Agreed with Michael W. I don’t think it’s a problem per se. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to encourage the user to customize their keymap before they’ve even used the program for the first time.
open Blender -> do tutorials -> as you get more familiar with it, customize keymaps
rather than
open Blender -> customize keymaps -> find out that despite the familiar keymap, you’re still confused -> start doing tutorials
before everyone gets too panicked, the developers are already aware of this ‘issue’. a possibility is rather than using the current NKEY IKEY syntax, to call the functions by name like [extrude poly]. Still being researched, see here, 2nd paragraph:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/Blender2.5/WinterCamp/EditorReviews
cheer Go Go Power Rangers! arr, damn wrong text… Go Go Power Coders! cheer
The aimed style for the GUI looks great, no doubt about it.
I’m just still wondering if we’ll see some horizontal menu mockups. 
Anyway, everyone who’s involved in the 2.5 development is doing a great job!
I agree. If there is a real ‘market’ for this sort of solution to support new users migrating from other apps, members of those groups can develop there own solutions (and Im sure they will). Surely this is a much better solution than us guessing what tools they might need and attempting to bend Blender to fit that profile.
Blender will come with a default UI and keymap and 99.999% of new users will use that one by default. Tutorials will be fine.
At worst case scenario, a warning note at the top of the tut along the lines of “Created for default keymap and UI” should suffice for all tutorials.
I’m just still wondering if we’ll see some horizontal menu mockups.
In fact you can see it already , by using some sort of magic :
edit : I hope i’ll not offend william by modifying his work.
Peace :-).
Hey, this probably isn’t the best place to ask, but I can’t figure out where else to ask.
I downloaded the latest windows release of 2.5 off of graphicall, but I can’t get anything to show up in the buttons window except for rendering options. I haven’t used 2.5 at all yet, and it seems like the copy I have worked for everyone else, so maybe I’m doing something wrong. Any ideas?
Nope, the tools havent been transfered yet…
I thought that might be it, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to end up blaming blender for my possible incompetence. thanks.
I also agree that emboss text is really hardly readable for me too
Really nice mockup! love the colors but I agree with emboss texts too.
Almost any effect on small text fonts makes them hard to read, so - yes, it will be better without emboss.
Indeed, and this is what broken also said during the Wintercamp. The problem is not so much that Blender is hotkey heaven, but that the tutorial writers did in this sense not a good job (and I mean not to talk tute writers down at all!). Als Michael says here, a good tutorial would say “use tool so-and-so”.
/Nathan
In both the books I’ve done, I’ve always found it best to say something like:
“Next, Select All objects in the Scene (A-key), and use the Link tool (Ctrl-L), choosing “Materials” from the menu that pops up.”
That way, you get the actual command up front so you’re learning what you’re doing, followed by the default hotkey. I’ve seen too many tutorials that are just a list of rote instructions like “Hit A, then Ctrl-L and pick Materials.”
I see that it’s on the slate to remove OOPS view. I hope that there is some plan somewhere to create a new visual method (ie nodes) for editing all of the new connections that will be available in 2.5.
TorQ: that’d be an awesome idea, having a node editor for the scene… imagine being able to plug modifiers, armatures, lights, materials and objects together, like how they are parented, or to what objects they apply too, so instead of having to select each object and go to the buttons window and apply the modifier, you could open up the node editor, click “scene node” then it’d show you all the available “data blocks?” or what ever that are avialable and any connections that they may have, for example, if a material is applied to a cube etc.
In Maya almost everything is designed to use Maya’s node system (from rendering to modeling), and it’s one of the things I miss when using Blender. However, Blender’s node system is a little more straight forward to use since Maya’s system is not really designed that well to be used outside of Maya’s material system.
The one other thing that is nice about Maya’s node system is that it has what I call programming nodes, which lets you tunnel the data through things like If statements and mathmetical equations of your own design, giving you a lot of flexiablity.
Kind of like Houdini, but not as powerful or as complete. I woudl love to see blender take turn towards this approach, more Houdini than Maya though.
i am so excited about the direction, level of control, detail and organization being devoted to the Blender 2.5 development! it’s amazing to see all of this unravel. i love the mock-ups and hope the end result is as close to them as possible. please continue with what has been an uncanny effort thus far.
cheers!
I’ve been chatting about this with some of the devs, actually. Not related to 2.5 at all. More of a pipe-dream, really. But ideally we improve on Maya, not just copy. And there’s plenty to improve…
For me the biggest issue with Maya’s node system is that each “thing” (object, mesh, whatever) is represented by a single node, with inputs and outputs. This is actually really limiting:
Specifically notice the second example in that image: the flow of data is inconsistent and difficult to follow (i.e. how does the copyloc mix the locations of the two objects? Does it suck data backwards from Cube.001?).
A better system is to have the data (objects, meshes, etc.) stored as a database like Blender already does, and use nodes as a data-processing pipeline. This is actually how Blender’s nodes already work, such as in the compositing nodes.
This keeps the flow of data 100% consistent. And it is actually a more flexible paradigm than Maya’s. It can do everything Maya’s paradigm can, plus more. It’s also a lot easier to code nodes for, and in the simple Maya-like cases (such as the top example in the second image) it reads just as well visually.
Anyway… for the love of god don’t take this as some secret developer plans. This is all pipe-dream at the moment. If it happens at all, it will be a while from now, and it will be gradual.
