First off, I want to say I appreciate all of the hard work people put in creating this free program. However, I have found that the blender manual is almost worthless. Would it kill people to put up some actual pictures that help show where you go to use the features they are talking about? I mean, I spend tons of time googling around to find out how to do something that’s talked about in the manual. They’ll explain what something does, but then they won’t bother to tell you WHERE you go in the GUI to click that option. And sometimes, it’ll show a very cropped picture of the interface, but then won’t show the rest of it so you know where it’s actually at. I mean, I’ve never seen a manual designed like this.
Open source world is hard…
It looks like Youtube is the new manual. lol
google is your friend.
Yeah, I stopped bothering with the manual and simply go to youtube most of the time, but I’m often on my limited mobile data usage internet.
And the manual isn’t. That’s my point. The manual is supposed to be the place you go to find out how to use the program. I don’t see what’s wrong with giving some feedback about the lack of visuals.
Your point is well taken-- try getting some screenshots of areas that need better improvement, maybe people can get on and change this if it is more concise on where the issues are. There are many areas where the manual seems fine to me IMO.
About everyone does. Blender tends to develop faster than it can be documented by the wiki guys. Here is a thread from awhile back with info on how to help if anyone wants to.
Hey, sorry but I’m laughing right now. Looking back on it the manual seems to be the place to go after you’ve become familiar with Blender. And, yes Google and YouTube are invaluable to Blender users. For a minute I’m going to assume you been using Blender for less then say four months.
The first thing is to become really familiar with the interface. And, I’m speaking of just the default window right now. With the toggle panels which are opened with T or N. Then a few hidden menus when in edit mode. And, I’m specifically bringing these up because I went months not knowing they existed. If working with edges hit Ctrl - e to bring up the edge menu. And, Ctrl - v for verts, Ctrl - f for faces. How I missed that for so long is a damn mystery to me.
Oh and make a folder on your desktop for tutorial short cuts. Otherwise your shit will be spilling right off the monitor. Believe me I’m not joking. Before long you’ll get pretty adapt at pulling up specific tutorials from YouTube. Want to make glass using the Blender Internal Render engine. Don’t type in Blender 2.6 glass but type in Blender 2.6 making a glass. What you want will be in the last third of the tutorial then.
There are many tutorials on the interface out there. Here’s one where the guy hits on several things that could be helpful. Like if a object disappears look in the outliner for the three icons to the right of that object. Also try to get in the habit of naming objects when you create them. Much easier then glancing at the outliner and seeing 3 cubes. Down the road that habit will pay off big time.
http://www.blendtuts.com/2010/06/blender-25-interface.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b_aA0r4c58
Damn I forgot. I also agree with xrg. It does seem to be changing faster then they can update the manual. Not only that but what would a manual look like taking a newcomer through every step. To wade through that would be the chore from hell in itself. So I’m not knocking the manual as such.
IMO this would get fixed through a couple releases worth of time if they opened the wiki to the general public for editing. It would also become messy. But messy is always better than unhelpful.
I spent quite a lot of time working on the wiki and can’t disagree with anything said here. Hell, I’m probably guilty of some of the over-cropped images being referred to :o. Not that it’s an excuse for substandard work, but I would like to mention that the current three column, resizable layout often makes it a pain to get decent large~ish images into the manual without making it look like total crap or having the page take forever to load. It’s a regular source of irritation for me.
If you send the links of the pages that you think need fixing to the docboard, you’ll have a better chance of them getting update quickly. Or, if you wanted to make some updates yourself, that would be awesome! The more people helping the better.
@MadMinstrel: anyone can make minor edits after making an account. But other than that, I completely agree. It needs to be opened up again. I argue against the editing blocks everytime it comes up on the mailing-list but obviously haven’t had much luck getting it lifted.
I don’t think it’s going to get fixed by minor edits. What I find troubling about the manual is that it’s too ‘dry’. It answers the question ‘What is function X?’, while it should really answer ‘What can I do with function X?’.
In addition to basic descriptions, there need to be pages that describe entire workflows. For example, you can easily find out what the various snap functions do. But good luck finding an answer if your question is ‘How do I retopo in Blender?’ or ‘How do I keep my scenes and files organized?’. (edit: actually, there is a page on retopology that I didn’t know of, but still, it’s one of many things. Good start though.)
Blender is awesome because it provides a lot of very simple tools that are supposed to be used together. Therefore the manual should describe the use of those tools together, rather than each and every one of them in total vacuum. I think this is the most important reason users find the manual unhelpful.
There have been suggestions raised about splitting the manual more visibily into reference and tutorials sections like you’ve described. But it keeps coming back to the same problem of not enough people working on it and frankly, not always the right people either.
For example, on the retopo page you linked, I could describe the features of the function well enough and give some basic examples, but I don’t know anywhere near enough about it to write up the sort of stuff people want. The folks who do know these features well enough to write some good content aren’t too interested in updating the manual (probably because they’re more interested in making all the nifty stuff that people want the manual to explain:)).
I can certainly learn about these features and get there eventually, but that just means it takes even longer for the manual to get updated. Especially since I don’t want to spend huge amounts of time learning features that aren’t always relevant to the models I’m working on.
It’s frustrating for me too, but I can’t really think of a solution beyond more people getting involved.
I agree with xrg in that Blender goes through changes so often that it’s damn near impossible to keep an updated version of a manual in the Wiki. At best, it’s good for most of the basics and beyond that we just have to rely on each-other and the overviews. They would have to pay somebody to do that and nothing but that and even then, they wouldn’t be able to keep up.
I’m not sure about being open to absolutely anyone. But I’d LOVE to have it integrated with the authentication of BlenderArtists. So everyone that has an account here automatically has the ability to edit the wiki without having to re-authenticate. There would be no barrier of inconvenience.
I’m registered on the wiki, but I have no clue how to edit anything. I think I’m only qualified to edit my own user page, but navigation is so difficult I couldn’t even figure out where that is.
Would it kill you to register on the wiki and add a picture when you found the feature, so that others benefit? Or would you prefer to complain on forums about what other people have done voluntarily in their spare time?
For what it’s worth, parts of the documentaton (like Cycles) are pretty good.
Well that’s the thing, he can’t.
I understand the procedure to edit the wiki is to write it in your user page, post about it in bf-docboard and then hope somebody approves and incorporates your contribution.
No, once you are logged in you just click the “[edit]” link visible on every page (and every section of every page), make any changes/additions/deletions, then click the “Save Page” button. Done.
Apparently you never read the guidelines:
Updating Pages
Setting up to become a User Manual writer is simple. Just
register on bf-docboard open a mediaWiki account (See Login/Create Account, top right corner of screen)
Then minor edits (grammar, corrections to comply with style guide) can be made directly by editing the wiki Manual page.
For major page edits, you can choose your method according to your confidence and experience.
EITHER:
Go ahead and make your changes in the wiki Manual page. BUT ALSO, once you are satisfied with your corrections, please email bf-docboard with subject "Re: Page Update" giving the category and filename(s) you have modified, so we can communicate if there are any issues with your changes. add a brief note on the Discussion for the page saying what (and, if appropriate, why) you made the changes. Add a Signature and date to your discussion note.
OR
Use your User Space to get a Review of your proposed changes before altering the real wiki Manual page. This can be done as follows (assuming the name you have chosen is XXXX): Go to your user page and open edit mode (e.g. http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:XXXX) Make a link to a new page with the appropriate address and save, e.g. Window types to correspond with http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Interface/Window_types The new link will display in red as there's nothing in the new page yet Click the red link to open up edit mode for the new page Open a new browser tab, open the wiki manual page that you want to fix, then go into edit mode Copy and paste from the wiki manual page to the corresponding version on your user page and save your user page version Add an InProgress template to the wiki page (so that people know someone is working on it) and save it Now you can edit your user-page file to make your proposed changes. When you're finished, email bf-docboard with subject "Re: Review Request" for a review by a more experienced writer (eg. an Admin Board member). They will work with you to polish the page if required, then help you to move it to replace the original wiki manual. add a brief note on the Discussion for the page saying what (and, if appropriate, why) you made the changes. Add a Signature and date to your discussion note.
You may like to add the page to your Watchlist, and watch it, so that you follow any future changes to your edits.
Please note that, if your changes are not considered by the Board to improve the page, they may revert your changes. The Admin Board Coordinator has final decision on all matters of Blender Manual content.
I wanted to make some changes here and there at one point, but found this depressing and just tossed the idea. Way too much bureaucracy for something I don’t get paid for.
I agree, all these requirements are nonsensical and go against how Wikis are supposed to work. If “anyone can edit” is good enough for Wikipedia, it should be good enough for the Blender Wiki.
I believe the fear is that any changes made by the unwashed masses would become part of The Offical Blender Manual™ and nobody could be made responsible when the next Space Shuttle explodes, because of some inaccurate information it may have contained. Maybe we need a more informal Wiki, where people are encouraged to make edits and do commentary.