3 - As pointed out here and on other threads - the community has odd elements that often make an already unappealing product that much more ignorable.
I will say this in Blenders defense. These issues are mine. I have never actively and sought to find out how Blender may be an app that could actually be of use to me. I have never given the app the learning time it needs even though I have others. And I have never attempted to get to know the community and be a part of it. I can only surmise the reason with one adjective… it is simply unappealing. ( to me ).
grrinc is quite honest with his rejection. I see the same happen to students how produce bad work - they simply don’t invest time into something that just requires some time. Max Maya Modo they all have complicated in terms of power-full toolsets and UIs and nobody will learn them in 2 minutes you need to sit down and learn it.
That is ultimately the number one flaw of most users today because there are enough resources online in forms of tutorials to address that issue. This also includes the user form and asking questions.
LMR RMB needs to be addressed in a way that at least new users will be made aware of it when they start the software.
And this can be done through the same simple way Maya for example welcomes new users with some very basic interface and workflow tutorials.
That is where Blender as an app for new users really lacks.
That is where Blender as a product rather fails explaining itself to new users.
But Blender does not fail at being a productive tool at all nor is it broken.
Sometimes I get the feeling new users rather learn Maya simply because they know Maya is used a lot and thus have a motivator to concentrate on learning it - also using external learning resources.
And when a new person sees Blender well they ditch it because hey nobody uses it - or so they think…
That totally untrue, there was several artists users involved in the 2.5 redesign. Personally I think it turned out great, it was a huge improvement compared to 2.4x. The problem was that UI development pretty much stopped there, instead being refined and improved. That’s what I’m hoping will be next, not a complete overhaul and would bring other UI problems instead.
I don’t think we should create a UI for beginners/hobbists. Blender has a high end toolset and we should create the UI such usage. This does not mean the UI has to be illogical and hard to use. A good and logical UI will benefit professional users too. There is a big danger in dumbing things down to make it easier for beginners. I think a professional UI/application is what really what’s attracts beginners. I started with 3ds max back in the days because I saw a lot of cool artwork being made with it. “Used to create Tears of steel” is a much better sales pitch than “Easy for beginners”.
Most of us don’t really have time to do a research about the subject in a way that we can present a proposal in a video the way Andrew Price did. We’re just too damn lazy to do it and most of us don’t really have that kind of expertise. All we are really doing is pick and choose whatever part of the UI that concerns us forgetting the overall, unified layout that works as a whole and that will be beneficial to most users as well as developers.
First of all, the UI is about easy accessibility to features to accomplish the goal in a smooth and painless way. It’s what you see on the screen in conjunction with a pointing device. It’s the one you see in any new application you want to learn. You don’t immediately look for shortcut keys in it.
To me, there’s really nothing new in Andrew’s proposals. It’s what I was expecting, like context sensitivity via RMB popup menu is really about minimizing mouse travels. In more advanced UI’s like in CAD programs (Solidworks, Inventor, etc.) the app anticipates your next move, thus presents a small input box that appears and disappears right at the tip of the mouse cursor. But this is far too advanced for now. I’m just glad the BF is finally doing something about it and in the end all focus would be on features.
One thing that Andrew promises in his UI proposal is something that the current interface does NOT have in any shape or form that welcomes new users to try things out in blender for the first time- PRESETS and a built in ASSET LIBRARY.
A consistent and clear way to manage your assets in all departments. Modo has the “Presets” window. Maya has the “Visor”.
Blender has nothing to organise these assets or presets in one place properly. It is lacking many Presets that can demonstrate features.
Material presets- a repeatedly requested feature. Texture painting brush presets with brushes that use stencils and alphas and tiling textures from the ASSET LIBRARY. Is there a brush to show stencils, tiled texturing?
One of blender’s biggest weaknesses for me atm and one of the things that really undersell it’s existing features is the lack of assets to show these features quickly in action to new users. It takes too many steps to set a new brush with an alpha for sculpting or texturing and the texture’s palet is initially empty when you open blender- you have to manually import. The nice features are hidden that way to new users as there is no preset there. It’s a set of small tickboxes you have to find and scroll down to. In some cases its a process of many steps that is not clear before you watch a tutorial somewhere.
Same thing for materials in both BI and cycles. Imo setting something like a bumpmap to paint on or a texture to paint on , you have to do a lot of things and if you mess one up, if its not set to glsl, there are no lights, the material is not set properly, the texture is not set properly- doesnt work.You dont know whats missing when you’re new.
The “texture layers” plugin in blender sorts that out beautifully, but hey- only for those who know about it. 0% of the brand new users, who should have that on by default to ease their transition.
Blender’s current UI needs features to make it more welcoming to new users. PRESETS and example ASSET LIBRARY are needed to ease that transition.Examples should help too. It will get you a bigger server bill for the bandwidth though.
There should be two version of blender’s zip file or installer. One that is minimal- like the current one. Almost nothing in it. No alphas, no demo scenes, nothing.
One for first time users and users who like to start with something- packed full of goodies. Example scenes. Example materials. Alphas to use with the brushes. All the presets you have .
If Elubie can get the asset browser project finished (and then get full-fledged thumbnail functionality for materials and models) than it should take care of most of these concerns. (Newest commit).
Right now it doesn’t look like he has a lot of time, personally, I would support the idea of other devs. helping out to speed things up.
Besides Andrew Price spent some hard time on this, (wonderful presentation), I’m against these proposals.
If we gonna vote, I’ll explain why I’m against such proposals on blender UI.
I’ll say this. Blender is an open source app, it depends on this live coding. So, let’s make it easier to these developers.
What a newcomer has to face in blender is not my concern. I was a newbie, once upon a time. I lost my temper when trying to realize what left and right mouse buttons were doing. I agree, we can’t sacrifice a mouse button to just place the pivot point. An alt(ernative) + click is the obvious choice. On the other hand alt is devoted on the snap to front, left etc viewport positions. This should rather be a shift+click something, not an ALTernative.
But, you now, I don’t really care. I feel like home in blender, someone is trying to mess it now. Do what you have to, ladies and gentlemen. This is a democracy. I’ll try to be the first who will accept the new UI changes.
However, more important things are under development. More important parts of blender have to be re written. As the multires modifier is. As the VertexPaint is. etc etc
How we can talk on the UI without a stable and predictable solution on such blender parts?
Blender will always be under development. Try to understand how a UI could look like, under such an environment.
ok. so I am in edit mode. I press LMB and menu appears …
What menu?
All the items from Egdes menu
all items from Faces Menu
all items from Vertices Menu
All items from Specials Menu
all items from Add menu
all items from Delete Menu
all items from UV edit Menu
addons menus …
???
I need them all. Even newcomer will need them (deleting for example). What of this all menus all items is most frequently used?
How did Blender have to know which options will be most likely needed?
It would include the most basic and common actions such as deleting or extruding. Simple actions that everyone uses a lot every time they’re making something in Blender.
Of course we need all of the menus, but only the single actions that are preformed dozens of times whenever you’re working in Blender. And of course it would be based on the mode you’re in.
We should write an AI for Blender that polls your operations against “industry standard” procedures, then tells you to buy Maya, because, honestly, why are you losing your time with Blender?
Man i hate this proposal, no wonder people are on edge with the UI lately. Even 3dsmax has most of its functionality done from a panel on the right instead of the ugly ribbon. Didn’t we already establish from 2.4 that horizontal layouts are NOT a good idea when you have to cram in a lot of parameters in one place? This proposal looks neat and tidy only because most of the functionality has been stripped from it.
Most of the meat and potatoes of any function in that mockup are hidden under excessively large icons. When i want set a material, i’m rarely going to use those goofy “Wood” and “Metal” buttons. He talks about reducing clutter, but his proposal has these big Open/Save buttons constantly on display instead of the compact File menu we have right now. It’s also funny to think how he’s going to fit in things like the keymap editor in this half-baked proposal since there is no Info header now.
I think this is the wrong fokus.
While auto adaptive UI might be interresting, sorting menu items according to use frequency does not solve the no space left in gui problem. All options have to go somewhere (better fokus on bringing the often used back on top).
it would also be nice to have good old 2.49 popups back as an option for speed.
Overall blender should be clean and lightweight, not having a gui for beginners the rest does not have a use for and that teaches new useres bad habits. drag n drop tools on objects is unintuitive and contradicts blenders usual flow.
i would rather have the gui we have cleaned from all these little things, than having big new widgets.
On the other hand i think blender modes might become limiting, and one python controlled supermode would be nice.
(curves + mesh + particles)
to allow better tools as overcoat and bsurfaces and so on. Blender is already flexible, making it more flexible this way would make it stand out.
What’s up with all of these redundant threads based on subjects like UI proposals, UI Dicussions etc.?! I bet tomorrow 5 more threads about UI discussion will be made! If you have anything to say about the subject of UI- then make posts on the threads that already exist. I know some of you want to be cool and start your own ‘popular thread’ but seriously
:p:rolleyes:
Ok back on topic. Problems i see with BlenderGuru’s proposal.
a) No timeline visible… very key for animations… how does this come into play…
b) how do you bring up the node editor… he cuts to it a few times but how does it integrate with the current setup
c) the top bar is way to big. too much white space… he complains that sometimes he finds himself working in a small area… why dont you maximize the space then and make that bar smaller
d) it pretty much only shows the 3dview, how do you bring up say the sequencer? or the outliner? or how do you uv map?
e) how do you assign multiple materials to an object? is there a material list anymore? seems like its only one material per object now
f) what happens to the top bar when there are too many options to show… not everyone has a 1920x1080 monitor… not just that, some tabs (im looking at you particle editor) would be crazy to try and fit in the top bar without scrolling…
g) seems like all scripting has been removed… my workflow has significantly sped up since learning how to write simple python scripts…
to me this is just a concept… and if it were to be made like it currently is, it would turn into a very newbie friendly program… but would loose a lot of its current functionality.
This thread is for analysis on the the ui proposal by Andrew, preferably point by point with bullets as the OP asked. The other threads are too full of bickering to be objective, but several posts here are off topic and threaten to derail this thread, too.
ON TOPIC:
Custom layouts - I don’t see how the existing functionality is preserved to manipulate the window scheme to achieve my own uses without dropping the new ui altogether
It would be good to see how this proposal extends to the VSE, the Scripting window layout, the Animation layout, etc. since most of them make use of the Properties Panel.
Texture work with side by side 3d window and UV IMage editor -this is something I would question if the Tab Properties on top will help or hinder
I could go on, but I think that summed up is this: As a starter option, it might look good at first, but I don’t think it scales well, and it hides all the parts of blender that I need to access for my normal work. This is not to say there are some good ideas here, and the idea of a better preview of materials and the ability to drag- that woudl actually be cool as an improved window type in the Outliner, as a material window that allows dragging to objects in the view. Also, I think the Outliner could be given better control of the layers so that you could switch to a Layers window and be able to name them, as well as see the objects that are included in that layer.
Oh well, we will see how this all pans out - becasue in 10 years, Ibet we have a totally different program altogether
I just wanted to chime in here before this becomes a dog pile of yelling and screaming:
First of all, I feel like a lot of people are reacting emotionally to the word “Broken” and simply reacting defensively. we really do need to have a serious discussion about the Blender UI but people keep getting in here trying to defend the honor of Blender instead. They are taking as a personal insult rather than a suggestion for changing things to be more clear. Whether or not a complaint that’s been raised is valid, since it’s a complaint, it’s got to be whining. I feel like it’s really getting in the way of objectivity. Weather or not you like it, we need to have a constructive discussion about the UI and this is your chance to define the things that you like about Blender and don’t want to see changed. And, be clear about the things that you think would be helpful. If you are constantly arguing about general things and complaining about semantics, then we can neither move forward or stand still.
Also, all this fighting sends a clear message to the developers: Blender users are just a pack of animals and will never be happy so just ignore them and do whatever you feel is right. I think most of us can agree that most developers are not always good UI designers. So, its in all of our best interests to be constructive here. State exactly what you don’t like about Andrew’s proposal. Don’t just lash out at it in general or feel like you need to jump to the front lines of war against change.
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