At first the active tool was dedicated to the right mouse button, so the left click was « safe » from this feeling of « being lost » because left click don’t select like usual anymore
But now that the active tool is the left click, as you say, there’s no more « default » or « safe space » lol
A while ago i proposed that blender devs could let us choose if the active tool is the right or left button.
Or this escape key could also release us from frustration
Quitting the tool, it’s natural for a lot of people that selection = safe space tool free zone, and the active tool system is breaking this instinct
Its’ really important because left click users share selection with the active tool system. I think that right click users have left click for tool and right click for selection right ? So of course right click user couldn’t understand this struggle of « default selection state »
Thats why i told this idea of either « escape key to escape the tool » or « have the possibility to attribute the tool to the right click, in the pref panel »
Hmm, this post sure assumes a lot about what other people want or don’t want.
Hi.
Can you clarify what exactly do you mean under tool term?
A knife tool? A grab tool? A tweak tool?
They are different things, that behaves differentlyz so such explanation is needed.
In Maya “G” is one of the most used hotkey as it Repeats last action. In Blender with transforms included, it makes it unusable.
So much this. If something repels me from seriously trying out Blender atm, it’s this.
It’s a little scary that this problem is now at least 2 years old, and has not moved. 
Blender 3.0
Users trying to justify the presence of box select and gizmos, using both of them to tweak every single vertex every single time. This is the way that Blender teach people to survive in CG now.
This is a discussion I have been looking for a while.
So in my opinion, improve and optimize the Industry Compatible Keymap will have more benefit than harm. To minimalize (Not make it the same) the significant differences from program to program and the learning curve that can attract more people to use Blender and potentially increase the sponsors from differences artists/studios/industries.
Maybe some of you will totally agree @sybren said “I’d say that if someone can’t even be bothered to look up some hotkeys in a beginners’ tutorial, they weren’t serious about trying out Blender. It’s not just “the same but free”, it’s different software, and IMO it’s fine if it takes a little getting used to.” However I think this only apply to those people only care the free to use of the software and don’t really care much about the free of freedom behind the software.
There are many small/medium studios are willing to switch to Blender and just need more help to get them transfer smoothly and easily in term of the learning curve, before they starved to death.
So what I have done to help the Industry Compatible Keymap?
I sort out all the 3D functions and binding keys of Blender Default and made one temporary keymap as an idea and hoping there will ever be a discussion talking about it and make it better and better, and eventually it help the developers a bit faster and maybe someday Blender can come up with a perfect Industry Compatible Keymap besides Blender Default Keymap.
And one more things is about the contribution to help the software, this has been in my mind as a hope that I can even find a way to achieve this. I don’t know how to code, I’m just an artist, but I really want to help Blender develops better functions, better keys, better tools, let say to optimize the call out menu to make it more responsive in a certain way etc. So I was seriously considering hire an engineer as a part time to do some certain tweaks to make Blender features even better, and eventually purpose the improvement to official Blender updates, and let the Blender developer team decide are they going to integrate that into Blender, how can I do it? If anyone knows how, please tell me.
This post is direct to a post that I post a while ago that hoping to help improve the Industry Compatible Keymap,
@sybren was not exact with his statement.
When you learn Blender approach, you do not learn different approach.
You learn an approach which is provably much more efficient and is suitable for a wider range of a workflows.
The problem is that industry standards do not follow growing industry demands for a long time.
They haven’t changed much since the ps1 graphics era.
For example, our company was forced to move from Max and Maya to a Blender approach in order to achieve higher speed and more efficiency in order to be competitive in the market.
Well,
I don’t quite understand what you are talking about much more efficient,
I meant if you are talking about the tools and the program itself,
or you are talking about the keymap though?
Because the keymap itself doesn’t really matter to the speed but the way program works matter,
Let say there are 2 people, one is familiar with Blender default keymap, the other one familiar with Industry keymap (Let’s assume there is one),
what will be the speed difference by creating a cube or move the object, if all the tools and setting are exactly the same except the keymap?
I know that can come up with many reasons and argument that why Blender not improving so call “Industry” keymap,
with that being said, like what people mentioned above,
many of them don’t even care because they won’t use it or they have been using the Blender default keymap for their entire life. So for this case, there is no need for them to comment on the industry keymap development or such, because that’s not really their business since they don’t want or won’t even try to use that, so they should just stop judging about improving the IC Keymap because they don’t see the benefit of it.
What the development team really need to do is just set the keymap as industry keymap and the studios will start using it, don’t worry about the tutorials and such of things. When you have that fully developed, you will get the people use it.
Industry standard keymap assumes industry standard approach, with all its well known issues and limitations in comparison to Blender’s approach.
I apologize for not the acknowledge the issues, would you mind to remind me or tell me the story about it?
Well, I will try to make it briefly.
Since such a question require a deep context, I will try to provide it first.
In the 1980s, AutoCAD was invented, which, along with CAD graphics, brought several interesting solutions to computers, such as command line aliases system, which brought unlimited expandability, but was quite slow. Multiedit paradigm was presented the first time as well.
Then 3dsmax was made, making Autodesk AutoShade obsolete.
It was built around parametric modeling paradigm, that was suitable to work with splines in topology-independent way. This approach fits architectural purposes, such as tight collaboration with Autodesk AutoCAD.
To provide parametric approach 3dsmax got limited mesh realization, alongside with high creative abilities, its editing flexibility is quite low (it is familiar to any who tried to fix imported geometry in 3dsmax).
The next limitation was the absence of internet and especially youtube those times, so users was forced to learn software from manuals, supplied with programs.
It was 90’s, so overall graphics requirements was very low in comparison to modern era.
No sculpting, no multiref, no retopology, no PBR, no UDIMs, no photoscans, computers was slow and expensive, Quake and Lara Croft just started popularize 3d graphics and graphic cards.
To speed up workflow 3dsmax got a hotkey system, but people didn’t used it much, since they learned program from GUI, so since 3dsmax 5 random hotkeys was displayed on a splash screen to bring to users at least the idea of using new hotkeys.
Such a strategy worked. Since 3dsmax was almost the only massively popular 3dmodeling package of that time, it was the only available option on a market, so it became massively popular.
In early 00’s Autodesk DWG / DXF defeated Bentley DGN in the CAD war, and started massive expansion, buying the most popular software with proprietary file formats.
Kinetix made 3D Studio VIZ to provide improved communication of max to autocad, promoting max for architectural use.
Their marketing was so strong, that till now 3dsmax is promoted as the main program for archviz, even if you have to buy suitable rendering engine separately, such as Vray or Corona, in order to actually use it as visualization program. This follows Autodesk file format policy as well - the goal is to control proprietary file formats of the industry, keeping control over it.
Programming languages was evolving as well, so making software became less expensive and hard, a lot of software solutions began to appear, cloning the only keymap was available on the market with negligible differences.
The industry has changed dramatically over the past 30 years.
There is a massive difference between ps1 and ps4 graphics levels.
Complexity level and requirements grown to the sky, but industry standards could not afford cardinal changes and redesign.
In fact, Blender was the only software which put efforts to properly rethink keymap, following growing industry demands from the very beginning.
As a result it’s system was looking like some developer tired after a decade of using 3ds max, tried to design a system that is devoid of legacy limitations and suddenly succeed.
Blender was build around mesh modelling paradigm, so it has got way more flexible mesh paradigm, which allow you to create and edit meshes equally flexible and well, avoiding limitations that are necessary for parametric modelling paradigm, expanding its scope far beyond box modeling.
Scale of paradigm limitations follows structural abstraction level:
Blender keymap was build around relevancy principle, so functions was sorted by using frequency, and shorter hotkeys with better accessibility was assigned to the most frequently used operators.
For example, it takes into account multiref modelling, viewport navigation was prioritized, and moved to mouse, and so one.
It also tried to reach overall versatility, which is quite important for the software which combines such diverse capabilities as sculpting, animation and video editing.
The same way QWERTY layout was invented - it also follows relevancy principle.
As a result, Blender approach was a bit harder to learn, since it is not following 3ds max 5 convention, but its definitely worth it when you start using it professionally for a wide range of industry demanded workflows.
The same way as QWERTY layout saves wrists during lots of programming in comparison with ABCD layout.
Yes, due to flexible mesh structure Blender is a perfect recipient.
Wait is this lady ironic?
The origin of the 3dsmax layout is mentioned here.
They moved everything to the left part of a keyboard.
https://www.cgarchitect.com/features/articles/2006a06f-a-designer-s-look-at-3ds-max-5
Exactly.
They just moved everything to the left side, and shown layout on the splash screen.
This is how many people, myself included, learned about their existence.
It was time when people accidently hid gizmos with the X key, and were forced to reinstall 3dsmax in case if they didn had internet connection to check forums.
This is a long story. Ok, I think you overthinking about the term so call “Industry”. When we are mentioning it is based on a standard QWERTY keyboard today and really nothing refer back to 70’s 80’s that far.
The whole point of what matter is that the keymap that appropriately arrange and design for the users mostly artists. It doesn’t really matter that you name it as “The most user friendly Blender keymap in the world” or “The King of the Keymap”, it just a name for us to use as placeholder, and seriously there is no keymap in the world can one size fit all, nothing can work in this way.
And here’s the thing,
when you refer the data about efficiency and workflows, you said that is already being proved, so that should be a certain size of samples for certain purposes that fit the certain conditions; for example, does it test in the real world actual usage? if so, how many studios are involved? what are the size of those studios? does it being asked to create the same thing, exactly 100% the same? is the artist in the same level of understanding for each software? if there are multiple artists involved the sampling, the artists are the same level in skills?
If one of the criteria is fail, the test will not be approved because that’s not the fair sample and can not be called as sample.
An art software is not starting all the way to the back with a line of code that to compete the speed about which one can program out/ create a cube faster. There is no point for it.
It seems you think about the differences between keymaps as “the same functionality mapped to different hotkeys”.
This is understandable, but wrong.
I mean, there should be a better practical reason to a company, when it replaces 3dsmax and maya users with blender users, rather than a speed of creating a cube or software price.
well,
I think mostly what this post is discussing is exactly about “the same functionality mapped to different hotkeys”,
the whole point of it is that as the development goes, will it become one of the preset keymap that you can choose from the splash screen when you install Blender.
