1. Design a product
2. Ensure it's Overpriced
3. Fail to gain market interest, then sue everyone that didn't buy your product, because they didn't buy it.
4. Profit!!!
People need more memory far more often than they need a new hard drive or new processor. It's simple supply and demand. Prices drop, demand increases but supply dwindles. The prices then go up and finally reach a point where demand tapers off and production can catch up.
And furthermore, the GPL doesn't require you to distribute things to the public at large. It only requires you do distribute it to persons you sell binaries to.
He reviewed it as provided, like ANY reviewer worth a shit will do. It's up to the manufacturer to make things work, not the end-user. I smell "Poster that doesn't know a fucking thing about reviews."
Hey, someone that at least sounds like they've used something other than Blender at some point. Let's talk, shall we?
Have you worked through the tutorials in the standard manual (either the new one by Ton for 3.32 or the older one that is now free - [I think much of Tons newest has mostly been released under a free license as well])?
I'm about to do so, but remember that I've been using Blender for over 4 years. I've read DOZENS of tutorials. It's not a question of just learning hotkeys. The interface feels like it was programmed as they went along instead of designed THEN programmed.
Doing all of your modeling in one big window is relatively straight forward. What particular 'manipulators' do you feel are missing? Are you familiar of the usage of the right and middle mouse button for manipulation? (Ie scaling, zooming, rotation, etc.)
Yes, and it's unbelievably counterintuitive. It's much easier to just grab a manipulator and move something. In case you're not familiar with them, a manipulator is basically a three axis arrow looking thing that allows you to restrict movements to one or two directions. Look at some 3ds max or Maya screenshots for the best examples. This isn't to say that a manipulator is the only way to work, Lightwave for example doesn't use them, but I think it would be perfect for Blender.
I also desire full undo. It is non trivial, otherwise it would be done already. I recall seeing some work on enabling multi-level undo for everything but I'm not sure how far it has progressed.
It's not trivial, but it can't be that difficult. Every graphics program I've ever used has one, EXCEPT for Blender. This is something I find completely inexcusable. The mesh editing undo is a good start, but even that is a horrible kludge. We'll see how it progresses.
It isn't 'trying to be different'. The one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard is an extremely efficient method. Something being discussed is migrating all of the key and mousebindings to a user configureable method.(Yes should probably have been done from the beginning). Then you can set them up exactly as you like them from other environments.
They might not try to be different but they're certainly not trying to do anything the way anyone else does. In some ways this is good. I LOVE the way the interface looks. It's by far the best looking interface out there, IMO, and other programs would do well to learn from it. Blender feels like it's trying to replicate Lightwave's mouse/keyboard setup more than 3ds max's, and that's fine. I like Lightwave, it works very well and has some damn fine modeling tools. But whereas Lightwave's tools get progressively easier to use, Blenders just get progressively frustrating to DEAL WITH. User configurable mouse/keyboard setups would be optimal and would go a LONG way towards helping Blender be a better program.
I'll check out the mailing list you linked to. Thanks for pointing me there.
So I take it you've never heard of Softimage|EXP, Maya PLE, Houdini learning edition, or g-max, the free 3ds max for games? Nice to see you have no clue what you're talking about.
What the hell makes you think that in the past four fucking years I haven't read the documentation? The documentation still doesn't change the fact that Blender has the most unintuitive, kludged together, shittiest interface I've ever seen on a 3d package. It's obvious that no matter how many viable points I bring up all you're going to do is tell me to RTFM (which I've BEEN DOING FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS) so I'm done with this conversation.
Another thing, and this is a huge one. PROGRAMMABLE HOTKEYS! Even in 3ds max (my package of choice, in case you couldn't tell) there are some hotkeys that I set up different than standard. Having the ability to map the keyboard and mouse the way I want would make most of my problems go away. As it stands, I'm about to dig through the Blender source hoping I can manage to redo the hotkeys. I can't program for shit, but modifying programs is simple enough.
I've failed to grasp this interface while learning about five others. How is this in any way an indication of my ignorance? To me, this is an indication of how horrible the UI designers that work with Blender are at designing UI's.
You want examples? Let's go.
- Mesh editing is cumbersome and utterly counter-intuitive. This is caused mostly by the focus on hotkeys rather than menus, and also by the lack of a manipulator of any kind. Once you learn the hotkeys, it's STILL a chore to model because the way that most of the tools work is so far from the way they work in nearly every other package.
- Having separate panels for materials and textures is a joke. The two need to be combined and refined.
- I, like a lot of people, prefer to model in one large window as opposed to several smaller ones. This is almost impossible in Blender due, again, to a lack of manipulators.
- No real undo. This is fucking pathetic, really. There is no good reason whatsoever to not have an undo in a program like this. Inexcusable. The addition of a mesh editing undo is good, but it's not enough.
- What the hell is that stupid bullseye thing? It is completely useless. Get rid of it, and make the left mouse button usable for something other than clicking the damn buttons.
- Why aren't object created at either the origin or where I click and drag, like every other package ever made ever? Just to be different?
- Speaking of which, why the hell would I want to create an obect that's aligned with the screen? I don't want to have to change my damn screen position every time I need a new object.
I can't think of anything else at the moment, but those are some starting points. My ideas for fixing them (in order)...
- The mesh editing needs to either be like 3ds max or like Lightwave. Right now it's trying to be both. This does not work. Pick one and stick with it.
- A completely new materials panel is in order. If I thought anyone would listen to me, I'd design the damn thing myself. Implementation would have to be carried out by someone else, which is why I doubt anyone cares about my input.
- Add a manipulator. Simple enough.
- Implement a real undo, for fuck's sake. If it's proving difficult, give me some real technical reasons and not just "It's hard to do." Programming is tough, no matter what you're doing, and practically evey program ever devised has an undo of some kind. Fix it.
- Get rid of the bullseye so the left mouse button can use the manipulator.
- Give users the choice of either creating objects through click and drag, or at the origin.
- This point ties in with the previous one.
Is this sensible enough? Or are you going to bitch more because I said fuck a few times? I'm not ignorant, especially when it comes to 3d program interfaces. I can jump between programs with ease because they all subscribe to the same basic philosophy and it's all a matter of figuring out where the tools are stowed. Blender is trying too hard to be different, and it's hurting itself in the process.
In the interest of keeping legislators out of the ass of gamers, your points are moot. How many laws accomplish nothing, but are on the books to make people feel better?
I was using Blender when it was a commercial package, about 4-5 years ago. I started with it before I started with 3ds max. In the time I've been TRYING to learn Blender I've become capable in 3ds max, Lightwave, Softimage, Houdini, and a couple of other modeling-specific packages. It takes me anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days to fully get into a new software enviroment but in FOUR YEARS I haven't made any progress on Blender's shitty interface. It's getting better, but it's still the worst I've seen by far. Fuck, HOUDINI is more intuitive than Blender.
You're missing the point. If game companies forbid retailers from selling their M rated games to minors, and the store does it anyway, they can revoke their rights to sell their games. Which is going to be a bigger hit on your business? A $1,000 fine which you probably covered three times over just on sales to 10 year olds, or the complete loss of half your stock? It's doubtful they'd ever do that, but how often are movie theatres fined for letting minors into R rate movies?
I'm not sure what the hell you're talking about. 3ds max has some of the best modelling tools this side of Mirai. I agree that its native rendering is usually craptacular, but you can't fault it in its modeling capabilities.
Blender isn't trying to be anything. It's trying to be everything, which is why it will always be practically nothing.
Raytracing isn't always SLOW. It depends on what you're rendering and what you're rendering it on. To pull an example from a different program, in 3ds max there are some things I'd render in the default scanline renderer that would take a couple of hours. Under Brazil (the 3rd party renderer by Splutterfish) it would take a quarter the time. You can't really make the overall statement that raytracing is always slower.
But for the most part, you're right.;-)
I have a feeling the Blender team would sooner gouge out their own ass, goatse-style, than do anything like a REAL production-level 3d program does things. EVERYTHING seems like it's there only to be different, and that's not good. While the galleries on the Blender site make it clear that it can produce some damn fine work, it probably takes twice as long as it would in any other program.
I wish I had the skills to rewrite the interface my damn self. I like the direction they're going with it, but I KNOW they'll screw it up. The new UI looks amazing, but it feels horrible. Like it's pasted together from bits and pieces of other programs. Some Lightwave here, some 3ds there, some Softimage here... it's a clusterfuck of ideas instead of being its own, well thought out UI.
Despite my extensive experience using 3d studio, Lightwave, Softimage, and Houdini, Blender still makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. The interface is STILL horrible, only prettier with the more recent releases, and feels like a kludged together compsci project. It doesn't flow like a good 3d program should. Even though Houdini and Lightwave have really messed up workflows, they make sense once you use them long enough. I've been using Blender on and off for about 4 years now and I still can't do anything worth a damn with it.
The gaming industry should, as a whole, start regulating itself. Start forbidding retailers from sellings M rated games to minors. I like my Vice City as much as the next guy, but if a 13 year old is going to be playing it, their parents should be aware of the content and it should be up to them whether it's allowed in their house or not (for the record, I'd let my kids play it). By restricting the sale to minors, you don't bring up any more issues than not allowing kids into R rated movies does. This is something every gamer should get behind, just as most everyone did with the ratings system a few years back. The more the industry and its customers regulate themselves, the less the goverment gets involved.
*yawn* And what exactly do you think they'd do with that information? Please, no psycho-paranoid tinfoil theories either. "OH SHIT! They know which way I take to work!"
Slashdot Mirror
1. Design a product
2. Ensure it's Overpriced
3. Fail to gain market interest, then sue everyone that didn't buy your product, because they didn't buy it.
4. Profit!!!
People need more memory far more often than they need a new hard drive or new processor. It's simple supply and demand. Prices drop, demand increases but supply dwindles. The prices then go up and finally reach a point where demand tapers off and production can catch up.
True enough, but if you include the source you're under no obligation to give it to anyone other than whoever purchased the binaries.
Now THOSE are reasonable questions. Attacking the reviewer because they didn't reconfigure the whole computer isn't reasonable.
And furthermore, the GPL doesn't require you to distribute things to the public at large. It only requires you do distribute it to persons you sell binaries to.
Because they're probably not modified.
We prefer to use the brainpower on remembering things like brushing teeth.
He reviewed it as provided, like ANY reviewer worth a shit will do. It's up to the manufacturer to make things work, not the end-user. I smell "Poster that doesn't know a fucking thing about reviews."
Touche, Costmart.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
I'm about to do so, but remember that I've been using Blender for over 4 years. I've read DOZENS of tutorials. It's not a question of just learning hotkeys. The interface feels like it was programmed as they went along instead of designed THEN programmed.
Yes, and it's unbelievably counterintuitive. It's much easier to just grab a manipulator and move something. In case you're not familiar with them, a manipulator is basically a three axis arrow looking thing that allows you to restrict movements to one or two directions. Look at some 3ds max or Maya screenshots for the best examples. This isn't to say that a manipulator is the only way to work, Lightwave for example doesn't use them, but I think it would be perfect for Blender.
It's not trivial, but it can't be that difficult. Every graphics program I've ever used has one, EXCEPT for Blender. This is something I find completely inexcusable. The mesh editing undo is a good start, but even that is a horrible kludge. We'll see how it progresses.
They might not try to be different but they're certainly not trying to do anything the way anyone else does. In some ways this is good. I LOVE the way the interface looks. It's by far the best looking interface out there, IMO, and other programs would do well to learn from it. Blender feels like it's trying to replicate Lightwave's mouse/keyboard setup more than 3ds max's, and that's fine. I like Lightwave, it works very well and has some damn fine modeling tools. But whereas Lightwave's tools get progressively easier to use, Blenders just get progressively frustrating to DEAL WITH. User configurable mouse/keyboard setups would be optimal and would go a LONG way towards helping Blender be a better program.
I'll check out the mailing list you linked to. Thanks for pointing me there.
So I take it you've never heard of Softimage|EXP, Maya PLE, Houdini learning edition, or g-max, the free 3ds max for games? Nice to see you have no clue what you're talking about.
What the hell makes you think that in the past four fucking years I haven't read the documentation? The documentation still doesn't change the fact that Blender has the most unintuitive, kludged together, shittiest interface I've ever seen on a 3d package. It's obvious that no matter how many viable points I bring up all you're going to do is tell me to RTFM (which I've BEEN DOING FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS) so I'm done with this conversation.
Another thing, and this is a huge one. PROGRAMMABLE HOTKEYS! Even in 3ds max (my package of choice, in case you couldn't tell) there are some hotkeys that I set up different than standard. Having the ability to map the keyboard and mouse the way I want would make most of my problems go away. As it stands, I'm about to dig through the Blender source hoping I can manage to redo the hotkeys. I can't program for shit, but modifying programs is simple enough.
I've failed to grasp this interface while learning about five others. How is this in any way an indication of my ignorance? To me, this is an indication of how horrible the UI designers that work with Blender are at designing UI's.
You want examples? Let's go.
- Mesh editing is cumbersome and utterly counter-intuitive. This is caused mostly by the focus on hotkeys rather than menus, and also by the lack of a manipulator of any kind. Once you learn the hotkeys, it's STILL a chore to model because the way that most of the tools work is so far from the way they work in nearly every other package.
- Having separate panels for materials and textures is a joke. The two need to be combined and refined.
- I, like a lot of people, prefer to model in one large window as opposed to several smaller ones. This is almost impossible in Blender due, again, to a lack of manipulators.
- No real undo. This is fucking pathetic, really. There is no good reason whatsoever to not have an undo in a program like this. Inexcusable. The addition of a mesh editing undo is good, but it's not enough.
- What the hell is that stupid bullseye thing? It is completely useless. Get rid of it, and make the left mouse button usable for something other than clicking the damn buttons.
- Why aren't object created at either the origin or where I click and drag, like every other package ever made ever? Just to be different?
- Speaking of which, why the hell would I want to create an obect that's aligned with the screen? I don't want to have to change my damn screen position every time I need a new object.
I can't think of anything else at the moment, but those are some starting points. My ideas for fixing them (in order)...
- The mesh editing needs to either be like 3ds max or like Lightwave. Right now it's trying to be both. This does not work. Pick one and stick with it.
- A completely new materials panel is in order. If I thought anyone would listen to me, I'd design the damn thing myself. Implementation would have to be carried out by someone else, which is why I doubt anyone cares about my input.
- Add a manipulator. Simple enough.
- Implement a real undo, for fuck's sake. If it's proving difficult, give me some real technical reasons and not just "It's hard to do." Programming is tough, no matter what you're doing, and practically evey program ever devised has an undo of some kind. Fix it.
- Get rid of the bullseye so the left mouse button can use the manipulator.
- Give users the choice of either creating objects through click and drag, or at the origin.
- This point ties in with the previous one.
Is this sensible enough? Or are you going to bitch more because I said fuck a few times? I'm not ignorant, especially when it comes to 3d program interfaces. I can jump between programs with ease because they all subscribe to the same basic philosophy and it's all a matter of figuring out where the tools are stowed. Blender is trying too hard to be different, and it's hurting itself in the process.
Whoever modded this flamebait has either never used Blender, or only use Blender. The interface is a kludge, and not a very good one.
In the interest of keeping legislators out of the ass of gamers, your points are moot. How many laws accomplish nothing, but are on the books to make people feel better?
I was using Blender when it was a commercial package, about 4-5 years ago. I started with it before I started with 3ds max. In the time I've been TRYING to learn Blender I've become capable in 3ds max, Lightwave, Softimage, Houdini, and a couple of other modeling-specific packages. It takes me anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days to fully get into a new software enviroment but in FOUR YEARS I haven't made any progress on Blender's shitty interface. It's getting better, but it's still the worst I've seen by far. Fuck, HOUDINI is more intuitive than Blender.
You're missing the point. If game companies forbid retailers from selling their M rated games to minors, and the store does it anyway, they can revoke their rights to sell their games. Which is going to be a bigger hit on your business? A $1,000 fine which you probably covered three times over just on sales to 10 year olds, or the complete loss of half your stock? It's doubtful they'd ever do that, but how often are movie theatres fined for letting minors into R rate movies?
I'm not sure what the hell you're talking about. 3ds max has some of the best modelling tools this side of Mirai. I agree that its native rendering is usually craptacular, but you can't fault it in its modeling capabilities.
Blender isn't trying to be anything. It's trying to be everything, which is why it will always be practically nothing.
Raytracing isn't always SLOW. It depends on what you're rendering and what you're rendering it on. To pull an example from a different program, in 3ds max there are some things I'd render in the default scanline renderer that would take a couple of hours. Under Brazil (the 3rd party renderer by Splutterfish) it would take a quarter the time. You can't really make the overall statement that raytracing is always slower. ;-)
But for the most part, you're right.
I have a feeling the Blender team would sooner gouge out their own ass, goatse-style, than do anything like a REAL production-level 3d program does things. EVERYTHING seems like it's there only to be different, and that's not good. While the galleries on the Blender site make it clear that it can produce some damn fine work, it probably takes twice as long as it would in any other program.
I wish I had the skills to rewrite the interface my damn self. I like the direction they're going with it, but I KNOW they'll screw it up. The new UI looks amazing, but it feels horrible. Like it's pasted together from bits and pieces of other programs. Some Lightwave here, some 3ds there, some Softimage here... it's a clusterfuck of ideas instead of being its own, well thought out UI.
Despite my extensive experience using 3d studio, Lightwave, Softimage, and Houdini, Blender still makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. The interface is STILL horrible, only prettier with the more recent releases, and feels like a kludged together compsci project. It doesn't flow like a good 3d program should. Even though Houdini and Lightwave have really messed up workflows, they make sense once you use them long enough. I've been using Blender on and off for about 4 years now and I still can't do anything worth a damn with it.
The gaming industry should, as a whole, start regulating itself. Start forbidding retailers from sellings M rated games to minors. I like my Vice City as much as the next guy, but if a 13 year old is going to be playing it, their parents should be aware of the content and it should be up to them whether it's allowed in their house or not (for the record, I'd let my kids play it). By restricting the sale to minors, you don't bring up any more issues than not allowing kids into R rated movies does. This is something every gamer should get behind, just as most everyone did with the ratings system a few years back. The more the industry and its customers regulate themselves, the less the goverment gets involved.
*yawn* And what exactly do you think they'd do with that information? Please, no psycho-paranoid tinfoil theories either. "OH SHIT! They know which way I take to work!"