone to remember that shortcut…

Really disheartening to see so much customizability in the Blender interface just being ignored.

You want your students to use a certain look or only have a few frames in their default new file? Make a startup file that is exactly what you want and distribute it to them. English teachers now routinely provide their students a Word document formatted to be the exact style that they want all the essays or research papers for the year to be written in. They’re not asking Microsoft to hard code that document into the program, or even to make it a default offering.

49

Really disheartening to see so much customizability in the Blender interface just being ignored.

That`s not the cure for a bad standard UI. When you learn the software then you have to avoid customizations. Because then no tutorial will work anymore. You have to rely at the standard layout when you are new. Which is still cruel.

Customization comes at a later point, when you have already learned it. But even experienced users will use the standard layout because thats how they learned it. And thats how they communicate with other users. You will simply be lost with my custom layout.

And some crucial things are not or very hard to customize at the moment. Hotkeys for example. The names for the tools in the user preferences differs from the ones in the workspace. Happy guessing what tool is what. The tool to check for duplicated hotkeys is hidden somewhere in the search menu. I didn`t even know it exists before a few days, and have already forgotten the name again. Means no way to check for duplicated hotkeys for me. And this tool is reported to present useless results anyways.

On top of that i have to recreate my customizations again and again with every new version from scratch. Because the update always breaks something.

But yeah, i wouldn`t use Blender without the modifications to be honest :slight_smile:

50

I can use 2.49B version. But in my opinion
the new version has too much eyecandy on
interface, it has though good tracker and simulation
for smoke and fire, I have not used them though
since I use Shake software for tracking.

If I was starting now fresh on 3d I admit
that hopefully I would choose Maya, I cannot
give explanation on that coise though.

But Maya, NukeX a, Inferno and Eyeon fusion,
best ones. Then Blender.

51

I don’t recall seeing any introductory tutorials that would not work just fine with the ‘customized’ window layout above.

52

3d Computer graphics is hard,so it’s normal that not everyone arrives at the end of the learning process.
The field it’s not for everyone,like a lot of other fields.
it’s like wondering why not everybody can play a guitar well.

53

But it is a difference if you “just” learn the 3D bits, or if you need to battle with the UI and wicked workflows too.

Blender is like having a guitar with the strings being at other places, having a bend fretboard, and producing weird notes with some of the riffs which makes it necessary to use other riffs to sound similar to other software.

54

That’s not really true, and your personal opinion that people who quit Blender just weren’t dedicated or passionate enough is irrelevant to this thread.

55

Can you remember what broke the last time or any time? I’m just curious because I don’t think I’ve had to redo since Bmesh. Was that 2.65 I think. Naturally the huge changes then would require a lot of reassignments.

The names for the tools in the user preferences differs from the ones in the workspace. Happy guessing what tool is what. The tool to check for duplicated hotkeys is hidden somewhere in the search menu. I didn`t even know it exists before a few days, and have already forgotten the name again. Means no way to check for duplicated hotkeys for me. And this tool is reported to present useless results anyways.

Not challenging you, but I just thought I’d drop a tip for users having some difficulty with this naming issue - if the menu name for a command does not work, try typing the python name that shows in the tooltip into the preferences search box. Worst case scenario: ask on the forum. Someone will tell you quite quickly if a shortcut is possible, if it already exists, or where to find it. I do believe Richard Marklew and Sanctuary have every single line of that preferences dialog memorized.

Finally:

Blender is like having a guitar with the strings being at other places, having a bend fretboard, and producing weird notes with some of the riffs which makes it necessary to use other riffs to sound similar to other software.

Have you ever thought that you might be describing a piano?:smiley:

56

And just for a little laugh…

.

Not aimed at anyone. Or maybe aimed at everyone?

Edit: Well, I thought it was funny…

57

Can you remember what broke the last time or any time?

Mainly hotkeys. My custom hotkey for move broke for example with 2.69 again. With 2.68 it was some selfmade hotkeys for switching between selection methods. With 2.67 it was set positio nof 3D widget, which i have connected with alt. And so on. But also UI stuff like colours. I always try to use the “copy settings from previous versions” button, but as told, i nearly always end in recreating my customizations because something is broken. And then i start to recreate it because i can never say if it is the only thing that broke. The last time this worked without fixing was 2.62 or 2.63 when i remember right. But i had also problems with 2.56 and 2.57.

I´ve written of course more than one bug report about that. It`s not that i just moan :wink:

Not challenging you, but I just thought I’d drop a tip for users having some difficulty with this naming issue - if the menu name for a command does not work, try typing the python name that shows in the tooltip into the preferences search box.

This is in general a nice advice. But if i dont know the name, if i dont know the tool exists at all, what command do you recommend me to type in? :slight_smile:

Worst case scenario: ask on the forum.

This is the usual case unfortunately, not the worst case. For things that should be clear by the GUI.

Have you ever thought that you might be describing a piano?:smiley:

Heh, thats exactly the problem with Blender. Its different from any other 3D packages out there in too many areas. Even areas where it doesn`t make any sense :slight_smile:

58

Who are you to say that my opinion are irrelevant ?
I have the right to say what I want,when I want,where I want,clear?
And you have difficulties in understanding,because it’s not a matter or being passionate or not.
3d Computer graphics is hard(yes,it’s hard),even if you don’t think so.
Where do you find a field that needs both a technical knowledge (optics,physics,maths),and also some artistic skills(for sculpting,modelling,animating and painting texture)
The best example is the Cycles thread,where people have a lot of difficulties simply to mix 2 shader nodes to create a basic Fresnel reflection and you are saying that 3d computer graphics it’s not hard ?
It’s not always and UI issue.

59

It is hard just take a look at places like cgtalk, 3dtotal etc at the wip threads it takes a long time for people to become really proficient in 3d that is if the don’t give up before.

Irrespective of the program there is quite a lot of technical ground you have to cover before you can naturally and fluently express yourself.

The underestimation of how hard 3D is probably why the are so many whiny threads on blenderartists all the time.

60

Yes, I’m saying that 3D graphics are not inherently hard (despite anecdotes to the contrary), and that lofty armchair generalization isn’t important in a thread about individuals’ stories of quitting Blender. It’s glib and dismissive to call everyone’s failure stories mere “lack if dedication”.