So let’s be honest there isn’t a 3D software in the world that is going to be intuitive or easy to learn. The fact of the matter is we are using a 2D display to represent 3D data. Show me one example of a 3D package that is easy to master. Or rather than some vague aspirational goals of getting rid of complicated GUIs you can give examples of what you think would be a good intuitive GUI. Learning 3D is hard and it is going to be regardless of how refined the UI is. And honestly, After learning Zbrush Blender’s UI is actually a treat. Yet, I use Zbrush for 90% of my sculpting. I used to use Blender a lot more but then Zbrush put out Dynamic and micro-poly and that allowed me to work that much faster. Yes, Blender has cloth sim but Zbrush is so much more responsive than Blender that I stopped sending stuff to Blender when i want to do cloth sims. Powerful with good features is going to trump easy to use for those that are interested any day of the week. I have super easy to use intuitive software in VR and it’s great as a toy or quickly block something out but It’s a toy, Fastest 3D software to learn super intuitive interface. But I can’t do anything in it when push comes to shove. I have seen people pick up blender super fast. There is a guy on youtube that picked up blender this year and is making fun little animations on it. It took him less than a month to start making interesting things. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU4LxEyKrmRgT-y7Nx9XRDw
It goes to show that while anyone can make excuses that Blender is hard to learn, the people that want to learn it can actually learn how to use it pretty fast.
It doesn’t matter who the majority of the users It matters who is paying the money. And who is actually coding blender For better or worst development costs money. And if you look at who is footing that bill we have Epic Games. AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Studio Khara among others. Not only that but these groups are using Blender for Professional Work. Studio Khara moved to Blender. Epic has been creating plugins for better integration between Blender and UE4 so that Developers Can use Blender more easily. Ubisoft plans on using Blender for their Animation Studios. I guarantee that all of them care about one feature or another. I actually care about the features since I use it in a production environment. Most of the people I work with that use Blender can care less about the UI as long as it is serviceable we get the features we need. A lot of the power users, myself included got really mad when they completely revamped the UI in 2.80. But we upgraded because of the additional features. Yes I don’t need all of the features that come out every release but about half of them every release actually drastically improve workflow in one way or another and a lot of the time I get annoyed that certain features have been delayed for a later release because it means I need to either wait for the feature or use another software to get that functionality. And I imagine most of the developers want more features. Most developers are problem solvers which is why when you look at most open source software the UI gets put back burner as well as documentation. Almost every developer seems to have a pet project of some sort of another. Take Pablo Dobarro he seems to be very passionate about developing sculpting tools. I imagine most developers have something they are passionate about which is why they are developing the features they are developing
Yes - 3D software can be really difficult. Shouldn’t that be even more of a reason to make it as accessible, straightforward and logical to use, though?
And regarding ZBrush I quote Henning and Morten from Flipped Normals: “ZBrush’s UI is terrible. If there was a true alternative to ZBrush on the market but with a good UI the industry would jump to that, probably immeadiately.”
Personally I kinda like ZBrush’s UI. I’ve gotten acustomed to it over the years but I can totally see why people would not like it. Especially ZModeler.
I see “It’s a difficult subject. It can’t be easy, so why try?” pretty much as the death of progress.
Like “trying is the first step towards failure” - Homer Simpson.
I think Blender is Open Source, last time I checked. And it says “made by you.” when downloading it.
Those are donations - not bought features, keep that in mind.
That being said - if these companies would be able to fund dedicated features, then the usability would most likely also be ranked pretty high on the list. Especially for Epic. They want a large userbase to be able to leverage open software to produce content for Unreal. That’s done through UX. And Epic surely know that.
I am just stating a fact about the people that are using Blender, Maya, Houdini, Zbrush, or whatever professionally. We don’t care about UI nearly as much as features. It’s a tool. Like a hammer or a wrench. Can you make a more intuitive version? Definitely. But that isn’t nearly as important as does the tool work.
Not really, there is no common “Logical” and “Ideal”. Even now there are people disagreeing over Right-Click Select. What is logical and Ideal to one person is not logical or Ideal to another which is why I will take features over logical or ideal. I can learn someone else logical and Ideal. I am not about to code the features myself. Even though I can I would rather spend that time working on my art.
Sorry to say this is utter nonsense. Blender has most of the features needed to take on Zbrush and is significantly better in the UI department. Yet people are not leaving Zbrush. Even I moved back to Zbrush as my primary sculpting tool after they released 2021 last week. That is because while I hate the UI the 10% of features that it has that aren’t anywhere else plus the fact that is just faster unless you have a beast of a machine (I actually have enough processing power on my workstation where their performance is about equal but once you go to a laptop Zbrush is way has way more responsiveness). The fact is that i can do almost all my sculpting in Blender, Zbrush is fast enough that it is worth using over Blender.
How naive are you? First of all, a lot of these companies have their own developers developing features for Blender outside of the development fund. But they also have lost of employees who all want the same features. Pretty sure they can put a lot of momentum behind certain features on the forums and dev talks etc if they want to.
also you might want to look at the corporate sponsors membership page
It clearly says “This membership level is for organisations who want the option to monitor in more detail what will get funded with their contributions. They will get direct access to the Blender team for strategical discussions. Roadmaps and priorities will be aligned with your requirements as good as possible.”
They want a large userbase to actually develop and sell games. These people are all professionals and they don’t care about the user interface, I have been using UE4 since it launched and the User interface is not UE4s strong suit compared to Unity. Unity even implements features faster than UE. Where UE shines is since you have access to the code you can actually get down and dirty and do things you just can’t in Unity. UE hasn’t gone head over heels to make itself as easy to use as possible It has done it’s best to be the best alternative engine for AAA studios to use. Allow the developers to have he access they need with polished enough features that take out the tedious parts
The statement was: “With feature parity the better workflow always wins.”
You say would leave ZBrush if Blender was as performant because you like the Workflow better.
UX is a feature, like it or not. And just because a certain feature draws people to your side doesn’t mean that you can design it as convoluted as you like. If there is a chance of even close feature parity people will always use the more pleasant option.
In the long run it’s also much better for productivity. And call me naive all you want. Large corporations know that.
Perhaps you are correct. Having used both SketchUp and Blender, I would say SketchUp has the preferable first time user experience. That does not mean I believe SketchUp’s interface to replace Blender’s, but there are better user experiences for new users than what Blender has achieved.
In anycase, this assumption and others can be tested and verified, one way or another with proper user testing and feedback. What I am more interested in is understanding the barriers for adoption by many new 3D users of Blender. The whole materials assignation is a case in point-- and never better explained than our own Captain Disillusion did at the Blender Conference in 2018. We haven’t moved much farther since then:
The concern here is not the money, but whether or not Should Blender establish User Experience as a core value?
If the answer is YES, then we can put our heads together to solve the resource issue-- and hire or get professional UX designers to contribute their time and expertise. I’m sure companies like MS and Apple want to see products on their platforms with easy-to-use interfaces and would like to earmark some funds for UX development. This is assuming the leaders of the Blender Foundation are interested in using UX to differentiate their product from more difficult to use ones, like the ones you mention.
I am going to try to make this simple. Blender has a better UI than Zbrush and performs about the same on my workstation. Despite this Blender had a feature that Zbrush did not which is why I was using Blender a lot more(Cloth Simulation). However as someone who can use both software I don’t care about the UI. It is annoying as hell. Would I use Blender if there was feature parity? Probably not. Blender needs to have features that zbrush does not. I already use Zbrush. Changing my workflow and the workflow of people around me takes a lot of effort and Blender has to offer something it does better and UI isn’t going to cut it.
You guys really need to read the page for corporate membership.
It makes it very clear that money does matter.
This membership level is for organisations who want the option to monitor in more detail what will get funded with their contributions. They will get direct access to the Blender team for strategical discussions. Roadmaps and priorities will be aligned with your requirements as good as possible.
Blender Foundation will actively reach out to Corporate members to discuss the bi-annual planning for grants and review past supported projects.
They are paying the developers that are driving the blender foundation and they very clearly have a large say in the matter.
Yes, and I give both as a Gold sponsor and all my products on BM give a percentage as well. I encourage you and all Blender users to contribute to the foundation.
This thread would probably be more productive if there was specific examples of isolated use cases and associated suggestions of improved UX (or UI). I don’t think anybody, in general, would argue against not wanting to consider the end user, since Blender is made for and by humans.
That said, there has to be consideration that any changes don’t adversely affect the experience for people that do know what they’re doing. Consider a change that turns the UI into a “lite” mode and hides the scary stuff in an advanced menu. Congratulations! You just added an extra click to do anything for somebody that knows what they’re doing. See what I mean? Making stuff easier is a balancing act, and it’s probably easiest to think in terms of a specific small case than discussing a huge overarching philosophy.
Another note: Cinema 4D has recently gained traction among people who don’t self-identify as 3d people. Check out https://twitter.com/3dfordesigners for example. This is a blend of perhaps friendly UI and an initiative that brands a product as not being just for 3d people.
That is a great point. That said, it is not the intent of this thread to begin to identify where all the troubled spots are, and suggest fixes. I agree with you that is a super idea, and encourage people to continue that exercise, just not here.
The question I wish to solicit answers to is: Should Blender establish User Experience as a core value?
If Yes, then resources, both human and capital should be identified and priorities created. It should be understood that User Experience is a professional endeavor, just as C programming is-- and talented User Experience Designers have their own processes and workflows to be able to accomplish their mission. This does not mean no others are consulted.
Yes, C4D is often held up as a standard for easy to use yet powerful 3D software. Some quotes from one of their design documents:
Ease of use is one pillar of Cinema 4Ds experience philosophy. Another demand for the project was that the artist could really quickly adapt to the new workflow.
It is not an easy task to make a feature easy to use and keeping it flexible. Beginners want workflows which are easy to understand and advanced users need to stay flexible with a variety of features. Of course, you want your software to be easy to use but you can not cut functionality away.
The devs said themselves that 2.8x forward are the usability releases and it shows. And I love everything that is currently going on in that field. Apparently (judging by the influx of new users) people seem to like it, too. And yes, I know there are a lot of design tasks around it and I love that as well. For the first time I know that it’s being considered not only as a side-feature.
So yeah - coming back to the core question: Should Blender make UX a core value and hire someone dedicated to this?
Yes. 100%
Set it in stone. Commit to it. Structure it and hire someone to take the burden off the programmers to not also argue around usability all the time. Have someone manage requests from the community. Someone to decide which requests are sensible and which ones are usually non-issues after two weeks.
Look at the outliner improvements. That is exaclty what UX is about. Have someone manage issues like these for the whole program. 1000%
The problem with this discussion is that someone doesn’t want Blender to change because Zbrush (or Maya for that matter) is even worse. Maya is a shitshow because it is integrated in thousands of pipelines. Sort of why Internet Explorer 6 was popular for a while, because developers had used it for certain functionality and couldn’t remove it. Photoshop has partly the same problem, they make new genius functions, but they can’t replace the old, so it’s like 50 menus and 99% of their users use an old way of masking out an object. They are working hard to push new features better now. I also personally LOVE Blender’s new version web pages, they are fantastic, a great overview and implementation showing what’s new. A good example of a good way forward in my opinion.
On the contrary, this is why Blender SHOULD focus on this now. Big corporations are now investing in Blender, I may be new to Blender, but surely there can’t have been a bigger buzz than nowadays? If you want to establish and have a good LTS version you should also in my opinion streamline a lot of things like good defaults, many things have numerous implementations for very specific use cases I’m sure.
Let’s be honest, most of us learned Blender by making a doughnut I also think the docs should be more easily accessible from the application, many small things like that can help. Many non-devs don’t even know about documentation.
It’s important to note this is not about fancier icons and colors in the UI. That said, I don’t think the icon change for the right side panel was good. Things like that should go through an iterative process, where a designer first discuss it with devs, it gets made, and as the feature gets worked on and eventually gets tested, it should be iterated over with a designer, or preferably a team of designers. I’m sure if it gets a focus like Chipp says, it would be possible to find good people. I personally know many good and bad, and I get why people are afraid of someone just coming and shifting everything about because they like that. That’s not the way to go. I personally think any good UX is a result of a battle between a dev and a designer.
Really? Your going to argue over the semantics of UX vs UI? Do you think that changes the point in any way shape or form? Zbrush has garbage UI, it has garbage UX I can use the terms interchangeably in this case. It isn’t going to change my or your standpoint. Or the validity of either of our arguments. Mine being that sacrificing features for UX harms people that know blender and yours being that poor UX makes it harder to bring in beginners to learn. I am just pointing out that a lot of professionals are using Blender maybe not as many as use Maya or Zbrush and those professionals care more about features and generally feel like the features are rolling out slower than we would like. Something you dismissed in your initial post as a demographic that doesn’t matter when you say blender needs to find out who their user really are. Even though these professionals that work for the corporations that provide a large chunk of the money that the blender foundation has for development. In an ideal world, the development fund would be overwhelmingly supported by individuals and they could focus on UX but for better or worse it looks like almost 2/3 if not more of the money comes from corporations and clearly they haven’t put UX as a priority and I can understand why. I also think It would be very easy to Get UX as a priority. Form a consortium of some sort combining a bunch of smaller blender users making money using Blender. Use that to become a corporate sponsor to move UX up in priority on the docket.
I too agree with neXib. That said, I really hope there is a part of this that involves users in a quantitative way-- both new and experienced. I believe in the continuous development model, just as Blender has now. That said, I would really like to see some UX sprints a bit ahead of things, where we can get feedback from others NOT already here on devtalk, BA or other existing user forums.
I also believe some teachers should be solicited for input as well, as they are see where first time/first use students have problems.
I would hope for an understanding of what sort of commitment or priority is shared between on-boarding, intermediate and advanced users and their workflows. It’s not good enough to just say, “we will make it easy for everyone.”
I would like to see a statement regarding the new user experience and it’s priority in future Blender versions. UX can focus on advanced features and users AND it can try and make things easier to learn for new users. This balancing act would benefit from some written specification of priority.
I also think the docs should be more easily accessible from the application, many small things like that can help. Many non-devs don’t even know about documentation.
