[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]
Re: artists
Frederic A. Martinelli wrote:
getting lost. It may be capable, but boy does the UI suck. The UI may be
The UI is very good as long as you know what you're doing / searching for.
But that's only good if you already know what's there and what the
teeny-tiny icon for it looks like. Lots of the menu's have completely
unlabelled text entry fields!
I DO know what I'm searching for - but since it turns out to be a 16x16
pixel image comprising a white square with cow-spots on it...how the f**k
am I going to recognise it when I see it?
The menu is the space bar, it's written in a lot of places but for that
you have to RTFM,
That's a classic example of the kind of problem Blender has. Every other
GUI-based package on the planet comes up with the menu ON by default. You
may want to provide a way to hide it - and you may want to have a preferences
option to have it be off on startup - but the default should be to be friendly
to newbies. Sophisticated users can tweak the program to suit their preferences,
newbies cannot.
The idea of having to read a manual to find the menu is a concept that went out
sometime in the early 1980's!
When you *do* find the menu - it's not remotely like any other program you've
ever seen. People would expect to see (as a minimum) File on the left with
standard entries like New, Load, Save, Save As and Exit - with standard-looking
file selector popups. Instead you have the weirdest file selector I've ever
seen! I can understand that there might be some unusual requirements of 3D
artists that might affect things like how you make polygons - but the basics
like directory browsing is a well established thing that EVERYONE understands.
Blender is agressively awkward in ways it doesn't NEED to be awkward.
The authors need to read the X/Motif style guide - that's widely recognised to
be an authoritative guide to getting GUI-based applications as least minimally
useable - Blender probably breaks every guideline in there!
there are keybindings: they just don't match 3DS ones,
That doesn't matter. What DOES matter is that they don't mirror menu items
and the key binding isn't listed next to a corresponding menu item. The way
people learn key bindings is that they start off by slowly plodding through the
menu's - and when they find something they need to do a lot, they'll get sick
of doing that and read the keybinding printed next to the menu item and start
to use it. Learning keybindings by reading about them in the manual doesn't
work for most people.
and for modern usability: really you obviously don't know a single heck
about 3D rendering so how can you say that ? First learn _then_ give
your opinion.
...well, I *DO* know about 3D rendering - I've been working in 3D graphics
since 1979. I've written modellers, renderers and 3D applications, I've designed
3D graphic hardware, I earn $150,000 a year because I'm a 3D graphics guru, I've
built HUNDREDS of programs with user interfaces that are ALL better than Blenders'.
I wrote programs in OpenGL before the first implementation was even complete.
I wrote the first every 3D game for Linux. I use 3D modellers several times
a day - and have done so for the past 25 years.
So whilst this guy *may* not be 3D literate, I most certainly *am* - and I agree
with him 100%. The blender interface sucks.
Please don't try to "out qualify" people in your debates with them. There is always
someone better qualified than you are!
KILL... Once you find out how to save and load, you have to save you
model
all the time so that you have something to revert to when the inevitable
"what does this app do now, how can I get it back to normal?" comes along
and foces you to KILL it.
Impressive you're not even used to test after the Q/X/Ctrl-Q/Ctrl-X
sequence of keys to quit a progs, you're using computers since how many
days ?
Listen to this guy. He's in your "target demographic". If he can't figure
out how to do something, it's the fault of the GUI designer - not the fault
of the user. If he didn't figure out that Q/X was the right thing - then
you should consider having a 'File' menu with an 'Exit' item at the bottom
of the list of entries - and have that menu be on the screen at all times
unless it's been explicitly dismissed.
This guy DOES know how to exit from: GIMP, Mozilla, OpenOffice, etc. If
he can't figure out how to exit out of Blender - then it's CLEARLY Blender
that's at fault.
---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net> WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
Projects : http://plib.sf.net http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
GCS d-- s:+ a+ C++++$ UL+++$ P--- L++++$ E--- W+++ N o+ K? w--- !O M-
V-- PS++ PE- Y-- PGP-- t+ 5 X R+++ tv b++ DI++ D G+ e++ h--(-) r+++ y++++
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----