Feedback on blender today live

I learned that Pablo’s labor at “Blender Today Live” is payed by the blender fund.
I noticed that showing new blender changes there in action is rather the exception than the rule (when you speak spanish the situation gets a bit better, but the official, english “test run”…).
I assume that the blender foundation would like to see the means spent as efficient as possible.
The better the information, the less stupid questions we, the users, have to ask.
The less stupid questions we ask, the more productive devs can be.
There’s a well known rule in education: The more senses are adressed, the stronger the memory. Reading is one of the weakest methods to learn something. Getting it read by someone else can be even worse.
Really solid memory is generated by doing mistakes on your own, but watching someone else doing/avoiding them is almost as good - as every animal with eyes and a childhood could tell you. I thought this was a no-brainer, but apparently this is not the case.
So:

1:No read when demo is possible.

2: Please consider to test your show in spanish first, and only then make the official one in english, so maybe “hoy” on sundays, and english the day after. This way you’re less likely to miss something relevant.

3: Please consider to make more small clips (one per commit) rather than rushing thru the changes in one hour. These could maybe re-used in the manual later. Source-out the live q+a show in a separate event.

4: As far as i know, twitter is not part of the blender family, so please consider to not link to there but rather to official sites (Notice the first link in the description of this video:
MASSIVE NEWS 💥 Blender.Today LIVE #188 - YouTube). Artists in countries with a censored internet, and artists with a strong browser security policy might benefit.

TLNR: Hi Pablo, please, when there are no example images, create them when possible. Blender is somehow related to images, rather than text, right? More show in your show please.

Cheers!

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I know that it may help to reduce the time of livestream, but still it is better to read, in case any information gets missed out. The demo can always be shown after reading.

It’s difficult to make so many small clips per commit and upload them one by one to YouTube. All the news can be said on one live stream every Monday. However since Pablo doesn’t always get the time to answer questions every Monday, so it could be better to make a separate livestream on Q/A, and broadcast it every Tuesday instead of Monday. Then Pablo can conduct the Blender Hoy live at an earlier time on Monday so that many people don’t miss the show. (Sundays are meant for sleeping, not for live streaming)

But it all depends on time and availability of Pablo.

Does it matter much?

Pablo isn’t responsible for creating images, the developers who publish patches are. The best he can do is to show and explain the feature directly in blender.

Also I really don’t mind much with his livestreams because he is almost ready to answer any question we ask on blender.community. No one can stop stupid questions (even if you explain everything clearly) but the fact that he doesn’t ever hesitate to answer any question is truly great :slight_smile:. I know that he doesn’t always get the time to answer all questions so he might consider to make a separate livestream of Q/A.

Pablo is best in his own way so I personally don’t really mind his way of presentation at all :slight_smile:

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Hi there !

First of all I think Pablo is doing an Excellent job with Blender today !
I have watched almost all of them from the beginning :slight_smile:

I won’t comment @Grinsegold post since I think @USB10 have answer most points already.

I would personally have two suggestions for the show that I think could add a bit more value. Keep in mind that I think it is already great !

  1. Maybe show some Blender related art during the show. Be it some animation done with Blender or some awesome geometry node art or shader art, models, sculpt etc… I just watched the Unreal Engine 5 demo today and they are not shy to show awesome demo done with the engine. I think showing some ‘‘cool’’ art at the beginning of each show could sell Blender to newcomers.
  2. I had like it when, during the pandemic, you had invited many artists during the show and done some ‘‘interview’’, maybe that could be something to do from time to time.

Although, I have to agree that all of those idea/suggestion are easier said than done because there must be research and preparation beforehand, it takes time, and time is a limited asset.

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Just to clarify, everything Pablo does for the Blender Hoy community is not part of his job and is not paid by the Blender Foundation, but he does it selflessly for the Spanish-speaking community, and we are very grateful to him for that.

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Also the way I understand it, while it is being paid, this isby far not Pablo’s main job at Blender Institute. Just one of many tasks and I think he does a great job. Whenever any of the Updates have a picture or demo video he shows it. Plus he sometimes actually does show things that came out only minutes before the stream starts.

From my perspective he is doing a fantastic job with it. Super upbeat and open. I really don’t want to shoot down your proposals here, more things with pictures are always apreciated, but in this case and with the very up-to-the-minute content that’s in it I never expected any prepared presentation. That costs a LOT of time and I am not really sure if it’s even worth it. Blender Today has a very free flowing style and preparing dedicated presentations and examples could really take away from that.
Personally, I’d love to see an additional just QnA stream once per month or quarter. The stream is more like a dev summary for the public and not a promotion or Apple keynote stream and never intended like it, the way i see it. I am actually really fine the way it is.

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Yeah an additional Q/A livestream once or twice a month seems good. Then no one’s question will get missed as Pablo can focus only on answering questions those days.

I am actually fine with almost anything Pablo does!

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Yes so am I. I can’t stress enough how important Pablo is for the Blender Foundation. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: