Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM

Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by ensiferum on Thursday January 12, 2017 @05:55AM (#13381312)

Blender is to 3D modeling what Gimp is to image editing what Darktable is to photo editing. Painful. My biggest grip with blender is the non-standard custom GUI that they just refuse to update. I know Blender predates toolkits such as GTK/Qt but seriously, they've had plenty of time to "fix this".

Bonus: Try to draw a line in GIMP (without first going to google). Have fun! (;

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by Joeboy on Thursday January 12, 2017 @06:18AM (#13381401)

No. Blender's UI is initially impenetrable but once you work it out it becomes second nature. GIMP's UI is initially impenetrable and once you work it out it seems even worse than you thought.

Edit: In fact, I think GIMP and Blender have kind of opposite UI problems. GIMP tends to go along with the obvious toolkit defaults, making no concessions to usability, whereas Blender reinvents everything from scratch for efficiency, making no concessions to convention.

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by nkoren on Thursday January 12, 2017 @06:00AM (#13381337)

The analogy to VIM is, in this respect, quite a good one.

That said, Blender's GUI has been updated dramatically over the last 5 years. It is still quite painful ("discoverability" does not seem to be a concept they've become acquainted with), but in fact it's far better than it used to be. I'd made occasional attempts to acquaint myself with Blender starting in the late 90s and had invariably failed; tried again a few years ago and after a few days of pain I was being incredibly productive with it.

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by JTxt on Thursday January 12, 2017 @11:11AM (#13383353)

Discoverability? It's much better than VIM's at least. (That used to not be the case.)

Most features can be found in Menus. Every clickable UI element has a tool tip if you hover.

With your mouse over the 3d port, hit the spacebar and fuzzy search for commands.

Most times there's a menu option there's a hotkey listed to the right... or you can right click a menu item and "Assign hot key."

You can also right click things and click "Online Documentation" for documentation on it.

Granted, I don't see an easy way to discover that "TAB" is for switching between edit and world mode when an object is selected... though you can switch modes in the "Object Mode" drop down 3d port menu. there's not a tool tip for it. ...and probably other things. It would be helpful if a better getting started guide/beginner walk through (like this introduction.) could be found in the splash screen and help menu easier.

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by furbyhater on Thursday January 12, 2017 @06:02AM (#13381342)

Took me less than one minute for drawing the line: - click on the fountain pen (stroke tool) - make a stroke on the canvas (click once for the origin, once for the end) - under Tool Options, click on "Stroke Path" and choose the desired thickness, then click on "Stroke"

Voilà, done (without using Google).

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by kiiski on Thursday January 12, 2017 @07:23AM (#13381678)

Or alternatively click on the start point, hold shift and click on the end point.

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by stymaar on Thursday January 12, 2017 @06:07AM (#13381357)

> Try to draw a line in GIMP (without first going to google). Have fun! (;

GIMP is not a paint replacement. Since GIMP is primarily a tool for image retouching and editing, drawing a line is not it's most obvious use-case.

> Blender is to 3D modeling what Gimp is to image editing what Darktable is to photo editing. Painful.

The main UI concern they have, is that they're usually not the first software of their kind people use. Switching from photoshop to GIMP is hard and people complain about the UI, but UI-wise, switching from GIMP to photoshop is equally hard.

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by NTripleOne on Thursday January 12, 2017 @11:05AM (#13383299)

As someone who went from GIMP to PS (I was young and the concept of piracy scared me back then), I wouldn't say it was hard, I spent more time going "why didn't GIMP work like this..?" than "how do I do this?".

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by ensiferum on Thursday January 12, 2017 @02:08PM (#13385126)

what's with the downvotes... People don't agree that Blender/Gimp/Darktable have a usability problem??

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Re:Blender for Hackers – 3D modeling is just like using VIM by wtetzner on Thursday January 12, 2017 @04:43PM (#13386389)

Perhaps they think Blender has as much of a usability problem as Vim: it lacks discoverability, but once you learn the UI, it's very efficient.

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