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Blender 3.x roadmap

code.blender.org

51–60 of 119 posts

Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#51
post #40
post #2

Great to see they're working on Metal support for the viewport (and Vulkan, of course). Apple took their sweet time coming onboard as a sponsor, but now that they have I hope it will give the developers all the support they need to work out the issues.

Fingers are very crossed for a touch-capable Blender.

Not quite what you're after, but Blender in sidecar works really, really well for pen-based workflows. I can sculpt and texture paint with the Apple Pencil and it all just... works.

Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#52
post #41

I love Blender, but have been stuck on version 2.7 due to what I can only describe as some sort of icon dyslexia. For 2.8, all the Blender icons were replaced with monochromatic ones. This is a very popular trend and a lot of programs are replacing their icons in this way, so it's obviously fine for most people, and I realize this is probably a niche accessibility need I have. But, to use the new icons, I find I have…

> This is a very popular trend and a lot of programs are replacing their icons in this way, so it's obviously fine for most people, and I realize this is probably a niche accessibility need I have.

It's not a niche accessibility need, it's a universal accessibility need that's been commonly understood for decades. Insufficient differentiation is one of the factors that originally drove the increase of colour count (and later, as display hardware allowed it, resolution) in icons 30-ish years ago.

This trend is not driven by universal preference for monochromatic icons but by the cargo cult that UX has become.

Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#53
post #41

I love Blender, but have been stuck on version 2.7 due to what I can only describe as some sort of icon dyslexia. For 2.8, all the Blender icons were replaced with monochromatic ones. This is a very popular trend and a lot of programs are replacing their icons in this way, so it's obviously fine for most people, and I realize this is probably a niche accessibility need I have. But, to use the new icons, I find I have…

There were some significant reorganizations from 2.7 -> 2.8, 2.8 -> 2.9, and again from 2.9 -> 3.0. It's upsetting to see this much churn over this short of a time for Blender. Blender has always been very keyboard driven, but I don't use it often enough to have most of the shortcuts memorized. Even those seem to have changed, though. I'm sure there is a setting in the preferences to restore the old shortcuts, but it…

The add on market is really growing, and something like Fluent Power Tools add an amazing array of hard surfaces modeling, and easy to use.

Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#54
post #41

I love Blender, but have been stuck on version 2.7 due to what I can only describe as some sort of icon dyslexia. For 2.8, all the Blender icons were replaced with monochromatic ones. This is a very popular trend and a lot of programs are replacing their icons in this way, so it's obviously fine for most people, and I realize this is probably a niche accessibility need I have. But, to use the new icons, I find I have…

> all the Blender icons were replaced with monochromatic ones

GIMP did this too and it absolutely blows. Thankfully you can revert back to the "legacy" icons.

Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#55
post #31

I can guess from the comments what Blender does, but I am actually not familiar with the tool. I wandered around the website provided in the link above, but didn't find a simple explanation as to what Blender is about. Perhaps adding such an explanation to the website can be useful.

I was confused when I first encountered it too. It does so much that I was left wondering if it is for digital animators, for 3D-printer artists? 2D art?

It turns out all those types use it (but I believe it started out for digital animators primarily).

Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#58
post #5

> The general guideline will be to keep Blender functionally compatible with 2.8x and later. Existing workflows or usability habits shouldn’t be broken without good reasons – with general agreement and clearly communicated in advance. Oh boy. How I wish so much that other software developers would follow this principle... It seems nearly every software I use and rely on has to change its appearance and interface ever…

I wish they didn't. A lot of very popular software is stuck with counter-intuitive interfaces that pose huge entry barrier for anyone approaching them. Only for the people who learned 20 year old idiosyncrasies to feel at home.

The question I always ask myself as an outsider, is this actually weird and outdated, or is it something that, once you get used to, actually makes people able to work more optimally. Sometimes those power tool design decisions are just bad old decisions, sometimes they really do enable the user. Look at Vim, not for everyone, but if you are willing to learn to invest in its crazy, specific style of user interface people can fly in a way other interfaces don't seem able to quite keep up with.

Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#59
post #41

I love Blender, but have been stuck on version 2.7 due to what I can only describe as some sort of icon dyslexia. For 2.8, all the Blender icons were replaced with monochromatic ones. This is a very popular trend and a lot of programs are replacing their icons in this way, so it's obviously fine for most people, and I realize this is probably a niche accessibility need I have. But, to use the new icons, I find I have…

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Re: Blender 3.x roadmap

#60
post #37
post #19

If there was a single feature I could see added to Blender, it would be to share more functionality between objects and collections. Blender has an organizational concept called objects, which are containers with position, scale, rotation, and they contain within them the mesh data. These can be warped, arrayed, cast, decimated, etc, through the use of non destructive modifiers. Now, these objects can be combined int…

Collections and objects have fundamentally different purposes. An object's job is to anchor a bit of geometry information (e.g. a mesh) in the scene. Collections serve as hierarchical grouping and instancing. Instancing is specifically intended to not produce deep copies of objects. This is essential for creating some types of really complex scenes. Any modifier - destructive or otherwise - requires one or more deep…

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