Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
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Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#2> Other improvements include a new file browser
Oh thank god. I want to tear my hair out whenever I use Blender just to view or convert a file. The file browser is nearly unusable.
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#3Found this on the site, thought it was rather interesting:
The Evolution of Blenders User Interface [PDF] http://download.blender.org/documentation/bc2008/evolution_o...
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#4How does it compare to the commercial competitors (Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage) in terms of features & usability?
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#5How 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 for the new user whenever there was a conflict and sometimes neglected the latter altogether.
The project has since put in a lot of work to try and make the interface a bit easier to pick up without compromising on the speed with which current artists who use Blender heavily rely on. The 2.5 series of releases is the latest attempt at making this better.
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#6How does it compare to the commercial competitors (Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage) in terms of features & usability?
Blender is a very capable "integrated" package; however everyone finds some faults with the individual tools. I have a lot of trouble with the modeler, personally, and resort to modelling in Wings3D and exporting the result to Blender. On the other hand, a lot of people praise the video editing and compositing tool as a competitive video editor in its own right.
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#7How does it compare to the commercial competitors (Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage) in terms of features & usability?
I'm only a novice 3d modeler. But, my impression is that Blender has all the features that commercial vendors provide. The main reason it isn't popular is the interface is much different that 3D Max. I started using Blender having no past experience and have been quite pleased. The learning curve is kind of high and there is little good documentation on Blender 2.5.
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#8How does it compare to the commercial competitors (Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage) in terms of features & usability?
Blender looks and feels different from any other UI I've ever seen. That said, I would hardly categorize Maya's UI as "easy-to-use." Fairly conventional, yes, but not particularly easy. 3D art is a difficult problem, so it rather makes sense that the UIs take time to learn. Blender just takes an unusual approach, and honestly — there's nothing wrong with that. For comparison, Emacs takes a different approach to text editing than Visual Studio.
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#9This is not the first release with new UI. 2.5 series all had this new UI.
Re: Blender 2.57 released (first stable release with completely new UI)
#10I have to say, Blender has come a long way. Big kudos. Python scripting is a major plus for me (Maya uses Python too).