[Thomas An.]

What I find hard is the way of doing things,

Yes, that is the beef right there. The term "UI" includes all these things; ergonomics, workflow, modeling paradigm, view navigation, arrangement and location of menus, commands, logical layout of buttons, discoverability of functions ... etc (not to be confused with "GUI". GUI is only a subset of an application's UI)

[tom]

At this point I have to say, all "hard" converge to "easy" in the end. The question is do you want to render it or not.

[Thomas An.]

At this point I have to say, all "hard" converge to "easy" in the end. The question is do you want to render it or not.

Conservation of braincells (least learning curve) in a world full of potential information overload, is of most importance. If a software presents an unduly high learning curve then it is "out"; by natural dis-selection

Yes, we can learn anything (no matter how contorted) given sufficient time investment, but some of us simply refuse to do so on things that do not even pass the "sniff test"; no matter how feature-loaded the software might be (we just move on ... and spent our youth on other more meaningful activities ).

[Mihai]

Seeing as all software currently has to use the same user inputs (mouse, keyboard), the question becomes how do you most efficiently use those inputs?

If by setting unique mouse button mappings, Blender would achieve something much better in terms of productivity, I would agree, break the mold and go for it. But in this case it doesn't. So it seems things were added in order of development. Oops, that button is already mapped to that function, ok we put it somewhere else. This is really not a good way to proceed.

Three buttons on a mouse, with different Alt, Shift, Ctrl combos can go a very long way. If each combo is specific to one task (ie object mode, poly mode, edge mode, weight painting, drawing curves) you can have a very efficient workflow, and users can familiarize themselves faster. My opinion, use the same inputs to perform the maximum amount of tasks.

[Thomas An.]

... But in this case it doesn't. So it seems things were added in order of development. Oops, that button is already mapped to that function, ok we put it somewhere else.

Eeeeexactly !
No pre-planing effort; just stuff/features piled together in an attic as they come along. That is exactly the impression I gleaned from it.

[giacob]

imo people should be think twice before giving to their own personal idisioncracies the aura of universal values.........besides by means of unproved hipothesis..

[Mihai]

It's certainly not personal, there are conventions that are good to follow because they have two major advantages. One is, the way they are built makes them well adapted to a certain task, the second is familiarity. So if you propose a new approach, you need to first consider if it will be good enough that it surpasses those two advantages.

If you're building a website and you're asking the user to choose between a few options, don't discard using radio buttons for something unique to your website, just because you think radio buttons are too boring. You can do it if you want to create an experimental website, but don't do it if the purpose of your website is to be as productive as possible and is going to be used by people who don't have time to explore.

Btw, in Blender does "3D cursor" mean pivot point?

[giacob]

not it doesnt necessarily... u place the 3d cursor where u want a new entity to be placed.. it can coincide with the pivot of an entity and used as athe pivot point but is an option ...
anyway what is more easy the using the spacebar to make pop up the menu with all create an edit commands? the space bar is the easyer to find!!!
what more intutive than pressing S to change size followed by the name of the axis if u want to size just in the direction of that axis?
tha same is true for R (rotate) and G grab... or shift D (copy) +xor y or z

..what could be more easier than u sing the tab for toggling from object mode to edit mode... ( just to make some examples)
... frankly i dont find it complicate and illogical...at all...

... the weakness of the programm are others imo... the snap system for instance seems to me lacking... but could be wrong because i am quite new at blender...
another weakness... one can change the pov of a camera just moving it in hortographic views e not directly in the camera view.....

[michaelplogue]

Well, I've figured out how to customize the windows, so now I have a more familiar 3dsMax-ish layout. You can do some limited re-mapping of the mouse controls and how you navigate in 3d space (pan, zoom, rotate) - which is a relief as I couldn't stand the default settings. I still haven't figured out how to re-map the hotkey functions - if it is even possible.

On thing that I'd like to see with Blender is floating pallets/tools. I'm accustomed to working in multi-monitor mode, and all of the other programs I use regularly have this feature (Max, Photoshop, Poser), so I can spread out and leave my center screen uncluttered.

This is definitely a program you have to use tutorials to learn. I'm going to compare this with Hexagon, which I have also been playing with recently. It also has different ways of doing things that I'm having to learn on the fly. The big difference is that I've been able to figure out pretty much everything without having to resort to any tutorials. The user interface is a snap to figure out, and all of the functions are pretty much all laid out for ease of access. The only feature where I had to refer to a tutorial was the UVW mapping of complex shapes - and this is something that I've always had problems with in 3ds Max.

So the big difference between the two that I have seen so far is that I've been immediately been able to use Hexagon, and have been able to create some pretty complex forms in a matter of minutes. With Blender, I'm still trying to figure out how to do very basic things.

Now, in the long run I may find Blender easier to use, and better suited for certain tasks than Hexagon once I get the keystrokes figured out. However, I'm already much more comfortable with Hexagon than I am with Blender.

[giacob]

but truly u manadge to learn 3DMX without any tutorial.?..... i didnt... so it has been for LW

[michaelplogue]

I'm really getting frustrated with some of the total disregard for standard keyboard commands that Blender ignores. There are certain shortcuts that are pretty much universal in nearly every program (at least in the Windows world).

Certain things like Ctrl-S to save, Ctrl-O to open a file, Ctrl-A to select all, F1 for Help, are the same in nearly every program I've used.

So who on earth would decide to use Ctrl-W to save, Ctrl-A to "apply objects size/rotation to object data", Ctrl-S for "Shear in edit mode", or F1 to Open a file????

How does that make the program easier to use? It's sort of like a builder putting the toilet in the kitchen instead of the bathroom. There's no reason why you couldn't put the toilet there, but if the only reason you did was because there isn't room in the bathroom because the refrigerator is in there....

[michaelplogue]

but truly u manadge to learn 3DMX without any tutorial.?..... i didnt... so it has been for LW

For the most part, yes. I could start making things from the very start without having to memorize any keystrokes. As I became more competent, I picked up different shortcuts that made my work flow faster and more efficient. I could play with pretty much every function and figure it out with simple experimentation. Certainly, with some of the more complex features, like Cloth or Reactor, I had to refer to the help file. But otherwise, simple experimentation was sufficient to become proficient with the majority of the features.

[giacob]

then this is quite subjective.. coming form cad world i found 3dmax really hard to learn..

[michaelplogue]

True. But Since 3ds Max was the first 3d program I ever tried, I didn't have any prejudices like I do now...

However, like I mentioned in my later post, I had never used Hexagon before either, and I was able to pick up how it works in very little time. As a Poly-modelling program, many of the features are very familiar to me, and I was filleting, extruding, bridging, splitting, etc in no time.

In blender, I still haven't figured out how to select an individual segment of a polygon in order to edit it. I can't even figure out how to apply a texture to an object - I literally will have to go through a tutorial to figure that out.......

This goes back to what we've been saying about intuitive design. I pride myself in being able to sit down in front of any program - of any type - and become competent in using it in a relatively short time - just by playing around with it. I mostly attribute this to well designed, intuitive interfaces.

However, Blender makes me feel like a complete idiot who has never turned on a computer before in his life...... (sort of like the old lady who thought you used the mouse like a gas pedal, and kept stomping on it to make the computer "go".... )

[Tim Ellis]

Right mouse button in 3D window = select object
Left mouse button in 3D window = place 3D cursor (Used to add new objects or verts.)
Middle mouse button in 3D window = rotate viewport

Even from just this info, to me it sounds like it's not going to be easy to learn this application at all.

How hard was Studio to learn then? Three mouse buttons and hold the ALT key.

Conventional UI procedures can be good, they are widely adapted because they work well and there is no point in changing them if you don't have anything substantially better to offer.

Blender started as an in house tool for game creation. Ton originally created the toolset to his needs. I appreciate that a standard toolset across all platforms would be a good idea, but why was a global standard not implemented initially?

In almost all 3D applications, you select with the left mousebutton, right clicking usually brings up a context menu related to your current selection.

True. Something I find infuriating with 3DSMax, especially having to hold different keys to open further or alternate menus. No different really to using a key for a specific tool menu.

What do you use more often? Select another object (or vertices, edges, polys), or place the 3D cursor?

Select object, although left click confirms actions as well as placing the 3D cursor.

Before you jump at that, if no action is in process, the 3D cursor will be placed. (I should have made that clearer.)

Tim.