Blender user interface design

I like the idea of the redo panel, I suppose that we could hide completely in a future. But I don’t understand, the original idea of the topbar was to put here all controls of the tool, if you keep this in the viewport, near to old position of the T-Shelf… then the topbar have some sense?

Having panel like in 2.4 now with new interface is great idea and I think it will fit great. Its not super important if it would be possible to move it around or not. Grid/Fluid functionality is nice. When it has been proposed I thought it could break some thing but I assume trade off small. It could bring nostalgia (2.4 again) if you stretch properties panel horizontally. :smiley: I like option to turn manipulator on and off. I do think that it should be turned on by default since goal for new UI is to be more friendly initially and for those that figure out customization available.

Just to be able to flip the bar, like we used to have before to the other bars, nothing fancy.

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Where will go the facedot activate option now? to see in solid mode when you edit.

It’s visible when Limit Selection to Visible is on.

I think it’s acceptable for the first time for discoverability. Issue is that when collapsed it still shows the name of the operation which can vary greatly. Maybe an icon/indicator would be enough when collapsed (just like in 2.7).

As far as I can remember, it was going to be optional. @billrey Can you clarify this?

The face dot is really important at all times, though. For instance it’s not uncommon to accidentally cancel an extrusion which results in an extrusion of zero depth. This was easy to see in 2.79. It would look like an edge with a face dot in the center of it. I think it should be an option. Because I remember going to Blender after using 3ds Max for 20+ years and thinking the face dots cluttered the display too much, which they do, but are great for quickly visualizing problems with the mesh if that’s what’s needed.

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Proposal: Default Workspace:

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Well, I can pretty clearly state that Blender won’t be in Vertex Paint mode as its primary Workspace. That seems like one of the more odd suggestions. The default object will also certainly not be a cube with one vertex offset.

Most likely the default workspace will also have the viewport manipulator enabled, the grid visible and the toolbar on.

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Yes, Face Dots will probably get added as an optional overlay for debugging your mesh. They are useful at times, but make the edge flow in dense meshes hard or impossible to make out. For this reason, they are not well suited to be on by default.

But again, making them available via an overlay is something we’ve discussed and want to do.

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Right now, in youtube, Pablo says it won’t come back, here you say it can come back, I don’t know who to believe. I’m surprised that for only two people in the UI, they have such divergent opinions.

Pablo was away for a while at Annecy, perhaps this explains the confusion. At one point we did discuss this as a possibility for a mesh debug option, which seems reasonable. Currently, I am back from the Code Quest myself, but it is my understanding that this is still part of the plan. If/when this gets added I cannot say.

Haha, I dont know if you were sarcastic or if I have a different definition of workspace but…

I was talking only about the editors layout…

I think Sculpt Tools options should maybe be bound to the 3D view editor, as it’s the place where sculpting is actually taking place. And obviously, like with Edit Mode Tools options, we should also be able to flip this bar here as well:

But that being said, I agree with you that the bar with Mode Switch Popup (should it remain as it is) should be Flip-able as well to the far bottom of blender. (Otherwise it’s hard to determine when it will be on top of timeline, or other editors, but not on top of 3d views, etc)

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I liked your proposal!
This is close to my favorite theme color (170 rgb gray) as it it the one that makes my eye hurt less when I switch to chrome and have that flashbang light on my face, or other bright applications. I usually don’t use dark themes because light text on dark background usually becomes fuzzy in my eyes after a while (or black text on dark grey background too). Also I started working on 2.48, maybe that’s why I’m kinda used to this lighter shade of grey.

I’m a fan of your top bar with some options like the Mode switch popup integrated to it (kind of like 2.7 and previous), instead of a fixed bar on top of everything, which can lead to problems like I’m discussing with pistoltoto, where Sculpt options become detached to the actual 3D view where you are sculpting.

Also really liked that you left the Tools panel to the left like previous blender versions, while it keeps it’s new integration to the Properties buttons. It will make it easy for new people following old tutorials to become quickly situated (instead of having to search for the options on the right side), and can quickly be hidden by users that prefer the new way of showing tools on the right side (and then can be saved as startup preferences to never mess with it again).

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Or alternatively, the top bar could be integrated as a sidebar instead, but living somewhere only for the active tool

Top bar IMO is better for tools, not settings, like in Maya.

Settings will be in the setting tab or in the 3dview.
Like that, no need of the left tool bar.

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I will like if devs keep the promisse of pablo and don’t make topbar absolutely nescessary.
I want to hide it without having to unhide it back to do trivial stuff.

About the topbar… Sometimes, the difficult thing is not only to admit the mistake, but to go back. I have the impression that this has happened with the topbar, that it has been left without utility at the moment that it was seen that putting the tools settings there did not work and it seems that they are looking for something to fill it with, and at the cost of finding a utility is destroying the program structure with no reason. If something has been implemented that has no real use or don’t work, it is deleted and that’s it, nothing happens. This is like a marriage that doesn’t work, accept it and end it, because trying to keep it will only lead to an uncomfortable relationship where no one wants to admit that it doesn’t work for years. It’s the same thing that happened with the right mouse button, to not admit that it was a bad decision, nobody puts the left click by default.

If you look at it, the topbar has created a catastrophic domino effect on blender where no one seems to have stopped to think about the consequences.

  • The topbar is created, to have the tool settings there, it does not work.
  • Well, then let’s move some tools/controls to the Topbar.
  • We can start removing stuff from the T-Shelf, come on, let’s get the most useful stuff from the program.
  • It looks like the Topbar utilities aren’t working either, well, let’s get it back to 3Dview.
  • Well, then we take the t-shelf stuff in part to the N-shelf and the topbar.
    Well, we also took advantage of this to take some of the profits to the property area.
  • Look, that in the end all this is bullshit, let’s put a floating window with the tools settings.

In the end it turns out that what people have been asking for for years, the floating window with the settings tools, is the only thing that really works and all the changes in between don’t contribute anything. But users will just have to bite the bullet because wasn’t a single complete mockup of how blender2.8 would be, just loose ideas that were impossible to fit into the real world.

If you look at it, it was the same problem as with the hotkeys.

  • Come on, I’ve got a free row of numbers, because I’m going to put the editing modes there now.
  • Come on, now I have the Tab free, so I’m going to put the search there
  • Come on, now I have free space, because I can put the toolbar I like so much in there.
  • Oops, the number bar doesn’t work, I have to use the tab again to change mode, nothing happens, remove the search bar from there
  • Where do I put the searchbar now? Look, take a chicken, put it in front of the keyboard and the first key he tries to eat there we’ll put it in.

I don’t think it is necessary to delete the topbar, although I wouldn’t rule it out, but it should be completely rethought and tried to give it a different use. And get the T-shelf back.

To this day, I still see no reason or argument for the changes in the basic structure of blender.

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