Projection painting is a system that grabs your brush strokes and projects them onto your UV mapped texture. This means that you can paint over seams and between areas with different texture density without distortion or artifacts.
The last version of this feature I tried was a few months ago (havent had a chance to play with the RC yet), but back then it was very responsive and didnt require any anoying camera locking. Just turn on projection painting, select your brush, and paint on the object like normal.
I just want a switch for the navigation behavior (no grab stuff ect., alt + drag = rotate) so that it follows industry standards.
I tried the last link and it reminded me again why I avoided blender - the ugly navigation.
Yah, based on what I've tried each app actually uses slightly different keys to move around the view-ports... last time I looked, Maya didn't do what Max does, nor does Lightwave do what the others do... I'm always slightly puzzled by comments to do with "industry standards" *shrugs*
What should be industry standard, is easily configurable viewport nav to each of the ways the other apps does it. Especially between software that is owned by the same company. I'm not talking about bloat like the view cube or steering wheel.
# High detail multi-res modeling (sculpting) and render (micropolygons?)
# Fire/smoke/volumetrics & explosions
# Compositing using tiles/regions, so it becomes resolution independent
# Crowd/massive simulation (fix animation system to allow duplicates)
# Improve library system for managing complex projects
# Deliver in 4k digital cinema (depending agreement with sponsor)
# Make the Blender 2.5x series fully production ready.
I just want a switch for the navigation behavior (no grab stuff ect., alt + drag = rotate) so that it follows industry standards.
I tried the last link and it reminded me again why I avoided blender - the ugly navigation.
QFA,ability to customize the viewport navigation shortcut like Modo, everybody wins.
Definitely agree with you there. With any luck this will be coded into C/C++ and incorporated into trunk soon.
The game engine is starting to come together nicely. Third round of scene graph optimization was finished recently. Supposedly its now running between two and ten times faster than 2.48a. I understand that next up for optimization is the logic system.
There are also projects going on to put in a proper LOD system and work is being done to speed up real time softbodies. There has been some talk about implementing a game engine fluid system, but Im not sure how practical that would be. Game particle system is still MIA, but I imagine it wont be long before somebody picks that project up.
If this development pace keeps up BGE might start to look pretty competitive a few releases after 2.5
Yes, a simple particle system for the game engine would be far more useful than a softbody system. Better to cover the basics first than more esoteric features.
One of the things Blender could really use are some game "templates." Essentially, python scripts that are designed to create "starter" games within Blender. That way aspiring game artists would be able to download a template script, select a few options, and then just make the art and levels for the game in question.
The order stuff is developed in has a lot to do with exactly which developers pick up which projects and what other things are going on at the same time. For example, the code for merging vertexes in the physics engine was being updated for 2.5, which directly impacts how softbodies work *lots of coder stuff thats over my head* therefor softbodes!
The Twilight 22 lead guy just posted an update on their immediate plans for future improvements:
Thanks for sending the Real Time Ray Traced Lighting thats just awesome we will have to check it against frame rate. Next up this month after the logic speed up from Benoit is the Rasterizer. Yeah we know about the problems with the rasterizer and its several areas about 10 or so that need to be optimized with regards to the rasterizer some of them have to do with Blender itself and not even the game engine. The lighting needs more work for the BGE and I think some optimizations with regards to the lighting will be needed.
Benoit will be implementing the LOD system this month so don't worry about the LOD system. We have done a lot of planning with the LOD system and its a very good one. Also Campbell is finishing up the Path Finding logic system and its very very cool. Jason Fu has the Iterative Mapping working also. Mike Pan is working on the Real SSS Skin Shading in Real Time it looks very very good. We have been looking through the managed shader system and we are starting to implement some of the features. Don't know how many features we will implement but we will do as many as we can I think. The white box is coming along more and more and big thanks for all of the help from the community on the white box template.
The particles would be very useful. We are wanting to have that whole system node based. If you could code your physics operations and particle operations to easily be made into the nodes that would be awesome and will really help speed things up seriously reducing rework time. Don't worry about the LOD system we have it covered by Benoit.
He is even going to have the furthest away objects converted into image planes that are snapshot with the video texture plugin that he is doing from a scene file with the object in it based on a certain variation in angle from the player once they move past that threshold angle. Every thing you have suggested here would be very welcomed indeed
Yah, based on what I've tried each app actually uses slightly different keys to move around the view-ports... last time I looked, Maya didn't do what Max does, nor does Lightwave do what the others do... I'm always slightly puzzled by comments to do with "industry standards" *shrugs*
i opened up blender, moved the view, and ended up with some skewed-sideways view of the object. the other apps don't do that by default unless you specifically want to.
i mean how many times do you find you want to look at something sideways?
i opened up blender, moved the view, and ended up with some skewed-sideways view of the object. the other apps don't do that by default unless you specifically want to.
i mean how many times do you find you want to look at something sideways?
Pull down border of the the main 3d window, and turn the rotation setting to TURNTABLE instead of TRACKBALL in the settings panel.
cheers daaark..
i couldnt believe my eyes when I pulled down that border and uncovered a hive of more buttons
naw to be fair its the same when coming to any new app, but still it feels like trying to control an alien spaceship, and not a flight of the navigator type ship either
cheers daaark..
i couldnt believe my eyes when I pulled down that border and uncovered a hive of more buttons
This is a common problem that many early Blender users encounter. Most programs train us to think of the top nav bar as a stationary fixture. In Blender, each different window has its own nav bar, that is contextual to what kind of window it is. The bar at the top of the program by default isn't actually a nav bar, it is just another instance of another type of window. It's possible to change that particular window into any other blender window type that you want.
i mean how many times do you find you want to look at something sideways?
I always used to get my view sideways for some reason in Maya and couldn't find my way back with the turntable rotation .
By the way, you might also want to change Select with in that same View & Controls panel; LMB selection should make it feel more like other applications.
By the way, you might also want to change Select with in that same View & Controls panel; LMB selection should make it feel more like other applications.
I think that does more harm then good. Because it affects other things as well, and you have to switch everything.
Right Click is only for selecting whatever the cursor is pointing at. But other selects, like lasso select all use the left. You will get all that stuff crossed when you switch the buttons.
The left mouse button is left to manipulate things, instead of being both manipulate and select at the same time. So no accidents. You TAB into edit mode, select all your vertices, edges or faces, with the right, and everything else used the left button for whatever you need to do with your selection.
Left also moves the 3D cursor. Which is useful for lots of things.
You can select something with right click, then set your cursor somewhere with the left click, and use Shift S to snap your object to the cursor. You can use the cursor as a pivot point, or all kinds of things. It can be used from all over different points of the program for different operations.
When you understand how all that stuff is set up, you will see that it works very well if you use Blender as Blender, and not try to pretend it's something else.
Still missing elements. More are being added daily -- much of the code restructure is still under development so adding 'disabled' UI elements seems pointless to the devs. I can agree.
What's going on with b-mesh, Daaark? The current way of working with n-gons is a bit of a pain. THings like that will definitely need to change before I try Blender again. And I say that knowing that you obviously don't give a shit what I use, so I didn't mean it like that, heh.
I like staying up-to-date on this sort of stuff, though. And finally being able to change shortcut keys will get me to play around with it a bit, at least. I like the interface-system, seems very robust. Not that the old framework was that bad. Parts of it were actually very nice! I just never liked the workflow, which certainly wasn't helped much by how rigid (non-tweakable) things were.
I love the search! It's like a Launcy/Quicksilver/Ubiquity-alike in your 3d software, which I've always wanted!
Bmesh system itself is done, but still needs to be integrated into Blender, meaning recoding of mesh tools, rewriting modifiers, adding modifier support for ngons and such. All in all bmesh is not just "Ngons in Blender" but also a cleaner and more flexible base for adding new wonderful mesh tools
Daaark: Well, fair enough. I just don't think it's enjoyable to work entirely without ngons.
It was a tough switch for me to stop, but now that I don't use ngons anymore, I enjoy it more.
My models are so much cleaner now without them. I have nice edge flows, and more options when modifying my stuff. I used to just combine a bunch of ngons and have sloppy meshes.
Here's an old image I posted to BlenderArtists when I was bitching about not being able to have sloppy models.
Do you mind if I use this thread to post whatever bothers me about Blender as I try it out, Daaark and other Blender-users?
I was trying out a 2.5 build last night (that windowing system is slick as shit), and there were a few things that bugged me, so I thought I'd like to hear the reasoning behind it, or any workarounds/things I missed.
Here are the first few. They're cryptic at times, so please do ask me what I mean if it's at all unclear:
-Sticky Keys / tweak. Possible to tweak without having to 'confirm' every tweak? I used rmb to tweak (and then lmb to confirm, which is somewhat odd, I thought)=, but that may just be me having to get used to the topsy-turby world of rmb=lmb)
-Have the countdown to a tooltip to appear on hover be persistent when you move to another button, not have it start from 0 (see what I mean by cryptic? I mean that when you get a tooltip on something, moving to the button besides it makes the tooltip dissapear untill you've hovered over it for long enough again, rather than just showing the new tooltip immediately)
-have ctrl-tab (choose between vert, edge and face) be able to tab through the options, rather than give you a dropdown where you can only choose by mouse or hotkey. The dropdowns really don't do it for me. I can see their use in certain situations, but they play a large part in the 'things that fuck with my head' that makes me find using Blender unenjoyable
-In the 'mesh'-menu, do face, edge and vertices need to be separate? Can I edit one while I'm in another selection-mode? If not, maybe have it be context-sensitive.
-menu-entries load in the reverse order when they're accessed from the top than from the bottom. (this is just a niggle. I was considering starting a thread on blenderartists.org, 'perspective from a non-blender 3d artist' or something)
-errors can easily be missed, because they disappear when you move your mouse away from them. At least, I experienced this loading a file that couldn't be found (default.blend in the 'recent files' when I just booted Blender 2.49 for the first time, might also be worth looking into)
edit: I will always disagree with you on the Ngons, but that's fair enough. When doing highpoly mechanical stuff, they're invaluable to me. In lowpoly modeling too, but for different reasons. It speeds up selection a LOT in certain cases. It's all about choice, to me. Blender should have them for those who rely on them, in the same sense that 3d software should allow people not to use them.
Do you mind if I use this thread to post whatever bothers me about Blender as I try it out, Daaark and other Blender-users?
I was trying out a 2.5 build last night (that windowing system is slick as shit), and there were a few things that bugged me, so I thought I'd like to hear the reasoning behind it, or any workarounds/things I missed.
wouldn't a new thread be better, instead of hijacking this one on page 6? Other people could contribute as well then.
-errors can easily be missed, because they disappear when you move your mouse away from them. At least, I experienced this loading a file that couldn't be found (default.blend in the 'recent files' when I just booted Blender 2.49 for the first time, might also be worth looking into)
You're right about that. Blender sticks to the no overlapping window philosophy way too closely.
There are times like errors, or exports, or saving, when you want an overlapping window to jump up in your face. Not sure how this will be handled in 2.5.
Ooh, I love that kind of posts, MightyPea! Not that the Blender devs would ever notice them over here, but everything that makes you think about your workflow and that of others is always good.
-Sticky Keys / tweak. Possible to tweak without having to 'confirm' every tweak? I used rmb to tweak (and then lmb to confirm, which is somewhat odd, I thought)=, but that may just be me having to get used to the topsy-turby world of rmb=lmb)
There's actually reasoning behind the LMB/RMB - RMB is used for selection, LMB is used for pretty much everything else. That way, you can't ever lose your selection when you're doing something else. If you're actually moving geometry with the RMB, then I must admit that I've never done that - try using the G key for grab, I think pressing a key and then LMB is easier to do than RMB then LMB.
-In the 'mesh'-menu, do face, edge and vertices need to be separate? Can I edit one while I'm in another selection-mode? If not, maybe have it be context-sensitive.
Blender really doesn't care whatever you're using to select something - which is my No#1 reason that I prefer it to the Autodesk products. If you select the four vertices that form a face, you're selecting a face and you can apply all the face tools you want on it. Vertex, Edge and Face become methods of selecting, they're never methods of operation. For example, I often select my UV seams in Vertex Mode, because I rather like it for some reason, and then use the Edge Specials menu to mark the seams, never needing to switch modes. You can also use multiple select modes at the same time, by shift-clicking the icons in the header (although you'll have to be a more precise clicker to use it).
Agreed on all the others though - it might be interesting if the whole of Polycount posts a list of things that stand out to industry professionals on Blenderartists. You're not the first to make valid points and I agree with a lot of you people (it's just that I think the aforementioned vertex-edge-face-is-all-the-same outweighs everything else for me).
Go and make a post over at blenderartists Pea
It would be a really interesting read and you might get some progress as that's where the dev's haunt
Also www.blenderstorm.org is an archive for blender ideas, which is owned by one of the dev's (Jesterking) so it might be an idea to post some stuff there too.
You might have to wait a bit though as they had a server failure and its currently down
-Sticky Keys / tweak. Possible to tweak without having to 'confirm' every tweak? I used rmb to tweak (and then lmb to confirm, which is somewhat odd, I thought)=, but that may just be me having to get used to the topsy-turby world of rmb=lmb)
In 2.49 you can enable the tweak mode in the preferences, there seems no reason not to include this in 2.5 as well, so one worry less . In addition it should be possible to place arbitrary widgets anywhere in Blender so the option to enable / disable the tweak mode can be placed in whichever menu you want. Out of curiosity, where is the tweak mode option located in other 3d applications?
-Have the countdown to a tooltip to appear on hover be persistent when you move to another button, not have it start from 0 (see what I mean by cryptic? I mean that when you get a tooltip on something, moving to the button besides it makes the tooltip dissapear untill you've hovered over it for long enough again, rather than just showing the new tooltip immediately)
Good point.
-menu-entries load in the reverse order when they're accessed from the top than from the bottom. (this is just a niggle. I was considering starting a thread on blenderartists.org, 'perspective from a non-blender 3d artist' or something)
Yp, this is something that bothers me as well. You can't get used to a certain list order if it flips like that.
Go and make a post over at blenderartists Pea
It would be a really interesting read and you might get some progress as that's where the dev's haunt
Where the devs really haunt is the IRC channel, most people don't go there so they can talk dev stuff in peace and not be bothered by all sorts of random stuff going on at the forum. The best way to present an idea or a feature proposal is to make a webpage / wiki page and do a proper proposal, explaining the problem with perhaps some images and then go to irc and bug the devs.
I understand this doesn't motivate one to do this, but seeing how your points are valid, I might go bug the devs myself about this.
Most Blender Devs are and users are cool. It's the small, vocal, percentage of freetards that ruin it for everyone. If I ever opened a Blender Message board, no one who had a copy of Linux installed would be granted membership. Problem solved.
First off, thanks for taking the time to reply, it's really helpful.
About the tweak mode:
yay for being able to arbritarily place widgets. Hurray for the option, too.
As for where it is in 'other 3d software', I'm used to the way it is in Wings3d/Silo (I use a script to have it in 3ds ,max, but it's just not the same without Wings/Silo's advanced and natural selection-tools), where I've set it up to tweak on ctrl-lmb. holding down ctrl and click-dragging on any element (vert/edge/face/object) will automatically drag it, without needing a confirmation (which --to me-- entirely defeats the point of the tweak-tool. it shouldn't be a mode)
I would really appreciate you (as someone who has a real investment in Blender, rather than --like me, at the moment-- only a passing interest) taking my suggestions to the devs. Any updates on chances would be fantastic! Feel free to add me to msn as well, it's nice being able to discuss Blender without any oss-fanaticism or anti-commercial attitude clouding the actual topic.
Now that I've brought up Silo/wings, has there ever been an effort to bring it's multi-mode selection to Blender? It's one thing I miss a LOT in 3ds Max.
If you're not sure how it works, or what the attraction is, I could make a screencast to show how I use it. I've set it to use the spacebar in Silo to mimic Wings' behaviour, and without it I feel like I have one hand bound to my back in 3ds max.
Daaark: I have a copy of Linux installed
Only on my girlfriend's laptop, but I quite like it for that. It gives me a chance to check out what's new with it, and it's more than enough for her needs (multimedia, internet, word-processing)
And Pea, I forgot to mention this last time, but the Blender people aren't usually very responsive to arguments about what 3DS Max or Maya, or others can do. That comes right from Ton. He's not making a free [insert software here] clone. They are making their own program, with it's own identity and workflow.
So you should word your argument a bit differently.
Replies
The last version of this feature I tried was a few months ago (havent had a chance to play with the RC yet), but back then it was very responsive and didnt require any anoying camera locking. Just turn on projection painting, select your brush, and paint on the object like normal.
I tried the last link and it reminded me again why I avoided blender - the ugly navigation.
http://durian.blender.org/
# High detail multi-res modeling (sculpting) and render (micropolygons?)
# Fire/smoke/volumetrics & explosions
# Compositing using tiles/regions, so it becomes resolution independent
# Crowd/massive simulation (fix animation system to allow duplicates)
# Improve library system for managing complex projects
# Deliver in 4k digital cinema (depending agreement with sponsor)
# Make the Blender 2.5x series fully production ready.
QFA,ability to customize the viewport navigation shortcut like Modo, everybody wins.
The game engine is starting to come together nicely. Third round of scene graph optimization was finished recently. Supposedly its now running between two and ten times faster than 2.48a. I understand that next up for optimization is the logic system.
There are also projects going on to put in a proper LOD system and work is being done to speed up real time softbodies. There has been some talk about implementing a game engine fluid system, but Im not sure how practical that would be. Game particle system is still MIA, but I imagine it wont be long before somebody picks that project up.
If this development pace keeps up BGE might start to look pretty competitive a few releases after 2.5
One of the things Blender could really use are some game "templates." Essentially, python scripts that are designed to create "starter" games within Blender. That way aspiring game artists would be able to download a template script, select a few options, and then just make the art and levels for the game in question.
The Twilight 22 lead guy just posted an update on their immediate plans for future improvements:
http://www.blendernation.com/2009/05/28/blender25-tour-vi/
http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-249/
i opened up blender, moved the view, and ended up with some skewed-sideways view of the object. the other apps don't do that by default unless you specifically want to.
i mean how many times do you find you want to look at something sideways?
i couldnt believe my eyes when I pulled down that border and uncovered a hive of more buttons
naw to be fair its the same when coming to any new app, but still it feels like trying to control an alien spaceship, and not a flight of the navigator type ship either
This is a common problem that many early Blender users encounter. Most programs train us to think of the top nav bar as a stationary fixture. In Blender, each different window has its own nav bar, that is contextual to what kind of window it is. The bar at the top of the program by default isn't actually a nav bar, it is just another instance of another type of window. It's possible to change that particular window into any other blender window type that you want.
By the way, you might also want to change Select with in that same View & Controls panel; LMB selection should make it feel more like other applications.
Right Click is only for selecting whatever the cursor is pointing at. But other selects, like lasso select all use the left. You will get all that stuff crossed when you switch the buttons.
The left mouse button is left to manipulate things, instead of being both manipulate and select at the same time. So no accidents. You TAB into edit mode, select all your vertices, edges or faces, with the right, and everything else used the left button for whatever you need to do with your selection.
Left also moves the 3D cursor. Which is useful for lots of things.
You can select something with right click, then set your cursor somewhere with the left click, and use Shift S to snap your object to the cursor. You can use the cursor as a pivot point, or all kinds of things. It can be used from all over different points of the program for different operations.
When you understand how all that stuff is set up, you will see that it works very well if you use Blender as Blender, and not try to pretend it's something else.
btw. is the GUI now completely ported or are still elements missing?
So I can't wait to try my hand at game art!
WANT
I like staying up-to-date on this sort of stuff, though. And finally being able to change shortcut keys will get me to play around with it a bit, at least. I like the interface-system, seems very robust. Not that the old framework was that bad. Parts of it were actually very nice! I just never liked the workflow, which certainly wasn't helped much by how rigid (non-tweakable) things were.
I love the search! It's like a Launcy/Quicksilver/Ubiquity-alike in your 3d software, which I've always wanted!
you can keep an eye on the progress at the programmer's blog found at http://bmeshblender.wordpress.com/
http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-committers/2009-June/023643.html
The cleaner code will be nice, but I'd love an option that kept everything as quads.
Daaark: Well, fair enough. I just don't think it's enjoyable to work entirely without ngons.
My models are so much cleaner now without them. I have nice edge flows, and more options when modifying my stuff. I used to just combine a bunch of ngons and have sloppy meshes.
Here's an old image I posted to BlenderArtists when I was bitching about not being able to have sloppy models.
:poly136:
Anyways, you may want to read this.
http://bmeshblender.wordpress.com/
I was trying out a 2.5 build last night (that windowing system is slick as shit), and there were a few things that bugged me, so I thought I'd like to hear the reasoning behind it, or any workarounds/things I missed.
Here are the first few. They're cryptic at times, so please do ask me what I mean if it's at all unclear:
-Sticky Keys / tweak. Possible to tweak without having to 'confirm' every tweak? I used rmb to tweak (and then lmb to confirm, which is somewhat odd, I thought)=, but that may just be me having to get used to the topsy-turby world of rmb=lmb)
-Have the countdown to a tooltip to appear on hover be persistent when you move to another button, not have it start from 0 (see what I mean by cryptic? I mean that when you get a tooltip on something, moving to the button besides it makes the tooltip dissapear untill you've hovered over it for long enough again, rather than just showing the new tooltip immediately)
-have ctrl-tab (choose between vert, edge and face) be able to tab through the options, rather than give you a dropdown where you can only choose by mouse or hotkey. The dropdowns really don't do it for me. I can see their use in certain situations, but they play a large part in the 'things that fuck with my head' that makes me find using Blender unenjoyable
-In the 'mesh'-menu, do face, edge and vertices need to be separate? Can I edit one while I'm in another selection-mode? If not, maybe have it be context-sensitive.
-menu-entries load in the reverse order when they're accessed from the top than from the bottom. (this is just a niggle. I was considering starting a thread on blenderartists.org, 'perspective from a non-blender 3d artist' or something)
-errors can easily be missed, because they disappear when you move your mouse away from them. At least, I experienced this loading a file that couldn't be found (default.blend in the 'recent files' when I just booted Blender 2.49 for the first time, might also be worth looking into)
edit: I will always disagree with you on the Ngons, but that's fair enough. When doing highpoly mechanical stuff, they're invaluable to me. In lowpoly modeling too, but for different reasons. It speeds up selection a LOT in certain cases. It's all about choice, to me. Blender should have them for those who rely on them, in the same sense that 3d software should allow people not to use them.
You're right about that. Blender sticks to the no overlapping window philosophy way too closely.
There are times like errors, or exports, or saving, when you want an overlapping window to jump up in your face. Not sure how this will be handled in 2.5.
There's actually reasoning behind the LMB/RMB - RMB is used for selection, LMB is used for pretty much everything else. That way, you can't ever lose your selection when you're doing something else. If you're actually moving geometry with the RMB, then I must admit that I've never done that - try using the G key for grab, I think pressing a key and then LMB is easier to do than RMB then LMB.
Blender really doesn't care whatever you're using to select something - which is my No#1 reason that I prefer it to the Autodesk products. If you select the four vertices that form a face, you're selecting a face and you can apply all the face tools you want on it. Vertex, Edge and Face become methods of selecting, they're never methods of operation. For example, I often select my UV seams in Vertex Mode, because I rather like it for some reason, and then use the Edge Specials menu to mark the seams, never needing to switch modes. You can also use multiple select modes at the same time, by shift-clicking the icons in the header (although you'll have to be a more precise clicker to use it).
Agreed on all the others though - it might be interesting if the whole of Polycount posts a list of things that stand out to industry professionals on Blenderartists. You're not the first to make valid points and I agree with a lot of you people (it's just that I think the aforementioned vertex-edge-face-is-all-the-same outweighs everything else for me).
It would be a really interesting read and you might get some progress as that's where the dev's haunt
Also www.blenderstorm.org is an archive for blender ideas, which is owned by one of the dev's (Jesterking) so it might be an idea to post some stuff there too.
You might have to wait a bit though as they had a server failure and its currently down
Good luck man!
Good point.
Yp, this is something that bothers me as well. You can't get used to a certain list order if it flips like that.
Where the devs really haunt is the IRC channel, most people don't go there so they can talk dev stuff in peace and not be bothered by all sorts of random stuff going on at the forum. The best way to present an idea or a feature proposal is to make a webpage / wiki page and do a proper proposal, explaining the problem with perhaps some images and then go to irc and bug the devs.
I understand this doesn't motivate one to do this, but seeing how your points are valid, I might go bug the devs myself about this.
About the tweak mode:
yay for being able to arbritarily place widgets. Hurray for the option, too.
As for where it is in 'other 3d software', I'm used to the way it is in Wings3d/Silo (I use a script to have it in 3ds ,max, but it's just not the same without Wings/Silo's advanced and natural selection-tools), where I've set it up to tweak on ctrl-lmb. holding down ctrl and click-dragging on any element (vert/edge/face/object) will automatically drag it, without needing a confirmation (which --to me-- entirely defeats the point of the tweak-tool. it shouldn't be a mode)
I would really appreciate you (as someone who has a real investment in Blender, rather than --like me, at the moment-- only a passing interest) taking my suggestions to the devs. Any updates on chances would be fantastic! Feel free to add me to msn as well, it's nice being able to discuss Blender without any oss-fanaticism or anti-commercial attitude clouding the actual topic.
Now that I've brought up Silo/wings, has there ever been an effort to bring it's multi-mode selection to Blender? It's one thing I miss a LOT in 3ds Max.
If you're not sure how it works, or what the attraction is, I could make a screencast to show how I use it. I've set it to use the spacebar in Silo to mimic Wings' behaviour, and without it I feel like I have one hand bound to my back in 3ds max.
Daaark: I have a copy of Linux installed
Only on my girlfriend's laptop, but I quite like it for that. It gives me a chance to check out what's new with it, and it's more than enough for her needs (multimedia, internet, word-processing)
http://www.cgcookie.com/articles/blender-25-overview
And Pea, I forgot to mention this last time, but the Blender people aren't usually very responsive to arguments about what 3DS Max or Maya, or others can do. That comes right from Ton. He's not making a free [insert software here] clone. They are making their own program, with it's own identity and workflow.
So you should word your argument a bit differently.