Which software do you hate the most to work with (for whatever reason)?
polycounter lvl 4
I'm not asking which software is objectively the worst, or how do they compare, but which one you, personally, hate - but must - use. 3D or 3D-related software, of course.
Replies
Zbrush is probably the most fucked up UI/UX design ive seen
Also I hate exporting images in Photoshop, laggy, unnecessary clicks, searching folders, just mentally draining even if its simple
- The user interface is the worst i have ever used since i work with PCs. Brushes are not grouped, and all is a total mess in every aspect.
- Configuring new brushes is a hassle, a nuisance, we have "hidden" options in 2 different panes.
- I needed to custom, or better said, to change the UI completely. and the worst, i needed to config new brushes because the standard ones doesn't work well, dotting issues, bad results, etc. Alphas doesn't work at all in freehand mode, "carving" doesn't work as expected.
- But the worse for me, is the multimap exporter. The ui can be changed, and we can avoid in some way a bad user experience, but we can't avoid the issues related to bugs/problems, because they did not solve them in years.
- The lack of support for n-gons
- The lack of compability between versions, -Ztools, ZProjects, Zbrushes, all-. A zbrush brush created in 2019 doesn't work well in Zbrush 2018 or older. It forces you to stay with a very old version... studios don't use the latest version.
- Broken tools such as Zapplink. Exporting the canvas and painting in Photoshop is no longer working like in Zbrush 3.
- UVs, we have linear and "smoothed", and smoothed UVs doesn't work in the same way in other 3d Apps such as Max or modo, resulting in artifacts on seams using displacement maps for example.
- Perfomance, memory issues, and stupid crashes.
- The viewport quality, old, and prehistoric. 4 subdivision iterations and all is still "flat", without smoothing. Mudbox, Blender or modo is better in that aspect.
- Year 2020 and still no 4K support.
- Zmodeller, good to add some edge loops, and a pain in the ass for real quick modelling. It's useless for welding vertices or collapsing edges.
- Bad perfomance with Dinamic Subdivision.
- etc.
When i use Zbrush, i always need to have in mind a bunch of workarounds to avoid problems. It's a madness.
I'll admit that nearly every problem I've had with the software is most likely due to it being improperly installed and configured, so I won't directly implicate the developer of the software. But, most folks I've worked with have no clue how to use it to make their daily routine easier, in turn leading to confusion, denial, repetitious manual entry and missed deadlines. Many revert to simply sending a poorly written email (Outlook, see above) about a problem or task instead of writing/assigning a task/bug/etc and properly closing/reassigning once it's complete. Those same folks get upset when said issues get lost and forgotten under many other tasks. I've attempted to resolve this breakdown in communicate by writing very simple explanations of how to use JIRA on Confluence (see above) for various teams. I've more recently taught myself Python and automated much of the gathering of information from JIRA and other project management platforms, putting it all together in a simplified email report with colors and big fonts for management and department leads, much of which could have been done with simple plugins. But, I've now found myself in a comfy new position at work for "solving problems".
And, speaking of Python... Git.
i didnt use it in ages, there is supposedly some big data extension now. but no idea how that is. but back in the day it was so horrible with big files. everybody had to be on the latest version all the time, everything had to be synced. by the time you synced a full level another level would be newer and one couldn't update. everybody was just constantly blocked by everybody else.
Skype is probably my most hated program.
The software crashes all the time, the interface is straight out of the 90s, nothing works particularly well. Performance is terrible and again, it crashes so much. It's a constant struggle to use the software between its outdated interface, useless support, dozens of requires third party plugins and incredible instability for a "professional"product .
Its the only tool in my pipeline that feels like software from 20 years ago.
- Its unreliable in performing basic actions without potentially crashing or breaking what i'm working on.
- There's no reason for the history because that's just going to break things down the line so you end up clearing it after every few actions.
- The user interface is so nonsensical and unwieldy that even after using it for almost 15 years i still have to bounce around to find what i'm looking for.
- Basic tools and actions that should be natively implemented arent so you have to write you own or use 3rd party plugins. I'm still using scripts i wrote 10 years ago for tools that are in almost every 3d package and game engine i've ever used
- Features that get worse or break completely as new versions come out. I still prefer maya 2008 over any of the new versions i've had forced on my due to an established software pipeline
As soon as i'm done with my current project maya is gone for good, i'm switching to blenderIn terms of software I hate though jira, confluence and in an odd twists of fate for me now Maya take that spot. The work management ones are rather obvious, however about 4 years ago I switched from Maya to Max, and going back to it so many of it's core tools are completely asinine in how you have to use them.
Just trying to assign a texture to a secondary UV slot prompts several minutes of googling and hating people posting about UDIMs instead of UV slots, only to discover it's tucked under some other menu as far from the shader input and hypershade you can get for no god damn reason. And then the icing on the cake, your particular texture input doesn't show up... Why did I used to love you Maya?! Why?! That's a rather specific example but I think it accurately get's my feelings across...
With enough whining and complaining on my part, and my indie project forked over the cash for Perforce.
I don’t necessarily hate it, but Maya’s relatively destructive modelling workflow is rather irksome when accustomed to the glorious modifier stack in 3ds max
The UI, the abandoned have integrated former plug-in, the "import", the material editor, documentation, inconsistency, the camera, ... a lot more.
The snapping system is quite good, I have to admit that and the program makes me appreciate all other programs more, that are good points
I really like 3dsmax for modeling and environment art. Splines and the modifier stack are fuckin amazing but I'm saddened that UV editor is still modifier dependent. It's 2020... come on Autodesk. Also I would rather slowly shove toothpicks in my eyes than rig in 3dsmax.
I really love Maya for rigging, animation and hair, but hate having to use it to model anything slightly complex or deals with pivots or what could easily be done with splines, which is 70% of environment things. It's 2020... come on Autodesk.
I have a love hate relationship with zBrush, I love it but it hates me.
I really love Substance Painter and I kind of tolerate Designer but I hate that they're owned by Adobe but if it was that or they shut down I guess they picked the best possible solution. Still Substance Painter... so much love.
No matter how good you might think a piece of software is, there will be something utterly awful about it (and likely I'll get asked to try and deal with it).
People making 50 thousand channels for the same thing.
Not to mention if someone is in the zone getting stuff done, they can mute slack; then some coworker comes up and interrupts their work anyway?
Obviously it can make communication feel more detached and sometimes impersonal, but you can balance that. But for me as an introvert with some amount of social anxiety, it's such a huge huge blessing.
It can help reduce randomization
If you've ever had a day when you do nothing but get interrupted, slack can be a nice way to divert some of that desk traffic. Most people that like to get up and get their tasks unblocked right then and there, don't realize how selfish and demanding they're actually being. If you're going to trample all over the task I'm holding in my head, next time just use a shotgun it will do less damage. On the other hand if you slack me a message I can deal with it when I'm not trying to concentrate.
Time to think and respond
Have you ever gotten a shitting answer to an issue because it was a quick decision someone made under pressure?
Lead: "We're going with option Q."
Trencher: "That's the dumbest solution! Why did they pick that one?"
Lead: "I don't know, it could have something to do with their hair being on fire?"
Threads
Each comment can become a thread that holds an entire conversation without having to take over an entire channel.
"What do you think of this screenshot?" All of the feedback is contained in that thread.
Lower overall office volume
By moving office chatter into a a random or general channel, it reduces the number of random, loud and disruptive conversations that people have. It also reduces the number of people getting pulled off of tasks to join random office chatter, "Oh yea I was talking to xxx about that just a min ago, let me stop working and share my 2 cents". Great... put it in random so people can read it and comment when it's appropriate for them. They'll post a meme, we'll all laugh and meanwhile everyone that needed to work will keep working.
Slackups (daily stand up done in slack)
Stand ups are good and "necessary" but a slackup is awesome. It saves time and won't interrupt your day, you can post when you have a sec, it's a running catalog of what people are working on and you can @ anyone that is blocking a task or needs to be looped in so they are notified. That all happens in a daily stand up but it avoids the traffic custerfuck at the end of a stand up when everyone is trying to talk to 3-4 people at the same time so they can get back and get working. Things get dealt with, in their proper lanes without all of the chaos.
Posting links and files
It's not a replacement for version control but for those one-off files that people need that don't need to be in the project. "Can I get your maya.env file, I had to reinstall and I don't feel like trying to edit it by hand from memory" "Oh yea here ya go".
Notes to yourself
You can message yourself. I'll sometimes use this to hold onto snippets of blueprints or scripts that I can copy/paste in. A snap shot of settings. Or collect some reference and links.
Making to-do lists
Not a replacement for task tracking but it can help you stay organized and help you jot down things that need to happen in a specific order.
Posting images for feedback
Start a thread, it all gets collected and can be gone over by producers and leads to make tasks. Rather a meeting that no one takes notes or crazy email chains or just a random shouting match around someones desk, it can be gone over when people have time.
Voices aren't lost in the crowd
Have you ever been in a meeting and someone just filibustered the fuck out of the meeting? Or half the people who would actually be doing the work, didn't get a chance to contribute because they're too polite to interrupt gabby flabby gums. Or gabby flabby gums directs sends the discussion careening from point to point without ever slowing down and dragging everyone back in time to talk about something that happened 5min ago, will be about as productive as tossing a smoke bomb in the middle of the room?
External sources
Can be given access to specific channels making communication easier and much more integrated. We have 2 animators, a sound guy and a music composer, I have never talked to face to face. but you would swear they are part of the team and have a desk somewhere. It also makes communication with the team while working remotely possible. There could be times when the weather makes it hard to get to the building to work but working remotely is an option and communication is not impacted nearly as much.
Company notifications
We can use it to tell each other about the weather, traffic, illnesses and if we're going to be late or have to leave early.
Reminders
They are easier than setting outlook calendar events. You can set them for other people and they can be reoccurring.
I can access it from my phone, desktop, laptop and at home. If I'm in a meeting I'll jot down some notes or make some lists, set reminders, it's really nice to be able to have info accessible and easy to edit.
Of course there are times when slack totally fails and face to face interaction is totally necessary or slack becomes obtrusive but for the most part some kind of internal messaging system usually helps.
OH god I didn't even think of SharePoint. Take all those points you just made, those are all reasons that my job made SharePoint our standard! Everything where I work is tied into SharePoint all of it. It is the most absolutely retched thing. Our programmers have to develop tools that works off of SharePoints databases and other nonsense like that. The art team actively rips anything out of SharePoint and relocates it to our SVN drives or network drives because we can't stand it.
SVN - because I've used perforce
Shotgun - Better options include giving up on planning altogether and carving notes in your chest with a spoon
oh, and this week Substance Painter gets the finger because the API is weak as piss and the files are all binary
As much as I like the software, that UV editor is awful
Otherwise I think cinema has surely the best 3D software UI and is very nice to work with (aside of minor gripes you always will have) especially as you can customize 100% everything in the interface
Honestly, it's not the software, maybe just the countless hours looking at it, working over-time, and not wanting to open that after work. It's just a relief nowadays to open up Maya in the morning. I'm kind of glad some of those nodes carry through on other node-based systems.
I was going to hate on Maya a bit in this thread, because it makes life so damn difficult at every turn, and teaching it to new people who have expectations out of their lives is an awful experience for everyone. As an experienced and techy user, it's easy to get complacent about some of the stupid things we put up with daily.
But no, I'm going to say Sourcetree. Take regular git, and hit randomize; that's the push/pull process every time. The interface is confusing, even the person managing this for me can't tell me why it's doing the things it does that get in the way of successful push/pull/commits really doesn't help.
https://xkcd.com/1597/