Let me say this again…
This is the support forum. It is not the place for a back and forth discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) in Blender’s UI. Please use one of the many threads that already exist.
was that directed at me, fweeb…? because if it was, I can just take my thousands of posts in the support forum and be on my merry way.
Not at all… it’s the back-and-forth tail-chasing debating that I was mostly trying to address. It appears that there’s a real bug here that should be addressed and it would be a shame if that got lost amid a debate that’s been rehashed multiple times elsewhere on this site.
Ok, for a second there I thought you were saying humor was not allowed or something.
I come from a Lightwave background and yes, the transition can be painful. My advice however, stick with it, once you overcome a couple of preconceptions and accept you ned to “unlearn” some things, it is worthwhile.
The first thing I did was switch to LMB select, it made quite a difference to how I felt about using the interface. The keystrokes thing I gave up on, there simply didn’t seem an unpainful way to configure Blender to “feel like” Lightwave. Now I have accepted that, I find the Blender keystrokes are starting to lodge in my mind to the point I really have to think when I fire up LW for something and now find myself dropping back to Blender because it’s easier.
Patience is the key, once you’ve used it for a few hours per day for say a week, it does really start to gel. 
Oh, and that 3D cursor? Never got it, didn’t see the point of it at all, now, I find it so useful I can’t imagine why the likes of LW don’t have it! For snapping (rot/scale/move) it is the canines genitals.
Hi @veganymous; I understand completely what you say about the way Blender works and how frustrating it can be specially coming from other 3D software. I experienced the same and it took me several “install - try to learn it - get frustrated - uninstall - check again later - install - trying it again” situations over the years hehe.
Now, for work I’ve used Maya, Max, SXI and Zbrush sometimes (learning each software was a pain on its own, I must say). And I started to use blender as my “personal software” in my free time, mainly because I couldn’t afford the cost of a license just to have it installed in my home to create personal and portfolio pieces.
So, the first useful tip I got from the users that also came from other softwares was this: Change the default from RMB to LMB for selection (I still cannot understand what was the need to change this in the first place, but you can at least change it back).
Even if you don’t create your own shortcuts, just the LMB select makes one hell of a difference and will help you greatly as you make your way into Blender.
After you change that, the RMB is still annoying because you’re used to get a menu with it in any other software right? Well, as someone said before, it’s just a matter of muscle memory. It will take you maybe a week before you start to use the spacebar as a replacement of the RMB, and specially before you start to realize that the 3D cursor is actually very handy. But to get to that point you need to have patience and try to really learn how blender works.
When those 2 things start to feel more natural to you, the use of Blender will be easier and more fun. And in that process you also start to use the hot keys almost for everything. One example would be the modeling tools, if you try to model the same way you do it on Maya or Max, you will get the idea that modeling in Blender is awful, but if you start using the hotkeys for modeling you’ll soon find out that it is in fact a great set of tools; and you’ll be working faster.
Right now, almost for everything I do (work or personal), I use Blender for modeling and UV unwrapping, Maya for animation, and either Maya (Mental ray) or Blender (cycles) for rendering.
So my advice is this:
- Be patient!
- Don’t try to make it work as you want from the first time. Learn how Blender works first and then do the changes you think will make you feel more comfortable and work faster.
- Check the available addons out there, there are many things that will help you. (http://blenderaddonlist.blogspot.com/)
- And the most important of all: don’t mind the negativity you find on some of the users in the forum; this is a great community, but also one of the most hostiles I’ve seen when it comes to talk about cons of the software; maybe it is because a big chunk of the Blender userbase doesn’t know any other 3D software or haven’t used it extensively.
I hope it helps
The seems to be fixed. I don’t want to say this too loud because then it might occur again but after reinstalling Blender and playing with the window draw modes my viewport hasn’t frozen since then. Currently I have the window draw mode set to Automatic.
Because I don’t want to upset Fweeb, this is my last statement on that here.
I used Cinema4D in school and now for work it’s Maya. For a while I was contemplating with switching to Houdini (because I love nodebased workflows, if it’s done properly). Although I’m not a compositor I also was able to briefly get my hands onto Nuke and I’ve seen Zbrush and Realflow in action, liking them a lot. Everything I’ve seen and worked with so far hasn’t been even nearly as painful as Blender. So is it now me, being to unexperienced dealing with new softwares and their differnt designs or is there a slight possibility that Blender has some serious design issues?
I think if the rest of the software would be designed properly this LMB vs. RMB is my least worry. Although it indeed is pretty annoying.
I don’t have patience. I have work to get finished and a family to take care of. A tool that stands in the way between me and my work is not something I want to waste my time on. Don’t mix up the difference between learning something and getting used to something. 
I don’t doubt that some people benifit from Blenders all-shortcut-design, I don’t like the dictation to use shortcuts and that there is a shortcut for each and everything individually. A shortcut M, that brings up a menu with ALL modeling tools would already be an improvement. It’s still far away from what I call ideal but it’s still better than what it is currently. Extrude Region, Extrude Individual and Inset are three different tools/shortcuts to remember whereas in Maya this is all one tool which one can easily reach on several ways. And besides that some of the tools I discovered so far are also lacking in functionality. There are also functionalities that are better than in other softwares but not enough to compensate.
I’m glad to see that you’re not running into that glitchy freezing interface problem. Hopefully it stays away.
On the subject of familiarizing yourself with Blender (assuming that’s something you’re still interested in doing), something that’s often useful is realizing that there’s a core differences between Blender’s interaction model and the interaction model used in other applications. In a lot of other programs, it goes something like this: Choose Tool > Select Object > Execute (i.e. “grab hammer, hit thing”). In Blender, however, it starts with the object: Select Object > Perform Action > Confirm (i.e. “choose thing, change thing”).
This is a fundamental difference in approach. The advantage of the Blender model is a greater sense of immediacy; there’s less “stuff” between the artist and the object. Ultimately that gives the artist the ability to work very quickly. The trade-off for that immediacy, however, is a higher learning curve and a reduction in discoverability for those actions.
It’s this interaction model that’s often the biggest stumbling blocks for new Blender users who are used to picking their tool before picking where to apply it… and experienced Blender users don’t point out this difference to new users often enough. New users who are never told this are frequently left feeling that something is just weird and they can’t quite put their finger on why. But of the new users who are told this difference (or figure it out on their own), some find that they actually like Blender’s interaction model… or at least can tolerate it. Others find that they aren’t comfortable working that way and move on to other tools… but at least they know why.
nice wordings here
you should add this to the wiki page as intro
happy bl
Fweeb, I hope I am not derailing the thread by making such a remark but I have to admit that as a recent adopter of Blender I do not understand what you mean by this :
In a lot of other programs, it goes something like this: Choose Tool > Select Object > Execute (i.e. “grab hammer, hit thing”). In Blender, however, it starts with the object: Select Object > Perform Action > Confirm (i.e. “choose thing, change thing”).
From my experience in Max, Maya and others, at least for modeling (which I think is what we are mostly talking about here…), many if not all CG software behave exactly like your second description. Maybe I am misunderstanding something ? I am afraid that statements like the above might just make things even more confusing to new users …
Blender is actually not that weird at all compared to other packages - the biggest barrier of entry turns out to be the way the wiki refers to tools by their default shortcuts as opposed to describing where they are to be found in the actual program, which sadly prevents users from actually understanding the way the app is organized. Besides that and the concept of the different “modes” and some peculiar default settings, Blender is really not that different from any other 3D software out there !
thank you stan pancakes for submitting bug report
someone also having experience this bug and reported earlier : https://developer.blender.org/T42462
and they are already working on it
i hope this will be fix in 2.73
From my experience in Max, Maya and others, at least for modeling (which I think is what we are mostly talking about here…), many if not all CG software behave exactly like your second description. Maybe I am misunderstanding something ? I am afraid that statements like the above might just make things even more confusing to new users …[/QUOTE]
In many other tools (Max is a good example… Photoshop - to choose a non-3D example - would be another), the work paradigm is to choose a tool before acting. Want to move an object? First pick the Translate/Transform tool. Want to extrude or add vertices? There’s a separate tool for that. Yes, there may be hotkeys for accessing these tools quickly, but they’re still the starting point. After selecting your tool, you then decide which object to use it on. In contrast, these sorts of things are operations in Blender. In Blender, make your selection and perform a Grab or Scale or Extrude operation on that immediate selection. There are some exceptions, of course (for example Blender’s knife tool rides the line a bit between the two interaction models), but for the general case, Blender works in the reverse order of other programs (Select > Act in Blender vs. Tool > Select in other programs).
I am not exactly sure to understand what you mean as all these operations seem to function very similarly to me across Blender and all these other programs but I am certainly willing to keep your distinction in mind when exploring the program further !
As a matter of fact, I just did an little experiment : I just had to double check what you are saying about the extrude command in Max, as an example. Max actually offers both paradigms : selecting the components first and calling the function, which is what I think almost all users do (either through a shortcut or the UI button); or, enabling the function which then goes into a waiting state until a selection is done and the mouse is pulled. I doubt that many (if any?) users actually follow that second input method … and I personally just did for the very first time tonight in the context of this discussion, after about 15 years of using the program the “Blender way” 
If I remember correctly from older times, CAD packages relying on command-line inputs (like Autocad pre-2000) also offered both input paradigms for their functions, like Trim for instance.
Anyways ! details aside, I guess my point is that there is already quite a big barrier of entry to Blender for multiple reasons, as highlighted in this thread ; so I don’t think that making it appear more alien that it actually is does much in its favor. The tendency to refer to tools by their arbitrary default hotkeys as opposed to their name in the input panel or their UI location is a good example of that, as I discovered it the hard way when learning the program…
Sorry again for the derail - I am just very passionate about UX design in general Now back to modeling with my newly found favorite package !