You’re just too used to the old/tough way of doing things in blender. lol
Or maybe you just can’t understand the obvious things, and try to explain to yourself someone’s indignation with some things that are quite simple and understandable to you? Type: “used to be better.”
I wrote many times, but you don’t notice it, THE BLENDER IS CHANGING - THIS IS GOOD! I AM FOR CHANGE! And I use 2.8 from the earliest builds, and have long lost the habit of 2.7. And I have long rewritten all my tools under 2.8. The 2.8 interface (buttons, lists, and other widgets) is great. Although with colored icons, at least with monochrome, even without icons. A lot is changing for the better. BUT!!! Even more is not just changing, but is being frankly done to attract new users. The blender tries to be convenient for those who are used to working outside the blender. And, ATTENTION !!!, this is presented by you as a positive trend. While there are no clear objective arguments in favor of this opinion. Despite the fact that in this thread there are a lot of arguments that everyone ignores.
Read the first 5 posts of this thread. They very well demonstrate the level of adequacy and the general mood of the community.
And where did you read that used to be better? Do you have vision problems? Or hallucinations?
What does the interface have to do with it?
I agree with you, some changes are to make it easier to new users.
And I think that’s good.
I’ve been using Blender since 2.4x days, more often since 2.5x days, and did a full shift of the studio in 2.78.
2.8x is the same but way way better in many many things, and many of them attract new users, I find many things changed and made Blender more prouductive than before.
I won’t read the full 300 posts of the thread.
Can you please summarize in a few bullets the things you say are made to attract new users but are bad things?
Just out of curiosity because I’m not so sure about those and I’m sure they are scattered all over the thread, because talking in general make things very diffuse, like a subjective feeling more than a fact or actual features (I’m not saying is that 
)
Seems strange to that have to explain elementary, obvious things.
The number of blender developers is limited. The total number of development hours per year is limited. And this time is not so much. For such crazy, always dissatisfied morons like me, for some reason it seems that working hours should be used extremely productively.
The developers took the time to implement gizmos for everything they could come up with, and all sorts of auxiliary buttons and tools for beginners. But since version 2.4, they still haven’t found time, for example, for this:
What about a system for renaming objects? Someone asked to add the ability to rename data along with the object to which they are attached. This is obviously a useful trick for those who use a blender for serious work, as you have to keep the scene orderly. So that each object has a clear name. So that the outliner does not look like this:
This may not be the best example, you think, but. Here is what was added in 2.8 for more convenient renaming of objects:
And when someone complained that this thing does not help. Because it’s not enough to rename just the object. This is not very convenient. After all, those who follow the occupation of objects in the scene, as a rule, also follow the data names (for example, meshes) of these objects. And here is what the developers suggested then:
It was really very funny. at first I thought it was such a joke. ))) Seriously.
What about this ?: Blender UI paper cuts
Do you remember that in 2.4 it was possible to get the length of the curve? And remember that since then it is no longer possible. More precisely, it is possible, but only through add-ons and someone else’s crooked scripts.
What about the collections? Great idea. Incredibly failed implementation.
But we have a super detailed theme editor.
I can’t list all these little things, it’s too long, too many of them, besides, I’m not sure that you will even read what I wrote here)))). From the little things is the picture. And the picture is this: Development time is spent on the development of some schizophrenic instruments. Instead of improving the really important things. To please new users, the blender goes to a dead end. As well as other commercial software. Instead of imposing its unique user experience (about which the author of this topic writes!), The blender sold itself to the crowd. It follows the crowd. For the sake of coming from another user, the blender is trying to be more convenient for them. There is such a tale about an ugly duckling. Here is something similar. The blender is trying to look like any ugly software. It seems that epic and EA bought a blender.
Stupid people usually see in such messages “impatience to the new and the nostalgia for the old.” Therefore, I will explain directly:
Blender 2.8 has an excellent interface. Much has become incomparably better. Improved cycles are simply superb. A blender would be ideal if version 2.8 completely abandoned gizmos and all that. Since work without gizmos impresses with the most original, convenient and extremely fast user interface. And the time that was spent on creating an editor for those thems, these gizmos and all that could be spent on bringing to mind what has long been worth fixing.
Don’t assume what is obvious to you is obvious for others, and you may think those things are elementary, but your opinion over those things is not the only one, so even when they may be elementary, maybe they are not seen as something bad as you see them.
What you posted is a big mixture of things without any specific order, it’s hard to read an understand, but I’ll try to answer to some things.
In general what I see is your subjective opinion, I don’t see a proper reasoning behind each of the features you criticise.
1.- The renaming tool. I find it perfectly fin, in line with other tools I’ve used in other places, there may be paper cuts, but that’s a gigantic thread, IMHO if someone wants something better it has to be in touch with the proper developer and give them as much information as possible, the Batch Rename tool could be improved, but it’s not bad at all IMHO.
2.- The papercuts: as I said, gigantic thread, with lots of ideas, some good some bad, a good point of reference, but it reached a point where it’s hard to find anything useful further the latest posts, so many things are getting lost there, I talk for my self, I don’t know how the developers consult that thread, but I think many of the things there should be proposed in design tasks, and others seems to be small bugs that should be reported, not published there.
This thread for the Code Quest was great, after 2.8x release I think it has lost it’s nature and it’s hard to use from a dev perspective IMHO.
3.- Length of the curve, “they still haven’t found time”… is there a patch to bring this back to the UI? because for what you say it seems it’s something already in the Python API, it’s just it’s not exposed.
Have you contacted some developer (not a Blender main developer, ANY developer that can make that kind of modificaciont) and proposed him/her the creation of a small patch to recover that function in the UI?
4.- The transform values, you are showing the values for a object transform in the right part of the picture, and the values for the cursor in the left part, those are unrelated, but I will suppose you wanted to show the transform of the object.
I don’t think those “lock transform” should be in the N panel, it’s good how it’s planned right now, the lock transform is something specific, not something generic that you need to access all the time, it should not be in the N panel IMHO, specially for beginners I think it’s a bad idea to have them in the N panel.
5.- Rename Data along with the object, that’s a feature request, I don’t like that idea, because data can be resused in many objects, and we have different types of data, and as of today you can already hide the “object contents” which include the data, so you can have an organized overview of your scene without changing the name.
6.- You don’t like the collections, I love them, I think it’s a brilliant idea, and I think it very well executed, it lacks some features that will come with time, but I don’t understand why you think it’s a failed implementation.
7.- The theme editor, it’s as detailed as it can “automatically” be, but it’s not much different from the 2.7x version.
8.- Development time is spent on the development of some schizophrenic instruments, Instead of improving the really important things - That’s your opinion, I disagree, I think there is a very important development going on under the shadows that is hard to appreciate, and other development that is going very well, making Blender more productive and making it easier for old and new users.
I don’t see the “dead ends” you see, and in your points in this thread I cannot see those dead ends, nothing is written in stone, but of course, if you want something done, put your effort in getting it done, contact a developer, try to help and work with them, and things will slowly come along, but saying what things are subjectively wrong won’t get anywhere IMHO.
9.- And the time that was spent on creating an editor for those thems - What time? what developer? Because Jacques Lucke is not going to spend his time in the editor, but William maybe, since he is the one in charge of the UI, but he is not in charge of the gizmos development, you insist in the idea that time has been wasted, I disagree, each developer has a target, and those targets are not mixed, I don’t think time is wasted, some things could be better, and others could have been worse, Blender is not perfect, but I think the development pace is very good, and if you want some small things done, again, contact a developer and try to get things resolved and improved. no need to contact a super expert developer, a new developer can do many many small things like the ones you say, it’s not that hard, and it’s the beauty of Open Source.
The final fact is that the good thing of all this, is that many of the problem you mentioned can be solved by a small and newbie developer, and it’s not that hard to contact someone wanting to contribute to Blender and work with him in creating some patches, some will get in, some won’t get in, but it’s not that hard to do it, and from here I want to cheer out anyone with the will of change to try to do this, you will be amazed on how many people wants to help, but as developers can’t do anything because the are not sure what to do in a big software like Blender
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Yes, what I published is a mixture of incoherent little things. I don’t have time to delve into the details, and deal with classifications of blender problems. You are obviously thinking too narrowly. In that sense, you don’t see a big problem behind a lot of tiny ones. Each individual trifle seems insignificant. Especially if a person like you is obviously condescending to the developers and supports the current direction.
Is it really so hard to understand: There are no functions in the API for determining the length of a curve. And the problem is not that it does not exist! And that is a blender 2.8! and it’s almost 2020! And that such a function WAS back in 2010, and earlier. And now you are offering me to write addons myself, addons, on a Python! Can I still consider it a pencil on paper?
It’s nothing. Yes. Insignificant. I think this problem occurs in one user per hundred thousand. But from such trifles the overall picture is formed. Emphasis. We have a theme editor, and we can decorate the blender in the colors of the rainbow, but there is no way to calculate the length of the curve.
You think that renaming data together with objects is inconvenient or not very necessary, and that the data is often surjectively related to other objects. But this is your personal experience. Data is closely related to the object. But these entities must be named separately. In different places. STILL. There is no place in the blender where it would be convenient to edit the names (data and everything connected with the active object). And do not mention the outliner now, you will seem smarter.
At the expense of collections. You did not see the phrase: “great idea”? Collections are the best thing that happened to the blender. But how it is implemented is terrible.
You will not catch all this because, obviously, you are not dealing with complex projects. Where a clearly formalized scene is important.
Personally, I was involved in the visualization of scientific data from NASA satellites. And everything I write about was important. Someone uses a blender for CAD, where this is also important. Someone applies it in science. And someone watches YouTube and pokes at colored gizmos to tell classmates tomorrow how cool he is in 3D (I’ll explain for those who are dull: here I’m deliberately exaggerating). And preference is given to this last one. Because there are many more. And it is for them all these gizmos, pink themes, and industry standards.
And yes, you are right about the fact that some things are obvious to some, and absolutely non-possessive to others. The sad problem. You have to try on the clown costume and endure insults from the local fauna in trying to convey important ideas to the community. Obviously the author of this topic was smarter, and abandoned the case.
Have you tried to talk devs about some of that problems in a custom thread or in blender chat?
I reported some little things. I cannot draw up a full report on all the problems identified over many years, because it takes time, which I, unfortunately, do not have. But I’m not alone here “complaining and whining.” But this topic is not about minor issues. This raises the question of the adequacy of the chosen development strategy. And the matter does not boil down to 2.8. There is a group such as the author of the topic, and there is a group of modernists who want to turn the blender into C4D. And development must follow some basic path of these two perpendicular paths. Some need black, others need white. Developers seem to assure that they are doing gray. But in reality it turns out rainbow and pink.
I think it’s a mistake to say that blender is going in the wrong direction, or to treat it in a thread called like that, when it’s mostly bugs, papercuts and proposals that end up being diluted in the title of the thread.
I agree that I don’t like all the development of blender, but even I who am critical of it, find it hard to see this as a solution to the problems you may be seeing.
Why do you assume others have the time then?
Devs have also their schedules filled with far more important and general things IMHO.
That’s you r opinion
So you don’t want to spend your personal time improving Blender, but you want others to do what you think it’s a priority.
I never said that you should have to write any kind of addon, I said “talk to a developer” to create a patch, an actual C++ patch that makes what you need and exposes to the Python API that function you think is so importnat.
BTW I’m not offering you anything, I’m giving you a solution that you can do, and I dont say that with a small mouth, I say that because is what I did in many situations, I reached different persons to help me out to solve problems I was unable to solve by my self because I don’t know C++ as I should, so I’m giving you an advice that I my self have used in several situations.
Obivously, because you know exactly what kind of scene I do deal with on a daily basis.
Of course. as I said, you know what kind of scenes I deal with on a daily basis, and you know that I don’t do any of what you mentioned, not at all.
According to you industry standards are not for already performant artists with a long experience in their specific task but for students and hobby “players” of Blender.
As I said, all what you state seems opinions to me, your opinions, and I respect your opinions, but I don’t share your opinions, I don’t think “You are obviously thinking too narrowly.” I just think that we have different views on how to use Blender and what are our needs, when I see a problem like the “curve length” I find a solution and after that I try to do what I recommended you to do.
I see a pattern here, and it does not matter if you can solve the problems or not, being involved in such projects related with NASA and Scientific visualization I imagine it would not be so hard to reach a developer or even to deviate some of your funds to generate the improvements you need for Blender, in the same way Tangent Animation or Theory Studios does. But the thing is that I see a pattern, I see an angry person that does not like what he sees regarding Blender development but at the same time is not willing to spend true time to improve anything, I see a person that wants his problems solved, and solved in the way he wants and as soon as possible.
I’m sorry, but that’s not how you are going to get anything fixed or changed in Blender, and @Alberto knows it very well, he is a critic, he criticise a lot of things, and we both disagree too in some things, but he puts a lot of effort in communication, mockups and other things that are at his hand, so in @Alberto I see a high temperament person willing to improve blender, is not the same I see in you.
Fact is that if you want Blender to improve you have to put your effort into it, not just money (that you could hiring a developer to fix some things) but also your time an effort in explaining one by one the things you think are wrong and what is the solution you propose, and even with all that, some of them may get lost or turned down, in the end we collaborate but we don’t maintain Blender.
You can always maintain your own branch with your modifications too
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To work in a blender, I use my add-ons. And personally in my work there are no insurmountable problems. I can measure the length of the curve, and rename the objects along with the data using my addons. But I WILL PLEASE PAY IT ATTENTION, I’m not a blender developer. And all I can do is write here. What I do.
The narrowness of your thinking is obvious. Because You are responding to my comments do not take into account the MAIN TOPIC of this topic. Maybe you have not read the very first post in this thread?
Thinking narrowly is not bad. I’m not trying to insult someone. But you cannot assume that what you do not see does not exist.
I’m not the only one such a “whiner.” There are others. But there are so few of them that their opinion is completely disregarded.i’
Dead end branch. There are too few such as the author of this topic. Alone in the field is not a warrior.
I never said you have to code yourself anything, you can if you want, but I have never said that you should.
Again, that’s your opinion,
Oh no, I take the main topic into consideration, I disagree with it (with the main topic, not specific posts), but my current conversation is with you, so I take mainly your words into consideration, I can have conversations with others, and I will take into consideration other’s words, but I asked you directly, and I’m speaking with you, not with the whole thread.
Of course not
If you talk about others with the kind of posts that don’t go to the point, without anything specific, vague and generic, yes, those opinions will be completely disgregarded, and I understand that, there is no actual proposal, no deep thiking into the problem, no solution, just complaining, and complaining does not solve anything.
If you talk about people that really work in their proposals, that think about them and try to give solutions to actual problems, then I think those opinions are taken into consideration, sometimes more, sometimes less, but they are at the very least, carefully read and analyzed.
It seems a dead branch without any doubt, but it seems it is because you are installed in this idea:
The fact is that you can do much more, if you read my previous post I gave you some ideas, hire a developer, or contact a developer that likes your ideas and want to try to implement them, if the things you want to implement are small enough it will be easier for the developer to implement them, and the team the both of your form will be able to grow up and try to implement more complex things, and I’m not talking about an addon, I’m talking about C++ patch to be included in master.
Clarifitcation: When I say you to contact a developer I’m not talking a Blender Institute developer, I’m talking about any developer with C++ knowledge that wants to do something in blender, it has not to be part of the main or core developers.
heyyy… it’s that dead horse, back for yet another beating. we ready to close this thread yet?
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Whats my orientation again?
Whether 2.8 is targeted towards pros or beginners. I’m not sure they are hitting either target.
UI for a tablet / laptop ?
Who is doing any serious modeling (professional or hobby) on a laptop without a mouse, or a tablet? I see a use case in sculpting, compositing, but not modeling.
Direction
A mechanics garage is not always pretty, and it doesn’t need to be. Blender as a tool does not need to be pretty either. It needs to be efficient. I appreciate the effort, but this did not work.
I know Blender is a powerful tool. But the new UI has turned it into a hot mess. They’re too many redundancies, things are not organized well, efficiency has been compromised for a “pretty,-on-the-surface” appeal. Start digging through menus and it is just a spooky as the old Blender. (or worse).
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I am, with no problems whatsoever… I have tablet, used for artwork only, otherwise I use my fingers!
Cheers, Clock.
I think you would normally either use the toolbar on the N-panel or the one on the top. Idk if you’re trying to prove a point or are really confused, but I think dimming the global setting when overriden should be a nice option, I also noticed the redo panel setting doesn’t change the gizmo, but should also dim the tool setting, wonder if the redo panel would be that easy to code.
The reason for having one setting in the tool and another global one is if you want to display a gizmo with certain orientation while using the GRS keys, so not really a duplicate.
After two years of observations I think I’ve got the point of current development.
It seems that the character/asset modeling workflow is being forced without taking into account any other workflows presented in Blender, perhaps because devs just do not perform them.
The problem is, that there are many programs in the industry that already specialize in character/asset modeling, and CG is not limited to that kind of modeling work - it is actually much wider.
That was the point of Blender - blending the widest possible range of workflows, making them equally accessible and convenient, providing wider area of use than any other software can possibly have.
That’s why the current course feels like shrinking the area of use of Blender, turning it into some a kind of Autodesk McDonalds.
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Blenders development is driven by the institute/animation studios needs and they pretty much only work on animated films, only game project was Yo Frankie!¹ in ~'08/'09 and for a little more vfx focus there was tears of steel, but there’s no other DCC projects being validated there. So with that in mind it isn’t too surprising.
¹ To be fair game content needs aren’t too dissimilar to animated films.
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