This is interesting to read from the point of view of a blender user.
I've been working with blender for 3 years and have almost never found it limiting or hard to use. I tried maya recently (free trial) and it was so wrong and hard to use. Things very simplified in blender were way too complex, and I very much wanted to simply write it off as "worse".
But taking a look at some opinions from the 'other side', I see that it's really just what you learned first that determines what you think is better.
And now I see that non-blender users are praising 2.5. I never realized it before, but I guess 2.5 is a step in the direction of how things are done in other programs.
And you'd be surprised how backwards and wrong longtime blender users are finding 2.5.
I tried the newest working build recently, and I could barely get anything done. It was almost as vexing as using maya was.
So, my conclusions on this is that's it's all really perception. Blender can do everything that other programs can, but it's interface isn't worse, it only sets it apart.
I believe for a 3d app (or any app) to be considered good, it must allow the user to easily create custom hot keys and transfer those settings from one machine to another and also from one version of an app to the next version.
I come from the side that thinks everyone should set up their own hot keys based on their own personal workflow. The other side being the one that believes a user should stick with stock hot keys so that they can easily move from one machine to another and not get lost.
I think a good set of hot keys will only occupy the non mouse hand and allow access to 100% of whatever is needed to do your work on a daily basis. If you have to use your mouse hand to hit some keys then you've lost productivity.
The first thing I do when I start to learn a new 3d app is throw out all the hot keys. The next is to work on a full project. Each UI element that gets used gets a new hot key with the most used ones being the easiest to reach with the least amount of modifier keys.
I have never ever seen a 3d app that comes with hot keys that make perfect sense (Maya, Max, Modo, Mudbox, Blender). I don't think a perfect hot key setup could ever be made that works for more than the person who thought it up in the first place. Each person's brain works differently.
Blender 2.5 has taken a good step allowing for custom key maps. Unfortunately it isn't quite as streamlined as I had hoped it would be. Right now (build 28980):
From what I can tell Blender does not warn me when I create conflicting hot keys, and as far as I know there is no way to query what any particular key is set to.
I think Blender is definitely headed in the right direction. The one thing I really like about Blender is that it seems to be a place where new ideas actually have a chance to see the light of day. Also the developers seem to be fairly open to suggestions which is always a good thing. Blender seems to be going through quite a metamorphosis right now which is very exciting to watch as opposed to other more mainstream 3D apps.
I guess what everyone is hoping for in the end is "better tools" - something that can truely rival Max and Maya in every aspect of 3d art creation. With competition comes the drive to innovate and succeed.
Hmm. Well,imo, the simple truth is that for long time blender users, the changes to 2.5 make it much harder to use. The interface has been absolutely destroyed from it's easy to use 2.4x days. And I'm now convinced that it's not just change being hard, it's actual change for the worse.
When I first started blender (my first 3d app) I was able to make a relatively decent rendered character animation within a week. I've been attempting to use 2.5 for a month now, and still can barely ever make it past the impossible menu system.
I'm not the one to be the one who usually say that other peoples opinions are wrong, but you're quite wrong, there's been some resistance amongst the stubborn users of blender for the 2.5 update but this update has been nothing but good.
And Im one of those ancient users of blender.
Everything is basicly the same, you just have to learn a few new things, the rest is your own skillset.
I take it you aren't a fan of any other 3d tool other than blender?, Ever used maya or max, or xsi or the likes?
Yeah I have no doubt that prior version Blender users are having trouble adapting, Blender 2.5 almost seems like an entirely different app now.
Can't the hot keys and UI be customized to closer resemble the prior version of Blender? That way you get the best of both worlds, the workflow that you are missing and the core feature improvements of the new version.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that Blender 2.5 is still in a alpha state and many things are still missing, but I'm sure you already know that far better than I do.
Another good point for Blender 2.5 is that it is attracting new members to it's user base. People used to other apps who would've never even given the previous Blender more than a passing thought now are looking at ways to integrate it into their workflows simply because it is becoming more usable for them.
A highly skilled user base from a broad range of backgrounds is a great thing for an app to have. New people bring in new ideas and prevent things from getting stale.
Just gave blender 2.5 alpha2 a go. Sculpting was...well, its no Sculptris. Painting I couldn't figure out how to view the model with flat shading, and the brush size/strength don't seem to have a way to unify them? UI also went a little crazy on me with everything overlapping and becoming a garbled mess (and not properly resorting to fit when I stretched their windows out).
Will give it another shot when beta 2 or 3 comes out.
Poly: Don't bother with the official releases, they're outdated by day two of their release. Check out graphicall.com for constantly updated builds. Ofcourse these can (and will) contain bugs, but then every alpha or beta will.
Also, to the guy saying he can't use 2.5 because it's so different from 1.49: really? Oh come on. It's still Blender, you're just clearly stuck in your ways. The differences really aren't as night and day as you're making them out to be.
Also, I agree with those saying shortcuts set to the first letter of the function aren't that great. Will someone new to Blender really be looking for the Grab function, rather than move? Grab?
There are so many synonyms for any tool, I can't get behind the justification for it at all.
It just limits you to an unergonomic layout, and isn't future-proof at all. If you're adding a function called 'project' that's used all the time, do you really want to have it on P, all the way on the other side of the keyboard?
MightyPea: You'll find that Blender isn't terribly consistent with such tool names; I'd imagine that Grab was chosen simply because the G is in a handy position, whereas M for Move isn't. It also has viewport shading modes set to Z and delete set to X. For the ones where it does have the hotkey based on the name of the tool, don't think of it as easy to look for, but easy to remember. I don't think the function is even called Grab, it's just a donkey bridge.
Edit: I also agree with Eld that there's really not much of a difference between 2.49b and 2.5 if you don't use the GUI (which I don't).
eedobaba: I'm a little surprised to hear you say that. I started on Blender and have continued to use it as a part of my workflow ever since, and I can say solidly that 2.5 is only very slightly different from 2.49 as far as your workflow is concerned. A few buttons have been rearranged, but that's about it. Now, however, instead of limiting you to a strict way of working, you can operate in Blender much more freely. To get up to speed, there are many current threads on Blenderartists.org that deal specifically with switching to 2.5.
I figured their were newer builds out their, just wasnt sure where to get them, Thanks
Gave the one in Dim's link a try, and the UI problems was having before seem to be gone. But considering I'm not really familiar with Blender past some brief experience in 2.48 a while back, their are a few things that I'm not getting.
First, after you drag out a new window, how do you remove it? So easy to make them but getting rid of them I'm just not finding an option for.
Second, for paint I'm not seeing any of these things, are they in their somewhere?:
-Unified brush size/strength
-Flat shading toggle
-texture filter toggle
-Way to paint directly on UVs
-alt brush color toggle
-texture/psd layers
-change brush hardness quickly (shift+[ or ] in PS), as opposed to manually editing the curve
I'm not planning on goin full out on learning Blender (will wait for bmesh on that), but I'd like to maybe use it for some painting for the time being.
To get rid of a window, drag back in the opposite direction you would when you create it. An arrow should appear, and you should release the LMB.
Painting is the thing I know the least about, but I might be able to help you out.
-I'm not sure exactly what you mean with unified brush strength and size (proportional to each other?)
-To get your display settings, press [n] in the 3D view. Under Display, you should find what you're looking for. If not, you can create a quick material and set it to 'shadeless'. You can also bring ZBrush matcaps into Blender for sculpting. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=174790
-To paint on your UVs, open your UV editor, and in the header, there will be a little brush icon. Select that.
-I am assuming you mean something like [x] in Photoshop? To be honest, I'm not sure this exists, but it would probably be very easy. If it's desired, letting the developers know is the best way. A lot of them hang out in #blendercoders on freenode IRC.
-The only way to use layers I know of is through the material system. Basically, add a texture channel for each layer and set the texture to the channel. You can set the channels to different blend modes. This is sort of a hack, so unfortunately, you can't actually export the images with all the layers intact, so you'll have to save them all out separately, and recombine them in PS. It's definitely a pain. This is a feature that needs to be added. The other option is to prjection paint from Photoshop: http://durian.blender.org/development/image-re-projection/
-I don't know of an easy way to change hardness, but you can change size with [f].
Just gave blender 2.5 alpha2 a go. Sculpting was...well, its no Sculptris. Painting I couldn't figure out how to view the model with flat shading, and the brush size/strength don't seem to have a way to unify them? UI also went a little crazy on me with everything overlapping and becoming a garbled mess (and not properly resorting to fit when I stretched their windows out).
The 'Summer of code' project for sculpting, painting, multires, and 7 other projects just started, I'm mentoring the coder doing the sculpting work.
I've established a sculpt feedback team at the blenderartists.org forum
Farstharys dynamic retesselation work is happening in parallel and will be easy to integrate.
Some work for sculpt is overlapping with the mulitres - masking, layers; paint - stroke improvments and bump map painting; and pen tablet - how some of the interaction of pen with sculpting and painting; summer of code projects so not every improvement that will happen for sculpting is listed there.
I was planning to recruit feedback from here and a few other forums in a couple of weeks, once we kill most of the big annoyances in the current sculpting tools.
Just gave blender 2.5 alpha2 a go. Sculpting was...well, its no Sculptris.
Sadly, this is quite true. I had played around with Sculptris a bit in its beta phaze. It was decent, but lacking in a few areas. I had already used Blender for sculpting before, and gotten some decent results with it.
I played around with the new 1.0 version of Sculptris a day or two after it came out and WOW! I was a little shocked at the quality of sculpting I was able to produce in a very short time. And I didn't even bother pushing some of its more robust features. I was just doodling on a sphere. The initial Sculptris release knocks Blender's sculpting into a cocked hat.
I've heard that someone is working on integrating Sculptris-style sculpting into Blender, but that feature probably won't make it for the official 2.5 release. I'm still going to use Blender for modeling and animating, but Sculptris is now part of my pipeline.
By unified brush settings I mean they are numerically linked so if Drawn brush is at 0.75 strength all the other brushes will be too, etc. This should work for strength, size, and color (I can hardly believe even color isn't unified). Although with no blur, burn, or dodge brushes its seeming rather barren anyway.
For flat shade was able to get it working after some tinkering. To toggle it on I need to go into edit mode, set the material as shaderless and apply, then make sure viewport shading is set to textured, render (f12), and THEN I can go back into texture paint and it'll work. If I want to turn shaderless off the process needs to be repeated. Counter productive to say the least.
Turning off texture filtering was under file-user preferences-system-mipmaps.
Thanks for the help. Paint isn't quite as good as I was hoping atp, but I suppose it might be adequate for some simple stuff.
LetterRip:
Appreciate it when Devs try to earnestly get feedback and improve their work through it, so hats off to you for that.
That said, sculpting in Blender has a lot of issues right now that need to be addressed for it to be comparable at all to any other sculpting package, free or otherwise. Here's a few I came across within moments of starting to sculpt:
-Performance issues with multires. at 400k I get roughly one 4th the brush speed I would in Sculptris, which is already about a 4th the speed in ZBrush2 back in 2004.
-Shift used for invert instead of smooth and ctrl unused. Really, shift=smooth, ctrl=invert. Theirs no reason to have buttons wasted like they are now.
-Unified brush settings, same as I mentioned to Dim for for paint brushes. I used Blender sculpt once before a few versions ago and this is the thing that stuck in my mind as why I shouldn't bother with it above all else.
-Grab brush does not feel 'right' at all.
-No masking.
I realize some of this is being covered already, but just thought I'd put in my 2 cents to say they are the biggest detractors for me atm.
all of your items are on my todo list, or already fixed in the sculpt branch.
I'll let you know when all of them have been addressed. (Masking is on the todo list for a different summer of code project so I don't have influence over when it will be done).
Okay, I don't care what the hot keys are. That's easy to adapt to. What I don't like are the nonsensical changes made to the basic interface, like removing functions that simply should still be there.
Such as the node editor. In 2.4x, you would click and drag to delete connections, nice and simple, and I remember i figured that out easily when first learning blender. But now, they've decided to remove that function, and I still haven't figured out how to delete connections.
Another good example is panel changing. In 2.4x it was simple. Click on the border, and you would see a list of options. Now, you have first look up how to do this, then pixel hunt for little tiny tabs that if dragged in the right way can combine panels. And to change a header location it's even worse. You have to hover over the header and click F5. F5! That's not intuitive at all! You HAVE to look something like that up, whereas, in 2.4x, it was simple to figure out right away.
This seriously cannot be just me stuck in old ways. These are actually changes for the worse.
Maybe other programs work in ways that make no sense, so 2.5 is a move in you guy's direction, but I appreciate it when an interface is easy to figure out.
Such as the node editor. In 2.4x, you would click and drag to delete connections, nice and simple, and I remember i figured that out easily when first learning blender. But now, they've decided to remove that function, and I still haven't figured out how to delete connections.
I just checked 30 seconds ago and it works fine.
Click on the border, and you would see a list of options
Just tried that in both 2.49b and 2.5x current svn and i get a menu 'horitonzal/vertical' in 2.5x, no 'free' option though.
And to change a header location it's even worse. You have to hover over the header and click F5.
Hmm I right click on the header and the 'header toolbox' pops up and it says 'flip to top; and Maximize Area'.
Have you tried using a recent version of Blender? What is the build number you are using?
Such as the node editor. In 2.4x, you would click and drag to delete connections, nice and simple, and I remember i figured that out easily when first learning blender. But now, they've decided to remove that function, and I still haven't figured out how to delete connections.
I'm using Blender 2.5 Alpha 2 and having a bit of a problem with the extrude tool. I was wondering if any of the Blender gurus might be able to help. Normally when I press the 'E' key and have a vertex selected Blender will go into extrude mode and I can freely move the new vertex to a position of my choosing. Something must have happened or I inadvertently changed a setting because now whenever I attempt to extrude a vertex it will constrain the extrusion to the line of the normal. Any idea why this behaviour might have changed?
just use a more recent build, a default setting was propogated through all extrdues in some earlier builds. It is now back to free extrusion in recent builds.
just use a more recent build, a default setting was propogated through all extrdues in some earlier builds. It is now back to free extrusion in recent builds.
Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a bash. Is it okay if I copy my ".B25.blend" file over to the new build? Will my current prefs be forward compatible?
Hey all, something that you might find interesting is 'art for code' - a site where artists can offer to exchange doing artwork (models, concept art, etc.) in exchange for coders adding features to open source software (just Blender to start, but will add Ardour, myPaint, GIMP, and others).
The concept is by me, and the implementor in BTolputt. We will be making improvements to the site over time. It is just getting off the ground and is somewhat in the experimental stages.
You can add wishlist items, add incentives to existing wish list items (x hours of modeling/uv mapping/texturing/etc), then a coder can either take on the project and accept the incentive, or request a different incentive.
The idea is mostly focused at open source and indy game devs, who currently have 'programmer art' ie more developer talent than artists; and people who want features in great open source software.
Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a bash. Is it okay if I copy my ".B25.blend" file over to the new build? Will my current prefs be forward compatible?
Im not sure if you are supposed to, but i have and have not noticed any major problems from doing so.
Hey LetterRip, ArtforCode may be a good topic for another thread all on it's own. Seems like a very good potential discussion. Perhaps announce it on CGSociety as well (assuming you haven't)?
There's an awful lot of talk about people wanting an accurate triangle counter in Blender, and this may be a quick way to get it done. We'll see how Tom's site does.
Since it's really pointless, and this is speaking as one who usually does the ctrl-t thing, it would be better of if we could just get an accurate triangle count at all times.
Yeah, I've used ctrl+t for years, but if you have a scene with many objects, it's a serious pain in the ass, so I usually end up approximating. It won't cut into the development of other features either as you suggested. I talked to a developer (Michael Fox) about this, and it's fairly simple to integrate, and is just something that should automatically come with any package. I've heard enough griping to know that people really do want this feature.
There was a script made for 2.43 that could do this, though you cant dock it anywhere and you have to run the script every time you want to find the tri count.
I will post the code here as the i cant find anywhere that hosts it anymore.
Maybe the code would give some pointers to people wishing to develop a new version?
#!BPY
"""
Name: 'Mesh Information'
Blender: 243
Group: 'Misc'
Tooltip: 'Counts triangles, vertices, etc. from selected meshes'
"""
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Mesh information
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
# ***** BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK *****
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
# Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
#
# ***** END GPL LICENCE BLOCK *****
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRINT_TO_TEXT = True
PRINT_TO_CONSOLE = True
PRINT_DETAILED_INFO = True
TEXT_NAME = "mesh_info.txt"
import Blender
from Blender import Scene, Text
from Blender.Draw import PupMenu
if PRINT_TO_TEXT:
text = Text.New(TEXT_NAME)
else:
text = None
def write(txt, adorn = ""):
global text
if len(adorn) == 1:
length = len(txt.strip())
txt = "%s\n%s" % (txt, adorn*length)
if PRINT_TO_TEXT and text:
text.write(txt)
text.write('\n')
if PRINT_TO_CONSOLE:
print txt
def count_faces(mesh):
tris = 0
quads = 0
triangulated = 0
for face in mesh.faces:
lf = len(face.v)
if lf == 3:
tris += 1
else:
quads += 1
triangulated += lf - 2
return [tris, quads, triangulated]
def report():
write("Information about selected scene data:", "=")
write("\nObjects selected: %d" % len(objs_sel), "=")
obdict = {}
elements = ['vertices', 'edges', 'faces', '- quads', '- tris', '=> triangulated']
totals = dict(zip(elements, len(elements)*[0]))
for ob in objs_sel:
if ob.type == 'Mesh':
me = ob.data
lverts = len(me.verts)
ledges = len(me.edges)
lfaces = len(me.faces)
facedata = count_faces(me)
obdict[ob] = [lverts, ledges, lfaces]
obdict[ob].extend(facedata)
totals['- tris'] += facedata[0]
totals['- quads'] += facedata[1]
totals['=> triangulated'] += facedata[2]
totals['vertices'] += lverts
totals['edges'] += ledges
totals['faces'] += lfaces
write("\nTotals:", "=")
for elem in elements:
write("%s: %d" % (elem.title(), totals[elem]))
if PRINT_DETAILED_INFO:
write("\nPer object:", "=")
for ob in objs_sel:
if ob.type != "Mesh":
continue
info = obdict[ob]
write("\n%s Object: %s" % (ob.type, ob.name), "-")
for i in range(len(elements)):
write("%s: %d" % (elements[i].title(), info[i]))
return (len(obdict), totals['=> triangulated'])
scene = Scene.GetCurrent()
objs_sel = list(scene.objects.context)
if not objs_sel:
PupMenu("Error: no objects selected")
else:
obs, triangulated = report()
meshes = "Meshes Selected: %d" % obs
triangulated = "Total triangle count: %d" % triangulated
PupMenu("%s%%t|%s" % (triangulated, meshes))
Snow still needs alot of work. Seeing games Like Uncharted2 and Killzone3 have such amazing snow irt has probably spoiled me on that though. Also think the baby dragon needs a serious detail boost if its going to have such close shots in the final film.
2.53 beta has a maya keyboard shortcuts preset. just needs a max one now and maybe people will finally stop complaining about the interface(probably not)
There's an awful lot of talk about people wanting an accurate triangle counter in Blender, and this may be a quick way to get it done. We'll see how Tom's site does.
Actually you could just add a decimator modifier and it will tell you the number of triangles you have right away. It only updates when you go out of the edit mode to object mode and it solidifys the shading (makes it non-smooth) but it works. Blender could do with a better triangle counter but for the time being this work.
Actually you could just add a decimator modifier and it will tell you the number of triangles you have right away. It only updates when you go out of the edit mode to object mode and it solidifys the shading (makes it non-smooth) but it works. Blender could do with a better triangle counter but for the time being this work.
Sure, that works for a single object, but if you have a large scene, with many objects, it's next to impossible. If you add instanced or referenced geometry, it's even worse. Basically, it really needs an overhaul, but there's little incentive to do so.
Yeah, the amount of bitching on the internet does seem to take a hit when devs release an OSX version of their tools
I think I'm more by this version than the last...I just hope when its 'finished' it will actually be good. Still missing my bevel function. Why is it a modifier now? What if I want to chamfer just one edge?
Bevel has been a modifier for at least a few years now but i never really use it as the bevel center script was the nuts
IIRC, to use the bevel modifier on an edge you have to set the weight of the edge but afaik its hidden/missing in 2.5 :S
When BMesh is finished everything should be good again but i think the modelling focus is postponed until 2.6 now
IMHO, if you want to model 2.49 is the best option, at least for now.
http://www.pasteall.org/14511/python <-- direct link to python code, you will have to manually save it as a .py extension and manually add to the add-ons, read the above link for more info.
just gotta say the new sculpting system is a CRAZY big improvement. i was sculpting at 40 million quite smoothly ive heard the theoretcal max is like 300 million. but without hacks you can sculpt pretty well on 40/20 million with multires and vbo turned on with global undo settings turned down or off.
Yeah, I agree blenderhead. I have tried almost all commercial apps, and I couldn't pick any of them up as fast as I did with Blender. I thinks it's that most controls and actions are done through easy, memorable keyboard shortcuts, rather than having to click on 10 buttons to do everything in my workflow. And yes, it gets a bad wrap because a lot of amateur users use it and they don't take the time to learn it correctly and at least become intermediate before going 'hey look guise, I mde this wit blender!' (I would know, I was almost this bad at one time). This results in people seeing that and assuming 'oh, if that's all people can do, it must be crap.' But yet again, this is possible in any 3d app. I just think it's more prominent in blender because it's free.
Sort of, what I was told was to use the multires modifier to subdivide about 2-4 times , collapse, then add a new multires for the rest of your divisions.
Replies
I've been working with blender for 3 years and have almost never found it limiting or hard to use. I tried maya recently (free trial) and it was so wrong and hard to use. Things very simplified in blender were way too complex, and I very much wanted to simply write it off as "worse".
But taking a look at some opinions from the 'other side', I see that it's really just what you learned first that determines what you think is better.
And now I see that non-blender users are praising 2.5. I never realized it before, but I guess 2.5 is a step in the direction of how things are done in other programs.
And you'd be surprised how backwards and wrong longtime blender users are finding 2.5.
I tried the newest working build recently, and I could barely get anything done. It was almost as vexing as using maya was.
So, my conclusions on this is that's it's all really perception. Blender can do everything that other programs can, but it's interface isn't worse, it only sets it apart.
I come from the side that thinks everyone should set up their own hot keys based on their own personal workflow. The other side being the one that believes a user should stick with stock hot keys so that they can easily move from one machine to another and not get lost.
I think a good set of hot keys will only occupy the non mouse hand and allow access to 100% of whatever is needed to do your work on a daily basis. If you have to use your mouse hand to hit some keys then you've lost productivity.
The first thing I do when I start to learn a new 3d app is throw out all the hot keys. The next is to work on a full project. Each UI element that gets used gets a new hot key with the most used ones being the easiest to reach with the least amount of modifier keys.
I have never ever seen a 3d app that comes with hot keys that make perfect sense (Maya, Max, Modo, Mudbox, Blender). I don't think a perfect hot key setup could ever be made that works for more than the person who thought it up in the first place. Each person's brain works differently.
Blender 2.5 has taken a good step allowing for custom key maps. Unfortunately it isn't quite as streamlined as I had hoped it would be. Right now (build 28980):
From what I can tell Blender does not warn me when I create conflicting hot keys, and as far as I know there is no way to query what any particular key is set to.
I think Blender is definitely headed in the right direction. The one thing I really like about Blender is that it seems to be a place where new ideas actually have a chance to see the light of day. Also the developers seem to be fairly open to suggestions which is always a good thing. Blender seems to be going through quite a metamorphosis right now which is very exciting to watch as opposed to other more mainstream 3D apps.
I guess what everyone is hoping for in the end is "better tools" - something that can truely rival Max and Maya in every aspect of 3d art creation. With competition comes the drive to innovate and succeed.
When I first started blender (my first 3d app) I was able to make a relatively decent rendered character animation within a week. I've been attempting to use 2.5 for a month now, and still can barely ever make it past the impossible menu system.
I'm not the one to be the one who usually say that other peoples opinions are wrong, but you're quite wrong, there's been some resistance amongst the stubborn users of blender for the 2.5 update but this update has been nothing but good.
And Im one of those ancient users of blender.
Everything is basicly the same, you just have to learn a few new things, the rest is your own skillset.
I take it you aren't a fan of any other 3d tool other than blender?, Ever used maya or max, or xsi or the likes?
Yeah I have no doubt that prior version Blender users are having trouble adapting, Blender 2.5 almost seems like an entirely different app now.
Can't the hot keys and UI be customized to closer resemble the prior version of Blender? That way you get the best of both worlds, the workflow that you are missing and the core feature improvements of the new version.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that Blender 2.5 is still in a alpha state and many things are still missing, but I'm sure you already know that far better than I do.
Another good point for Blender 2.5 is that it is attracting new members to it's user base. People used to other apps who would've never even given the previous Blender more than a passing thought now are looking at ways to integrate it into their workflows simply because it is becoming more usable for them.
A highly skilled user base from a broad range of backgrounds is a great thing for an app to have. New people bring in new ideas and prevent things from getting stale.
Will give it another shot when beta 2 or 3 comes out.
Also, to the guy saying he can't use 2.5 because it's so different from 1.49: really? Oh come on. It's still Blender, you're just clearly stuck in your ways. The differences really aren't as night and day as you're making them out to be.
Also, I agree with those saying shortcuts set to the first letter of the function aren't that great. Will someone new to Blender really be looking for the Grab function, rather than move? Grab?
There are so many synonyms for any tool, I can't get behind the justification for it at all.
It just limits you to an unergonomic layout, and isn't future-proof at all. If you're adding a function called 'project' that's used all the time, do you really want to have it on P, all the way on the other side of the keyboard?
Edit: I also agree with Eld that there's really not much of a difference between 2.49b and 2.5 if you don't use the GUI (which I don't).
polyhertz: as mightypea said, head to graphicall.org. Here's a recent build, but you can get many others including several branches, like the render branch, the freestyle branch, etc. http://www.graphicall.org/builds/builds/showbuild.php?action=show&id=1389
As for it being no sculptris, all it takes is time: http://farsthary.wordpress.com/
If you are still having the UI issues in a recent build, maybe post a screenie for some help?
Gave the one in Dim's link a try, and the UI problems was having before seem to be gone. But considering I'm not really familiar with Blender past some brief experience in 2.48 a while back, their are a few things that I'm not getting.
First, after you drag out a new window, how do you remove it? So easy to make them but getting rid of them I'm just not finding an option for.
Second, for paint I'm not seeing any of these things, are they in their somewhere?:
-Unified brush size/strength
-Flat shading toggle
-texture filter toggle
-Way to paint directly on UVs
-alt brush color toggle
-texture/psd layers
-change brush hardness quickly (shift+[ or ] in PS), as opposed to manually editing the curve
I'm not planning on goin full out on learning Blender (will wait for bmesh on that), but I'd like to maybe use it for some painting for the time being.
Painting is the thing I know the least about, but I might be able to help you out.
-I'm not sure exactly what you mean with unified brush strength and size (proportional to each other?)
-To get your display settings, press [n] in the 3D view. Under Display, you should find what you're looking for. If not, you can create a quick material and set it to 'shadeless'. You can also bring ZBrush matcaps into Blender for sculpting. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=174790
-To paint on your UVs, open your UV editor, and in the header, there will be a little brush icon. Select that.
-I am assuming you mean something like [x] in Photoshop? To be honest, I'm not sure this exists, but it would probably be very easy. If it's desired, letting the developers know is the best way. A lot of them hang out in #blendercoders on freenode IRC.
-The only way to use layers I know of is through the material system. Basically, add a texture channel for each layer and set the texture to the channel. You can set the channels to different blend modes. This is sort of a hack, so unfortunately, you can't actually export the images with all the layers intact, so you'll have to save them all out separately, and recombine them in PS. It's definitely a pain. This is a feature that needs to be added. The other option is to prjection paint from Photoshop: http://durian.blender.org/development/image-re-projection/
-I don't know of an easy way to change hardness, but you can change size with [f].
Hope this helps
The 'Summer of code' project for sculpting, painting, multires, and 7 other projects just started, I'm mentoring the coder doing the sculpting work.
I've established a sculpt feedback team at the blenderartists.org forum
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=186339
and a work list for our features we are doing
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Jwilkins/GSoC2010/SculptFeedback
Farstharys dynamic retesselation work is happening in parallel and will be easy to integrate.
Some work for sculpt is overlapping with the mulitres - masking, layers; paint - stroke improvments and bump map painting; and pen tablet - how some of the interaction of pen with sculpting and painting; summer of code projects so not every improvement that will happen for sculpting is listed there.
I was planning to recruit feedback from here and a few other forums in a couple of weeks, once we kill most of the big annoyances in the current sculpting tools.
LetterRip
Sadly, this is quite true. I had played around with Sculptris a bit in its beta phaze. It was decent, but lacking in a few areas. I had already used Blender for sculpting before, and gotten some decent results with it.
I played around with the new 1.0 version of Sculptris a day or two after it came out and WOW! I was a little shocked at the quality of sculpting I was able to produce in a very short time. And I didn't even bother pushing some of its more robust features. I was just doodling on a sphere. The initial Sculptris release knocks Blender's sculpting into a cocked hat.
I've heard that someone is working on integrating Sculptris-style sculpting into Blender, but that feature probably won't make it for the official 2.5 release. I'm still going to use Blender for modeling and animating, but Sculptris is now part of my pipeline.
By unified brush settings I mean they are numerically linked so if Drawn brush is at 0.75 strength all the other brushes will be too, etc. This should work for strength, size, and color (I can hardly believe even color isn't unified). Although with no blur, burn, or dodge brushes its seeming rather barren anyway.
For flat shade was able to get it working after some tinkering. To toggle it on I need to go into edit mode, set the material as shaderless and apply, then make sure viewport shading is set to textured, render (f12), and THEN I can go back into texture paint and it'll work. If I want to turn shaderless off the process needs to be repeated. Counter productive to say the least.
Turning off texture filtering was under file-user preferences-system-mipmaps.
Thanks for the help. Paint isn't quite as good as I was hoping atp, but I suppose it might be adequate for some simple stuff.
LetterRip:
Appreciate it when Devs try to earnestly get feedback and improve their work through it, so hats off to you for that.
That said, sculpting in Blender has a lot of issues right now that need to be addressed for it to be comparable at all to any other sculpting package, free or otherwise. Here's a few I came across within moments of starting to sculpt:
-Performance issues with multires. at 400k I get roughly one 4th the brush speed I would in Sculptris, which is already about a 4th the speed in ZBrush2 back in 2004.
-Shift used for invert instead of smooth and ctrl unused. Really, shift=smooth, ctrl=invert. Theirs no reason to have buttons wasted like they are now.
-Unified brush settings, same as I mentioned to Dim for for paint brushes. I used Blender sculpt once before a few versions ago and this is the thing that stuck in my mind as why I shouldn't bother with it above all else.
-Grab brush does not feel 'right' at all.
-No masking.
I realize some of this is being covered already, but just thought I'd put in my 2 cents to say they are the biggest detractors for me atm.
all of your items are on my todo list, or already fixed in the sculpt branch.
I'll let you know when all of them have been addressed. (Masking is on the todo list for a different summer of code project so I don't have influence over when it will be done).
Such as the node editor. In 2.4x, you would click and drag to delete connections, nice and simple, and I remember i figured that out easily when first learning blender. But now, they've decided to remove that function, and I still haven't figured out how to delete connections.
Another good example is panel changing. In 2.4x it was simple. Click on the border, and you would see a list of options. Now, you have first look up how to do this, then pixel hunt for little tiny tabs that if dragged in the right way can combine panels. And to change a header location it's even worse. You have to hover over the header and click F5. F5! That's not intuitive at all! You HAVE to look something like that up, whereas, in 2.4x, it was simple to figure out right away.
This seriously cannot be just me stuck in old ways. These are actually changes for the worse.
Maybe other programs work in ways that make no sense, so 2.5 is a move in you guy's direction, but I appreciate it when an interface is easy to figure out.
I just checked 30 seconds ago and it works fine.
Just tried that in both 2.49b and 2.5x current svn and i get a menu 'horitonzal/vertical' in 2.5x, no 'free' option though.
Hmm I right click on the header and the 'header toolbox' pops up and it says 'flip to top; and Maximize Area'.
Have you tried using a recent version of Blender? What is the build number you are using?
That's not what I mean. I mean combining panels by clicking.
And I haven't updated my version of 2.5 since two weeks ago, since it's such a hassle to do so.
just use a more recent build, a default setting was propogated through all extrdues in some earlier builds. It is now back to free extrusion in recent builds.
Thanks for the tip. I'll give that a bash. Is it okay if I copy my ".B25.blend" file over to the new build? Will my current prefs be forward compatible?
http://www.artforcode.org
The concept is by me, and the implementor in BTolputt. We will be making improvements to the site over time. It is just getting off the ground and is somewhat in the experimental stages.
You can add wishlist items, add incentives to existing wish list items (x hours of modeling/uv mapping/texturing/etc), then a coder can either take on the project and accept the incentive, or request a different incentive.
The idea is mostly focused at open source and indy game devs, who currently have 'programmer art' ie more developer talent than artists; and people who want features in great open source software.
Im not sure if you are supposed to, but i have and have not noticed any major problems from doing so.
http://www.artforcode.org/node/106
There's an awful lot of talk about people wanting an accurate triangle counter in Blender, and this may be a quick way to get it done. We'll see how Tom's site does.
I will post the code here as the i cant find anywhere that hosts it anymore.
Maybe the code would give some pointers to people wishing to develop a new version?
#!BPY """ Name: 'Mesh Information' Blender: 243 Group: 'Misc' Tooltip: 'Counts triangles, vertices, etc. from selected meshes' """ # -------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Mesh information # -------------------------------------------------------------------------- # ***** BEGIN GPL LICENSE BLOCK ***** # # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or # modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License # as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 # of the License, or (at your option) any later version. # # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the # GNU General Public License for more details. # # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License # along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, # Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. # # ***** END GPL LICENCE BLOCK ***** # -------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRINT_TO_TEXT = True PRINT_TO_CONSOLE = True PRINT_DETAILED_INFO = True TEXT_NAME = "mesh_info.txt" import Blender from Blender import Scene, Text from Blender.Draw import PupMenu if PRINT_TO_TEXT: text = Text.New(TEXT_NAME) else: text = None def write(txt, adorn = ""): global text if len(adorn) == 1: length = len(txt.strip()) txt = "%s\n%s" % (txt, adorn*length) if PRINT_TO_TEXT and text: text.write(txt) text.write('\n') if PRINT_TO_CONSOLE: print txt def count_faces(mesh): tris = 0 quads = 0 triangulated = 0 for face in mesh.faces: lf = len(face.v) if lf == 3: tris += 1 else: quads += 1 triangulated += lf - 2 return [tris, quads, triangulated] def report(): write("Information about selected scene data:", "=") write("\nObjects selected: %d" % len(objs_sel), "=") obdict = {} elements = ['vertices', 'edges', 'faces', '- quads', '- tris', '=> triangulated'] totals = dict(zip(elements, len(elements)*[0])) for ob in objs_sel: if ob.type == 'Mesh': me = ob.data lverts = len(me.verts) ledges = len(me.edges) lfaces = len(me.faces) facedata = count_faces(me) obdict[ob] = [lverts, ledges, lfaces] obdict[ob].extend(facedata) totals['- tris'] += facedata[0] totals['- quads'] += facedata[1] totals['=> triangulated'] += facedata[2] totals['vertices'] += lverts totals['edges'] += ledges totals['faces'] += lfaces write("\nTotals:", "=") for elem in elements: write("%s: %d" % (elem.title(), totals[elem])) if PRINT_DETAILED_INFO: write("\nPer object:", "=") for ob in objs_sel: if ob.type != "Mesh": continue info = obdict[ob] write("\n%s Object: %s" % (ob.type, ob.name), "-") for i in range(len(elements)): write("%s: %d" % (elements[i].title(), info[i])) return (len(obdict), totals['=> triangulated']) scene = Scene.GetCurrent() objs_sel = list(scene.objects.context) if not objs_sel: PupMenu("Error: no objects selected") else: obs, triangulated = report() meshes = "Meshes Selected: %d" % obs triangulated = "Total triangle count: %d" % triangulated PupMenu("%s%%t|%s" % (triangulated, meshes))Hope that helps someone
Thanks for the tip though
http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-250/
Sure, that works for a single object, but if you have a large scene, with many objects, it's next to impossible. If you add instanced or referenced geometry, it's even worse. Basically, it really needs an overhaul, but there's little incentive to do so.
Yeah, the amount of bitching on the internet does seem to take a hit when devs release an OSX version of their tools
I think I'm more
IIRC, to use the bevel modifier on an edge you have to set the weight of the edge but afaik its hidden/missing in 2.5 :S
When BMesh is finished everything should be good again but i think the modelling focus is postponed until 2.6 now
IMHO, if you want to model 2.49 is the best option, at least for now.
http://www.pasteall.org/14511/python <-- direct link to python code, you will have to manually save it as a .py extension and manually add to the add-ons, read the above link for more info.
just gotta say the new sculpting system is a CRAZY big improvement. i was sculpting at 40 million quite smoothly ive heard the theoretcal max is like 300 million. but without hacks you can sculpt pretty well on 40/20 million with multires and vbo turned on with global undo settings turned down or off.
Is there some trick? I can't hit 2 mil without it lagging like crazy