Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI) • Hacker News Board

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#11

Post by foenix » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 12:50 AM UTC

Ixiaus wrote: post #10

I have to say, Blender has come a long way. Big kudos. Python scripting is a major plus for me (Maya uses Python too).

I took a second look at Blender, and I have to agree with you 100%. I'm astonished at how much python is incorporated into the “little things” like help-text and api. And the scripting! And the keyframe interface!

Many kudos are in order.

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#12

Post by zacharycohn » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 1:25 AM UTC

I used it for a few years about 10 years ago, and I loved it at the time - I stopped largely because the software itself was just overwhelming. The new interface looks promising, it's great to see Blender still being developed.

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#13

Post by Smerity » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 2:31 AM UTC

djcapelis wrote: post #5

hybrid11 wrote: post #4

How does it compare to the commercial competitors (Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage) in terms of features & usability?

This is a generally well respected feature comparison chart: http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools Blender is generally feature rich, but has a fairly different UI than other products. People vary on whether or not they find that a good thing, Blender was originally built in an animation studio, for the most part, the interface prioritized ease of use for the knowledgeable user over ease of use f…

Very good point regarding the UI.

I find it quite annoying when people complain about Blender's UI. VIM's UI is also not "new user" friendly but VIM's UI itself is very powerful.

Blender and VIM are made for speed with familiarity.

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#14

Post by georgemcbay » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 3:01 AM UTC

Smerity wrote: post #13

djcapelis wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a generally well respected feature comparison chart: http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools Blender is generally feature rich, but has a fairly different UI than other products. People vary on whether or not they find that a good thing, Blender was originally built in an animation studio, for the most part, the interface prioritized ease of use for the knowledgeable user over ease of use f…

Very good point regarding the UI. I find it quite annoying when people complain about Blender's UI. VIM's UI is also not "new user" friendly but VIM's UI itself is very powerful. Blender and VIM are made for speed with familiarity.

I agree with you to an extent but one important difference between VIM and Blender is that VIM tends to be the only tool a VIM user will use for editing code/text while a 3D artist will often use half a dozen or more tools to create a finished product (using focused tools in different areas of the pipeline -- it is not uncommon to use a focused modeller, say, even though technically you can model in Blender or Maya).

When you're using half a dozen tools and all of them either ship with or can easily be configured to handle Maya-style camera/mouse movement and Blender alone uses some wacky non-standard interface, it can really be jarring to context-switch to the Blender UI even if you are already familar with it.

I believe this lack of following de facto standards (and prior to 2.5 having no way to really configure to these standards) is a bigger factor in the rejection of Blender's legacy UI than the fact that it is hard to use for a beginner was.

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#15

Post by i80and » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 3:27 AM UTC

fsniper wrote: post #9

This is not the first release with new UI. 2.5 series all had this new UI.

This is the first stable release in the 2.5 line. Yes you could use the new UI before now with pre-releases, but that's been true for a long long time.

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#16

Post by teh » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 8:26 AM UTC

fsniper wrote: post #9

This is not the first release with new UI. 2.5 series all had this new UI.

I am not sure if this means the python API is stable, too.

Quote:

    For the next 2.58 release the API will be completed
    with access to internal notifiers and events to track
    data changes or UI refreshes.

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#17

Post by rtaycher » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 9:21 AM UTC

teh wrote: post #16

fsniper wrote: post #9

This is not the first release with new UI. 2.5 series all had this new UI.

I am not sure if this means the python API is stable, too. Quote: For the next 2.58 release the API will be completed with access to internal notifiers and events to track data changes or UI refreshes.

I thought 2.6 was suppose to be the stable release.

Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)

#18

Post by tintin » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 9:48 AM UTC

djcapelis wrote: post #5

hybrid11 wrote: post #4

How does it compare to the commercial competitors (Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage) in terms of features & usability?

This is a generally well respected feature comparison chart: http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools Blender is generally feature rich, but has a fairly different UI than other products. People vary on whether or not they find that a good thing, Blender was originally built in an animation studio, for the most part, the interface prioritized ease of use for the knowledgeable user over ease of use f…

Totally agree. It took me a while to learn how to use the UI. But when I did I was amazed about it's usefulness. Shortcuts are very easy for your hand (using qwerty layout). It all feels very natural.

I worked with 3D studio 1 (DOS) up to 3D Studio MAX 8. But working with Blender is so much faster already. Even tho I started using it some years ago.