Every so often somebody posts about how difficult Blender is to use, etc... and I will instinctively react, "No it isn't fathead, you're just dumb. And your mom smells like cheese." This, of course, is a big fat lie (well, maybe; I don't know about the cheese part. It is entirely possible that their mom does, in fact, smell like cheese.) Once I got my head around the unconventional interface, memorized a few critical hotkeys so that I wouldn't have to go searching through the available (sparse) information, and got a few hours of practice with it, then Blender became easy. But in the beginning, it was a bit intimidating and cold; all these strangely laid-out buttons, with sparse tooltips and nothing resembling the comforting 'standard' application layout as far as menus, buttons and dialogs. I think I may have had it easier than some other users, as I had never used 3D Studio, Milkshape, or any other 3D program before, so I didn't have any basis of comparison, or any set habits. If I had come from 3D Studio, I would have had a much harder time I think.

Considering what Blender delivers for the price, and how it saves me a bundle of money, I'm willing to put up with some moderate weirdness and get some stuff done.

Quote:Original post by JTippetts
Considering what Blender delivers for the price, and how it saves me a bundle of money, I'm willing to put up with some moderate weirdness and get some stuff done.

Yup, that's what I'm thinking too. I've used Maya 6.0 for game design stuff (Placing game objects like AI waypoints when working on State of Emergency 2 on the PS2, and stuff for our current projects on the DS), but not any actual modelling.

I'm surprised how quickly I picked up the arcball stuff, considering how weird I found rotating in 3D to be at first - I seem to have magically become able to use it over night. Now I can do UV stuff - which is one of the things I've been trying to get to quickly, and I can export something (I exported a textured sphere to .md2 format without problems), I have something to go on, so it's no longer a case of "Ok, once I've done the next 11 tutorials I'll be able to make a house shape".

I'll be able to comment more once I've tried doing some "real" modelling hopefully.

If you look at my journal, in the header part there is a little blue bug dude endlessly marching in place. He was my first real character done in Blender, and has been featured in no less than 6 aborted proto games and applications, from isometrics to 3D to side-scrolling shooter action. He's a little dated now (I can do much better) but at the time I was thrilled when I got him animating, because it meant no more hand-drawn, craptacular pieces of shit scrolling across the screen in my games; this was the big time. Programmer art FTW.

>flamethrower status="on"<

Quote:Considering what Blender delivers for the price, and how it saves me a bundle of money, I'm willing to put up with some moderate weirdness and get some stuff done.

I know it's a sweeping generalisation, but one of my biggest dislikes of OSS is that "it's free, so I can't complain" - I'm sorry, but Blender (or whatever else) might be technically and functionally exceptionally good but usability should also be a first-class citizen. If it fails at usability it fails full-stop.

It's especially lame when they're talking about being a viable and 'correct' replacement for commercial closed-source software...
>/flamethrower<

*shrugs* anyway, carry on...

It's usable, just different.

In a perfect world, you'd be right, but I live in the world of "take what you can get." And what I can get is Blender; what I definitely can not get is Maya or 3D Studio. Not even in the remote realm of possibility at this stage in my life. So, I'm supposed to cast away Blender just because it doesn't meet some sort of usability requirements? Then what?

Quote:Original post by JTippetts
If you look at my journal, in the header part there is a little blue bug dude endlessly marching in place. He was my first real character done in Blender, and has been featured in no less than 6 aborted proto games and applications, from isometrics to 3D to side-scrolling shooter action. He's a little dated now (I can do much better) but at the time I was thrilled when I got him animating, because it meant no more hand-drawn, craptacular pieces of shit scrolling across the screen in my games; this was the big time. Programmer art FTW.

Yep, that's pretty much exactly why I want to try and get blender stuff done. I only started looking at Blender thanks you Your Journal Entry [smile]

Quote:Original post by JTippetts
If you look at my journal, in the header part there is a little blue bug dude endlessly marching in place. He was my first real character done in Blender, and has been featured in no less than 6 aborted proto games and applications, from isometrics to 3D to side-scrolling shooter action. He's a little dated now (I can do much better) but at the time I was thrilled when I got him animating, because it meant no more hand-drawn, craptacular pieces of shit scrolling across the screen in my games; this was the big time. Programmer art FTW.

Yep, that's pretty much exactly why I want to try and get blender stuff done. I only started looking at Blender thanks you Your Journal Entry [smile]

@JJ: One man's usability is another man's poke in the left eyeball ;)