Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Blender 2.92

blender.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 173 posts

Re: Blender 2.92

#51

Post by jedimastert »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #49
Animats wrote: post #47

A completely new workflow for editing meshes Oh, no. I am so tired of re-learning Blender for each new minor revision. There have been about three major UI revisions in the last year or so. Another round of "where did they hide X this time", trying to use Google to find out and getting obsolete tutorials, and taking half an hour to do a two minute fix.

I'm curious, is there a lot of pressure to use the latest version of Blender? Back when I was a kid, I stuck with a certain version of 3DS Max to avoid exactly that type of problem. But I'm not familiar with Blender, so maybe it's not so straightforward just to stick with the old one you know.

Other than the pretty big UI overhaul in 2.8, not really.

Re: Blender 2.92

#52

Post by katmannthree »

qchris wrote: post #27
the__alchemist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender is an exception to the rule, and a rolemodel. For example, FreeCAD and KiCad are OK, but not as nice (especially re FreeCad) as paid alternatives. GIMP isn't on the same level as Photoshop.

I tried designing a relatively simple assembly in Freecad recently (again, as I've come back to it multiple times), and remembered how uniquely terrible some the design decisions have been. I mean, fundamentally user-hostile approaches to the most basic functionality, like rotating a part requires a left mouse + center mouse press in order and sketch lines not being created with center points. And when a user tried t…

When you say rotating a part do you mean rotating the view or using the draft rotate (or some other workbench's rotate) command?

FYI if you use the draft workbench you can snap to midpoints and then convert the autocad-equivalent draft workbench sketch to an inventor-equivalent part design / sketcher workbench sketch. You can also use the symmetry constraint in the sketcher workbench to constrain a point to the center of a line.

If you get familiar with it you can technically model almost anything you want[0], but if you want to go back and change a feature (which is kinda the entire point of parametric cad) it'll likely destroy your part if you're not using the topological naming branch. Freecad realistically needs 5-10 more years to get basic feature parity with professional CAD from the early 2000's and then another release or two focused entirely on stability.

[0]: Their opencascade geometry kernel has some moderately serious deficiencies for complex operations/objects, the assembly workbenches are just now approaching the point where they're stable enough that you can use them without having to rebuild your assembly every week, and while the new TechDraw workbench theoretically gives you the features you need to make manufacturing drawings (which is really the end goal for any professional CAD package, those are what you need to get your parts made) in practice it's too buggy to use with even simple assemblies.

Re: Blender 2.92

#53

Post by jedimastert »

Animats wrote: post #47

A completely new workflow for editing meshes Oh, no. I am so tired of re-learning Blender for each new minor revision. There have been about three major UI revisions in the last year or so. Another round of "where did they hide X this time", trying to use Google to find out and getting obsolete tutorials, and taking half an hour to do a two minute fix.

Are you talking about the Add Primatives tools? Those are all additional workflows, not replacing anything

Re: Blender 2.92

#54

Post by birdsbirdsbirds »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #25

I hope one day there's a "Blender, but it's actually ZBrush" open source alternative to ZBrush. Once you use ZBrush, you'll never want to go back to traditional CAD-style creation. I won't claim that Blender can't solve it, but, the workflows are completely different. You end up thinking of models like clay that you can shape and paint, not triangles with textures. Please, someone, somewhere, spend five years making…

This is open source: https://stephaneginier.com/sculptgl/

You could organize some crowd funding to expand it to the feature set you need.

Re: Blender 2.92

#56

Post by jhloa2 »

katmannthree wrote: post #6
Daub wrote: post #3

Just playing with it now. The new geometry nodes are the beginning of something big... a more procedural approach to modeling. Perfect for natural distribution of things like rocks and plants. Our department (art and design) moved from 3ds Max to Blender last year, and have not looked back. The rapid pace of development is testament to the fact that Blender now has more than twice as many full time devs working on it…

That is great to hear! I really hope that Autodesk starts feeling some pressure from FOSS and cools off on the blatant anti-consumer moves. The whole "now you have to pay us $XXXX/year in perpetuity or you lose access to all of your business files" has killed a lot of the goodwill they once had.

I hate what Autodesk has become. I'm in the A&E industry and Revit has become a monstrosity of a monopoly. The industry as a whole has seen decent revenue growth, but almost no profit because Autodesk is siphoning it all into their coffers [1]. I wouldn't mind too much, but you don't really get any benefit from their new subscription model. They release very few new features with every release and there's bugs in their software I've been dealing with since 2016. There are some software alternatives but it's very difficult to get a whole design team on board with trying something new.

[1] https://letters-to-autodesk.com/letter-to-autodesk.pdf

Re: Blender 2.92

#57

Post by MayeulC »

qchris wrote: post #27
the__alchemist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender is an exception to the rule, and a rolemodel. For example, FreeCAD and KiCad are OK, but not as nice (especially re FreeCad) as paid alternatives. GIMP isn't on the same level as Photoshop.

I tried designing a relatively simple assembly in Freecad recently (again, as I've come back to it multiple times), and remembered how uniquely terrible some the design decisions have been. I mean, fundamentally user-hostile approaches to the most basic functionality, like rotating a part requires a left mouse + center mouse press in order and sketch lines not being created with center points. And when a user tried t…

Try solvespace: https://solvespace.com/index.pl

It's exactly what I want of a CAD tool: a parametric solver with a 3D UI and 2D sketches. I haven't really have an opportunity to use it a lot since I discovered it, though.

Kicad is quite nice, though.

Re: Blender 2.92

#58

Post by fctorial »

Is there any point in learning blender as a software developer? I like it a lot but feel like the learning curve is too high and not worth it for me?

Re: Blender 2.92

#59

Post by themodelplumber »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #49
Animats wrote: post #47

A completely new workflow for editing meshes Oh, no. I am so tired of re-learning Blender for each new minor revision. There have been about three major UI revisions in the last year or so. Another round of "where did they hide X this time", trying to use Google to find out and getting obsolete tutorials, and taking half an hour to do a two minute fix.

I'm curious, is there a lot of pressure to use the latest version of Blender? Back when I was a kid, I stuck with a certain version of 3DS Max to avoid exactly that type of problem. But I'm not familiar with Blender, so maybe it's not so straightforward just to stick with the old one you know.

As far as I can tell, there's no pressure at all unless you are asking for help with a problem that a newer version solved.

I love that they maintain a page with links to download all the older versions. Today's news reminded me to try one of the legacy 32-bit builds on my Puppy Linux netbook next time I'm playing on it, because Blender is a really fun tool once you learn the ropes, and has been since I started using it (2002-ish).

Re: Blender 2.92

#60

Post by prox »

systemvoltage wrote: post #30

I find Cinema4D’s UI and approach toward everything just brilliant. Tried using Blender 5 years ago and it was extremely unintuitive to use. UI consistency was all over the place. Has that changed since?

Night and day
Post reply on HN