Whether or not it is essentially scsi over anything, it is atapi and having to use scsi names for ide hardware is quaint. Now (in_.jp) almost all CD-R(W), DVD-R(W) DVD+R(W) is either atapi, usb2 or firewire. Wether or not it 'really' is scsi, perception is reality and the box says its atapi and it works as a cd-rom using ide-atapi drivers, but EVERYONE has to go searching through the documentation to find out that Linux has this quaint approach to burners.
Why not just say THESE ARE ATAPI DRIVERS FOR YOUR ATAPI BURNER and if everyone should know that it's really just scsi over ide, tell them that it requires scsi and explain why in a note somewhere, but make the ATAPI drivers as ATAPI drivers instead of creating this headache. The use of CD and DVD media is an area where Linux is a LONG way behind in terms of usability and this is NOT just an issue with codec use in the USA. Could the virtual_/dev system coming up fix this.
1.../dev/cdrom 2.../dev/cd-r and a disk cache 3.../dev/cd-rw
ABC
anyway back to how after why. If someone could make a better configure tool to know all of these things and do a check for compatibility requirements before saving, like a package management tool and give you a chance to go back and check that one box you missed, without having to make, install and boot your kernel only to discover that you missed something somewhere (maybe).
The heirarchical package selection system in a single window used by package managers might groan a little, but if it could allow you to look at a single screen and say I want drivers for CD burners (atapi or USB?:-) and USB HIDs and core linux, legacy , network and/or CD/DVD file systems and whatever else, then allow those who want/need to, to go in and look for their cards, devices, file systems, character sets, whatever.
If you don't name your objects and you think your ready for an animation, then it's time to pack up and go home. You should be able to select them with the layer structure (without switching any layers off) and use these preselected (or post selected) objects in the spline animation tool.
Designers do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, until they run out of hours and something determines that continuing to develop the project is no longer going to be funded. At this point it is deemed to be finished.
Yeah, it did a pretty good job at getting people up and running, but it wasn't a good manual. I've taught 3D modelling, and developed teaching materials for doing so, and this stuff was really average. It taught tools, not how to use the program, (and not how to model)
People raving about Blenders GUI don't know what they're talking about and usually don't know much about 3D - or professional 3D modelling tools for that matter. They think that tools like 3D Studio are some kind of benchmark. I agree that Blender is more advanced in some ways than lower end tools like 3D Studio, but it is designed to facilitate an archaic approach to modelling that is simply not scalable above quite small and very simple objects.
In fact Blender has a simple low end GUIs. Its workspace management is an area in which it's notably poor, the OO structure using GL for rendering the controls is elegant and fast and the shortcuts are countless but should be easily configurable/personalisable.
It could benifit greatly from breaking the pseudo pallettes up into pallettes that can be easily launched with keystrokes. Loosing pixel space for a pallette that you used three minuites ago is insane, and loosing it in the vertical axis is just stupid. An argument could be made for running a strip vertically in the modelling window instead of horizontally (like the object heirachy). Many systems do this and it works MUCH better. The current system makes it a bit hard to use three or four monitors, but unlike other systems, this cluster of an interface NEEDS a couple of screens on which to sprawl.
I refer you to my earlier statements to explain what I feel blender needs to come up to spec.
It comes from their useless memory/process management on earlier OSs. They had no multitasking, so they removed things from the window because you couldn't use them anyway.:-)
The democratically elected (social democratic) governments of South America are usually very short lived, and are usually replaced by authoritarian regimes that support (US of ) American business interests. It is questionable whether the USA is a democracy in the truest sense. It's definately a republic, but I see little health, education and welfare for all. These are enablers for true democratic process.
And decent burning. We have strayed a little from the file=everything model (I think) for linux re removable media. I would like to burn DVD-anythings using the mount tool.
Not Computer Aided Drafting/Computer Aided Modelling,
WE want Computer Aided Design. Something that integrates fluidly into documentation from a design model. It could be a simple (well maybe not simple) pluggin tool. I'm seeing Blender for the design and beautiful postscript --> pdf for the printed documentation.
Maybe I'm a dreamer.
Now all we need is a decent Graphic Design package and Linux will KICK in design. Drafting could be integrated into the Graphics package. There's quite good stuff around. They just need an importer, better layers & 2D snaps (and bevel and round and master pages, oh well). Maybe the model could output documentation, like make. (make a model heh heh heh)
3DStudio Max? WHAT, I get your point, and everyone has heard of Max, but SHOOT HIGHER PLEASE. This has the POTENTIAL to be MUCH better than some dodgy autodesk thing.
The Gimp's interface is superior to Photoshops in some ways and inferiour in others. (What a revelation) The Gimp would benefit greatly from an action recorder for making batch scripts automatically. Needing to learn a scripting language and WRITE SCRIPTS (AND usually how to program) to use powerfull features when it can be done faster, more reliably and still very flexibly with zero educational input is a BIG advantage for photoshop. It's a bit like applescript's action recorder. Linix scripting should watch itself. If Mac every realises what to do with their Unix system, WOW.
For many this combined with the dodgy selection tools in the Gimp is an end game.
p.s. a renderman/povray exporter that could handle an animation would be cool. Is that scriptable?:-)
Blenders back end is amazing, but the interface is based upon enabling a slow and inefficient style of modelling that is no longer usable for comercial production.
It has many things that commercial packages do not have. What it lacks is predominantly in the interface. Yes I have used it, and much more advanced (and expensive) packages.
It needs to move away from the three orthographic views for modelling, one perspectival view for visualisation mode of design, where people use ten moves in three windows to achieve what should have happened in one move with ABSOLUTE ACCURACY using object snaps. The people who do this in front of me, then tell me that they are saving time. They continue to say this when they are in living hell later on when they need to use boolean operations or anything advanced with their mess of a model. I would find it funny, were it not for the human tragedy (DON'T THINK THAT'S A JOKE)
In order to move away from this interface mode, Blender will need to separate the viewport from the active plane (the co-ordinate system being used for input and editing of objects) and implement GOOD snapping for endpoints, midpoints and center points as an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM. snap to face,x/y/z/xy/yz/xz separation of input, etc would be good too. This and the ability to save and easily modify these active planes (for input) would make blender much more powerful and allow work to be done in a single perspectival window (maybe with small orthographic views for newbies who don't dream in wireframe and can't see it in perspective)
The other enhancement NEEDED is an improved HEIRACHICAL layer structure. The present collection of little buttons that pass for a layer structure are humerous if you don't actually try to use them. A layer structure with grouping, toggleable visability, snapability, selectability and lock status is part of modelling. If this could be used to facilitate object selection, apply heirachic object propeties according to group membership, and be extended to transparently allow for the division of the project into blocks (separate files, I think this is practically done) that could be used simultaneously by a range of designers on different tasks, then Blender would be up there with some of the best editors in existence. (Moving the configuration stuff into dialogs and/or running it vertically would help the interface a lot too. The basic layout of the buttons is very pixel hungry)
These things are not big additions compared to the amazing stuff already in there, but I haven't seen and no doubt wouldn't understand the code involved. I know nothing about it's language and the developers have been too defensive about their interface to be worth approaching.
To be the worst nightmare of EVERY commercial 3D/4D modelling/rendering program around, here are some non interface related suggestions:
It should improve the granularity of it's sub-object editing. Selection, deletion and insertion of points, lines, curves, faces, subfaces, control points etc, and their simultaneous selection at a range of levels (select different points, lines, faces and objects and move them with a single operation.:-) This will bring blender up to spec with some of the most efficient and intuitive modelling tools around.
To take a leaf from some of the work in development at microstation (I am not from microstation. Sorry microstation, you should have continued your support for Linux) They are working on some seriously cool new tools that TOTALLY BLEW MY MIND. I would leave unix forever for this.
Ready, They are working on something like a GUI integrated development environment for the back end scripting of models as part of the standard modelling tools, so that you can use a GUI to tell a point to remain at the... I need pictures. Code the point/control point location as an equation taking things like remaining tangential to this point, and maintaining a right angle between these two sections and remaining within a certain part of the length of this line in a way that is dynamically updatable. Do that and make it stable and easy to learn and the modelling world will stop and praise you!
Your opinions, in combination with the idea that the Euro is a little agreement (Hello UK) away from providing a realistic alternative to the US$ in international money markets, allowing other countries to pull out the foreign capital that has been propping up the ridiculously overvalued US$, tends to suggest that the US could decline without serious international problems.
People in countries with now destroyed economies are starting to notice the tendency of America's business sector (NOTE NOT AMERICANS, I have the utmost respect for most of them and their beliefs) to 'encourage' their politicians to remove social DEMOCRATIC governments that have the interests of their people at heart, and replace them with authoritarian regimes that have the interests of American corporations and themselves at heart.
No I am not talking about a conspiracy. Read the business press, and look at old freedom of information stuff from the Whitehouse and other places. It's not a secret outside the USA. It's not a secret inside the USA.
The world doesn't REALLY hate Americans. It dislikes what their country does. Hopefully if it did loose a little clout (and Europe didn't get too much, their_.govs aren't much better), then the developing world might have a chance to stop acting as service countries and develop themselves.
I apologise to anyone I may have offended. This is my opinion (Refer: Free Speech)
It's not a flip flop. It's a chain of cause and effect.
Helping part 1 -allows-> helping part 2
I take your point about the online version. It should be the.ps version on a big sheet of paper (like the poster). I hope you can work out what part 1 and part 2 are for yourself.
An example for you of how this facilitates creativity could be a 60 year old architect with an A0 page of working drawings for a multi-storey building (real architect) They see errors and POSSIBILITIES in seconds that take mortals hours or days (or are never found). They are things that you don't find from scanning a specification or details. These guys see a detailing/specification error/nightmare in the difference between a 2mm and 3mm line. Perhaps what this needs is a more meaningfull standard. It's a start though and it's NOT A WASTE OF TIME.
It's the beginning of computer architecture approaching visualisation of a BIG problem/solution in a 'new' old and very advanced way.
For digital viewing we need MUCH more advanced heirarchical layer/group structures with more advanced viewpoint and rendering options. There is a discussion about 3D possibilities. Unfortunately most people are unable to read two dimensional graphics, let alone 'SEE' a 3D wireframe representation. The very beginning of automated code visualiser development tools are being discussed elsewhere on this list. If the view controls allowed you to reach the 'nuts and bolts' level then perhaps this could allow a single brain to overlook and quality control projects much bigger than the present kernel source. These projects are probably going to come. Emacs (or Vi) are not going to cut it for visualisation.
You are assuming that coders are the only ones with ideas. The Linux Kernel has passed or is approaching most other OSs very rapidly in a broad range of areas. It can no longer play tag. What the linux kernel will need in the very near future is ideas, concepts, directions, where to go from here. Things like the virtual_/dev stuff that other people are not doing. A range of approaches will aid in facilitating that. This facilitates people with a range of approaches!
Perhaps the pluggin to which you refer was cosmo player, a Virtual Realm Modelling Language browser w Netscape/iE pluggin.
It would be useless without a VERY high speed graphics card. More than about 10,000 polygons would jitter like crazy. Can you say 3 frames a second. (It's an interpreted language from HELL!!! Imagine the 3D version of 'printable' graphics using html 2.0). I wouldn't try it in a browser.
Now a 3D IGES file, that would be cool.
There are/were linux VRML browsers coming along ages ago. I should go back & check on them.
Slashdot Mirror
Is that in a gui config tool somewhere? :-)
I've finally got to the site, and seen something like what I was talking about, and it's not scripted so it could be quite fast, don't you think? WOW
:-)
Sorry
Whether or not it is essentially scsi over anything, it is atapi and having to use scsi names for ide hardware is quaint. Now (in_.jp) almost all CD-R(W), DVD-R(W) DVD+R(W) is either atapi, usb2 or firewire. Wether or not it 'really' is scsi, perception is reality and the box says its atapi and it works as a cd-rom using ide-atapi drivers, but EVERYONE has to go searching through the documentation to find out that Linux has this quaint approach to burners.
:-) and USB HIDs and core linux, legacy , network and/or CD/DVD file systems and whatever else, then allow those who want/need to, to go in and look for their cards, devices, file systems, character sets, whatever.
Why not just say THESE ARE ATAPI DRIVERS FOR YOUR ATAPI BURNER and if everyone should know that it's really just scsi over ide, tell them that it requires scsi and explain why in a note somewhere, but make the ATAPI drivers as ATAPI drivers instead of creating this headache. The use of CD and DVD media is an area where Linux is a LONG way behind in terms of usability and this is NOT just an issue with codec use in the USA. Could the virtual_/dev system coming up fix this.
1.../dev/cdrom
2.../dev/cd-r and a disk cache
3.../dev/cd-rw
ABC
anyway back to how after why. If someone could make a better configure tool to know all of these things and do a check for compatibility requirements before saving, like a package management tool and give you a chance to go back and check that one box you missed, without having to make, install and boot your kernel only to discover that you missed something somewhere (maybe).
The heirarchical package selection system in a single window used by package managers might groan a little, but if it could allow you to look at a single screen and say I want drivers for CD burners (atapi or USB?
If you don't name your objects and you think your ready for an animation, then it's time to pack up and go home. You should be able to select them with the layer structure (without switching any layers off) and use these preselected (or post selected) objects in the spline animation tool.
Designers do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, until they run out of hours and something determines that continuing to develop the project is no longer going to be funded. At this point it is deemed to be finished.
May the Linux kernel NEVER be finished. Amen
Yeah, it did a pretty good job at getting people up and running, but it wasn't a good manual. I've taught 3D modelling, and developed teaching materials for doing so, and this stuff was really average. It taught tools, not how to use the program, (and not how to model)
People raving about Blenders GUI don't know what they're talking about and usually don't know much about 3D - or professional 3D modelling tools for that matter. They think that tools like 3D Studio are some kind of benchmark. I agree that Blender is more advanced in some ways than lower end tools like 3D Studio, but it is designed to facilitate an archaic approach to modelling that is simply not scalable above quite small and very simple objects.
In fact Blender has a simple low end GUIs. Its workspace management is an area in which it's notably poor, the OO structure using GL for rendering the controls is elegant and fast and the shortcuts are countless but should be easily configurable/personalisable.
It could benifit greatly from breaking the pseudo pallettes up into pallettes that can be easily launched with keystrokes. Loosing pixel space for a pallette that you used three minuites ago is insane, and loosing it in the vertical axis is just stupid. An argument could be made for running a strip vertically in the modelling window instead of horizontally (like the object heirachy). Many systems do this and it works MUCH better. The current system makes it a bit hard to use three or four monitors, but unlike other systems, this cluster of an interface NEEDS a couple of screens on which to sprawl.
I refer you to my earlier statements to explain what I feel blender needs to come up to spec.
It comes from their useless memory/process management on earlier OSs. They had no multitasking, so they removed things from the window because you couldn't use them anyway. :-)
The democratically elected (social democratic) governments of South America are usually very short lived, and are usually replaced by authoritarian regimes that support (US of ) American business interests. It is questionable whether the USA is a democracy in the truest sense. It's definately a republic, but I see little health, education and welfare for all. These are enablers for true democratic process.
p.s. Bush WASN'T elected. Does that explain it?
Let's have American campaign finance reform, for the sake of the world.
And decent burning. We have strayed a little from the file=everything model (I think) for linux re removable media. I would like to burn DVD-anythings using the mount tool.
Not Computer Aided Drafting/Computer Aided Modelling,
WE want Computer Aided Design. Something that integrates fluidly into documentation from a design model. It could be a simple (well maybe not simple) pluggin tool. I'm seeing Blender for the design and beautiful postscript --> pdf for the printed documentation.
Maybe I'm a dreamer.
Now all we need is a decent Graphic Design package and Linux will KICK in design. Drafting could be integrated into the Graphics package. There's quite good stuff around. They just need an importer, better layers & 2D snaps (and bevel and round and master pages, oh well). Maybe the model could output documentation, like make. (make a model heh heh heh)
I'm tired. That really wasn't funny. sleep time.
3DStudio Max? WHAT, I get your point, and everyone has heard of Max, but SHOOT HIGHER PLEASE. This has the POTENTIAL to be MUCH better than some dodgy autodesk thing.
The Gimp's interface is superior to Photoshops in some ways and inferiour in others. (What a revelation) The Gimp would benefit greatly from an action recorder for making batch scripts automatically. Needing to learn a scripting language and WRITE SCRIPTS (AND usually how to program) to use powerfull features when it can be done faster, more reliably and still very flexibly with zero educational input is a BIG advantage for photoshop. It's a bit like applescript's action recorder. Linix scripting should watch itself. If Mac every realises what to do with their Unix system, WOW.
:-)
For many this combined with the dodgy selection tools in the Gimp is an end game.
p.s. a renderman/povray exporter that could handle an animation would be cool. Is that scriptable?
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TRUE.
:-)
And the manual wasn't even good
Blenders back end is amazing, but the interface is based upon enabling a slow and inefficient style of modelling that is no longer usable for comercial production.
,x/y/z/xy/yz/xz separation of input, etc would be good too. This and the ability to save and easily modify these active planes (for input) would make blender much more powerful and allow work to be done in a single perspectival window (maybe with small orthographic views for newbies who don't dream in wireframe and can't see it in perspective)
... I need pictures. Code the point/control point location as an equation taking things like remaining tangential to this point, and maintaining a right angle between these two sections and remaining within a certain part of the length of this line in a way that is dynamically updatable. Do that and make it stable and easy to learn and the modelling world will stop and praise you!
It has many things that commercial packages do not have. What it lacks is predominantly in the interface. Yes I have used it, and much more advanced (and expensive) packages.
It needs to move away from the three orthographic views for modelling, one perspectival view for visualisation mode of design, where people use ten moves in three windows to achieve what should have happened in one move with ABSOLUTE ACCURACY using object snaps. The people who do this in front of me, then tell me that they are saving time. They continue to say this when they are in living hell later on when they need to use boolean operations or anything advanced with their mess of a model. I would find it funny, were it not for the human tragedy (DON'T THINK THAT'S A JOKE)
In order to move away from this interface mode, Blender will need to separate the viewport from the active plane (the co-ordinate system being used for input and editing of objects) and implement GOOD snapping for endpoints, midpoints and center points as an ABSOLUTE MINIMUM. snap to face
The other enhancement NEEDED is an improved HEIRACHICAL layer structure. The present collection of little buttons that pass for a layer structure are humerous if you don't actually try to use them. A layer structure with grouping, toggleable visability, snapability, selectability and lock status is part of modelling. If this could be used to facilitate object selection, apply heirachic object propeties according to group membership, and be extended to transparently allow for the division of the project into blocks (separate files, I think this is practically done) that could be used simultaneously by a range of designers on different tasks, then Blender would be up there with some of the best editors in existence. (Moving the configuration stuff into dialogs and/or running it vertically would help the interface a lot too. The basic layout of the buttons is very pixel hungry)
These things are not big additions compared to the amazing stuff already in there, but I haven't seen and no doubt wouldn't understand the code involved. I know nothing about it's language and the developers have been too defensive about their interface to be worth approaching.
To be the worst nightmare of EVERY commercial 3D/4D modelling/rendering program around, here are some non interface related suggestions:
It should improve the granularity of it's sub-object editing. Selection, deletion and insertion of points, lines, curves, faces, subfaces, control points etc, and their simultaneous selection at a range of levels (select different points, lines, faces and objects and move them with a single operation.:-) This will bring blender up to spec with some of the most efficient and intuitive modelling tools around.
To take a leaf from some of the work in development at microstation (I am not from microstation. Sorry microstation, you should have continued your support for Linux) They are working on some seriously cool new tools that TOTALLY BLEW MY MIND. I would leave unix forever for this.
Ready, They are working on something like a GUI integrated development environment for the back end scripting of models as part of the standard modelling tools, so that you can use a GUI to tell a point to remain at the
Anyway that's probably long enough.
Your opinions, in combination with the idea that the Euro is a little agreement (Hello UK) away from providing a realistic alternative to the US$ in international money markets, allowing other countries to pull out the foreign capital that has been propping up the ridiculously overvalued US$, tends to suggest that the US could decline without serious international problems.
People in countries with now destroyed economies are starting to notice the tendency of America's business sector (NOTE NOT AMERICANS, I have the utmost respect for most of them and their beliefs) to 'encourage' their politicians to remove social DEMOCRATIC governments that have the interests of their people at heart, and replace them with authoritarian regimes that have the interests of American corporations and themselves at heart.
No I am not talking about a conspiracy. Read the business press, and look at old freedom of information stuff from the Whitehouse and other places. It's not a secret outside the USA. It's not a secret inside the USA.
The world doesn't REALLY hate Americans. It dislikes what their country does. Hopefully if it did loose a little clout (and Europe didn't get too much, their_.govs aren't much better), then the developing world might have a chance to stop acting as service countries and develop themselves.
I apologise to anyone I may have offended. This is my opinion (Refer: Free Speech)
Yeah, It's always strange how people in other countries copy people from the USA, before things are really invented (in the USA).
:-)
I had one guy try to tell me that Henry Ford invented the motor car.
No doubt someone will tell me that his combination of European industrial processes and European motor cars constituted invention of the car.
Sounds much better.
Your reasoning is good, re: marketing. Sounds like a nice simple sales point. Maybe we should start an open source comercial/ad to use it. :-)
BUT
It COULD be the beginning of something usefull for coders too, for reasons I have already explained elsewhere.
It's not a flip flop. It's a chain of cause and effect.
.ps version on a big sheet of paper (like the poster). I hope you can work out what part 1 and part 2 are for yourself.
Helping part 1 -allows-> helping part 2
I take your point about the online version. It should be the
An example for you of how this facilitates creativity could be a 60 year old architect with an A0 page of working drawings for a multi-storey building (real architect) They see errors and POSSIBILITIES in seconds that take mortals hours or days (or are never found). They are things that you don't find from scanning a specification or details. These guys see a detailing/specification error/nightmare in the difference between a 2mm and 3mm line. Perhaps what this needs is a more meaningfull standard. It's a start though and it's NOT A WASTE OF TIME.
It's the beginning of computer architecture approaching visualisation of a BIG problem/solution in a 'new' old and very advanced way.
For digital viewing we need MUCH more advanced heirarchical layer/group structures with more advanced viewpoint and rendering options. There is a discussion about 3D possibilities. Unfortunately most people are unable to read two dimensional graphics, let alone 'SEE' a 3D wireframe representation. The very beginning of automated code visualiser development tools are being discussed elsewhere on this list. If the view controls allowed you to reach the 'nuts and bolts' level then perhaps this could allow a single brain to overlook and quality control projects much bigger than the present kernel source. These projects are probably going to come. Emacs (or Vi) are not going to cut it for visualisation.
You are assuming that coders are the only ones with ideas. The Linux Kernel has passed or is approaching most other OSs very rapidly in a broad range of areas. It can no longer play tag. What the linux kernel will need in the very near future is ideas, concepts, directions, where to go from here. Things like the virtual_/dev stuff that other people are not doing. A range of approaches will aid in facilitating that. This facilitates people with a range of approaches!
Visual literacy is as important as code literacy. SOMETIMES (I repeat sometimes) it's a little lacking in open projects. The coders sometimes chase off designers (visual as apposed to textual thinkers). I think this is usefull because it gets it all in one eyefull. If you can't understand why people would spend the time then maybe you're not seeing something.
Who are you to say who can and can't make a contribution.
Perhaps the pluggin to which you refer was cosmo player, a Virtual Realm Modelling Language browser w Netscape/iE pluggin.
It would be useless without a VERY high speed graphics card. More than about 10,000 polygons would jitter like crazy. Can you say 3 frames a second. (It's an interpreted language from HELL!!! Imagine the 3D version of 'printable' graphics using html 2.0). I wouldn't try it in a browser.
Now a 3D IGES file, that would be cool.
There are/were linux VRML browsers coming along ages ago. I should go back & check on them.