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

Watchtower – Blender Studio

studio.blender.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 51 posts

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#11

Post by archerx »

doctoboggan wrote: post #5
archerx wrote: post #4

I'm always told how blender is amazing and there seems to be some impressive tech under the hood, the simulations look amazing and some stuff produced with it looks great but every time I try to use it, it is incredibly frustrating, like it's close but still so far away when it comes to the UI. I have been doing 3D for about a decade and a half, I have made intros and virtual sets for TV shows so I have some experien…

I am assuming you’ve used the UI since the 2.8 upgrade? Have you looked into the “industry compatible” key maps that you can switch to in the settings? I’ve used Rhino, Cinema4d, Maya, solid works and blender and while they all have their pros and cons blender doesn’t stand out as significantly worse in my opinion.

I have used the 2.8 "upgrade" but it was still a pain and things were much faster and easier to do in 3Ds max. Blender relies too much on shortcuts. With 3D max you can do almost everything with just the mouse and in blender that is not the case. I have used 3D max, Maya, XSI, Houdini, Modo, Unity, Unreal Engine 3/4/5 and all of these seemed intuitive and I never felt frustrated by them unlike blender. At this point I would rather play Autodesk than use blender for free which is sad.

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#12

Post by archerx »

cardanome wrote: post #7
archerx wrote: post #4

I'm always told how blender is amazing and there seems to be some impressive tech under the hood, the simulations look amazing and some stuff produced with it looks great but every time I try to use it, it is incredibly frustrating, like it's close but still so far away when it comes to the UI. I have been doing 3D for about a decade and a half, I have made intros and virtual sets for TV shows so I have some experien…

Honestly before the 2.8 I would have agreed that there was a little bit too much friction but now I think they strike the right balance and I really, really hope they never again change the UI except for minor tweaks. Easy to use and intuitive should not always be the most important goal. Productivity and not breaking existing users work flow are also very underrated aspects. I think the right comparison would be vim…

So baby duck syndrome and you rather use the bike without the seat? Good luck with that after any amount of time/distance.

The other programs have lasted decades and have been used to make thousands of movies and games for good reason. Because they work very well with the minimal friction and have PROVEN reliability.

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#13

Post by notRobot »

doctoboggan wrote: post #2

Blender is such an amazing open source tool. It used to have a reputation (along with GIMP) of having a steep learning curve, but that is definitely no longer true. They recently (v2.8) did a major UI/UX overhaul and its now very easy to use. Its also completely scriptable in python. I used blender on google cloud platform for my startup ( https://lulimjewelry.com ) where I digitally engrave my customers fingerprints…

I'm so curious, what does the NYT use Blender for?

The repo doesn't have much context: https://github.com/nytimes/rd-blender-docker

Edit: They have writeups here: https://rd.nytimes.com/research/3d-web-technology

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#15

Post by causi »

doctoboggan wrote: post #2

Blender is such an amazing open source tool. It used to have a reputation (along with GIMP) of having a steep learning curve, but that is definitely no longer true. They recently (v2.8) did a major UI/UX overhaul and its now very easy to use. Its also completely scriptable in python. I used blender on google cloud platform for my startup ( https://lulimjewelry.com ) where I digitally engrave my customers fingerprints…

They recently (v2.8) did a major UI/UX overhaul and its now very easy to use.

For me that's always been the issue. They change the UI all the time, which means 90% of the tutorials out in the wild are invalid in various different ways.

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#16

Post by washadjeffmad »

causi wrote: post #15
doctoboggan wrote: post #2

Blender is such an amazing open source tool. It used to have a reputation (along with GIMP) of having a steep learning curve, but that is definitely no longer true. They recently (v2.8) did a major UI/UX overhaul and its now very easy to use. Its also completely scriptable in python. I used blender on google cloud platform for my startup ( https://lulimjewelry.com ) where I digitally engrave my customers fingerprints…

They recently (v2.8) did a major UI/UX overhaul and its now very easy to use. For me that's always been the issue. They change the UI all the time, which means 90% of the tutorials out in the wild are invalid in various different ways.

I usually recommend picking an LTS ("long term support") release and finding tutorials about those to establish a baseline familiarity with the interface and features. LTSs won't change for as long as they're supported.

After that, Blender makes it easy to manage concurrent versions, so it's fine to just download and run additional versions if you're feature-chasing from a new tutorial or looking for a bug fix.

Blender is a lot of people's first modal, process oriented software, and it does require a different mindset than working in other tools where menus and windows are all available from one interface. I'd still argue the amount of conceptual mastery and memorization needed for each is basically the same.

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#17

Post by onion2k »

causi wrote: post #15
doctoboggan wrote: post #2

Blender is such an amazing open source tool. It used to have a reputation (along with GIMP) of having a steep learning curve, but that is definitely no longer true. They recently (v2.8) did a major UI/UX overhaul and its now very easy to use. Its also completely scriptable in python. I used blender on google cloud platform for my startup ( https://lulimjewelry.com ) where I digitally engrave my customers fingerprints…

They recently (v2.8) did a major UI/UX overhaul and its now very easy to use. For me that's always been the issue. They change the UI all the time, which means 90% of the tutorials out in the wild are invalid in various different ways.

Blender 2.8 was released on July 30, 2019.

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#18

Post by cardanome »

archerx wrote: post #12
cardanome wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly before the 2.8 I would have agreed that there was a little bit too much friction but now I think they strike the right balance and I really, really hope they never again change the UI except for minor tweaks. Easy to use and intuitive should not always be the most important goal. Productivity and not breaking existing users work flow are also very underrated aspects. I think the right comparison would be vim…

So baby duck syndrome and you rather use the bike without the seat? Good luck with that after any amount of time/distance. The other programs have lasted decades and have been used to make thousands of movies and games for good reason. Because they work very well with the minimal friction and have PROVEN reliability.

It is funny how you accuse others of baby duck syndrome when you are the one that can't get over your imprint of having used other software and fail to adjust to using blender. Projecting, much?

Blender is difficult to learn. Maybe it is not the right tool for you. As I said it took me multiple attempts to learn properly myself. Acting like the blender UI is objectively bad just because it does not suit you is silly though.

The part about other software is especially silly considering that blender is exceptionally loved by its users. Something that commercial 3d software can not claim at all.

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#19

Post by onion2k »

archerx wrote: post #4

I'm always told how blender is amazing and there seems to be some impressive tech under the hood, the simulations look amazing and some stuff produced with it looks great but every time I try to use it, it is incredibly frustrating, like it's close but still so far away when it comes to the UI. I have been doing 3D for about a decade and a half, I have made intros and virtual sets for TV shows so I have some experien…

I have been doing 3D for about a decade and a half

You have a lot of inertia to overcome. That's 15 years of muscle memory and expectations built using different UIs, different paradigms, and different ideas to achieve the same result. You need to factor the fact you're going to be thinking "But I could do that much more easily in !" a lot. It's possible that you won't ever overcome those thoughts.

Forgetting is a lot harder than learning, and while Blender is pretty amazing it definitely isn't so much farther ahead than the competition it's necessarily worth the effort. Blender's main benefits are that it's fully integrated (it does everything!), and that it's free. If you already have a successful workflow for 3D then maybe it just isn't the app for you.

Re: Watchtower – Blender Studio

#20

Post by archerx »

onion2k wrote: post #19
archerx wrote: post #4

I'm always told how blender is amazing and there seems to be some impressive tech under the hood, the simulations look amazing and some stuff produced with it looks great but every time I try to use it, it is incredibly frustrating, like it's close but still so far away when it comes to the UI. I have been doing 3D for about a decade and a half, I have made intros and virtual sets for TV shows so I have some experien…

I have been doing 3D for about a decade and a half You have a lot of inertia to overcome. That's 15 years of muscle memory and expectations built using different UIs, different paradigms, and different ideas to achieve the same result. You need to factor the fact you're going to be thinking "But I could do that much more easily in !" a lot. It's possible that you won't ever overcome those thoughts. Forgetting is a lo…

If blender is so great why can I jump between many different 3D programs without much friction, why was I able to learn other 3D apps a long the way without much friction? I have been trying to use Blender since at least 2003 and each time it refused to stick and was happy to stop using it. Sure it does everything but excels at nothing.
Post reply on HN