Blender 2.8 is now fully usable with left-click object selection

General Forums Blender Development Discussion
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Not all professionals do. The vast majority of the professionals who digitally sculpt and are willing to share their experiences do. This is not hard to verify - look up sculpting videos on YouTube. Look up digital artist streams on Twitch (& similar platforms). Hell, look up the number of classes out there teaching people (for money & free) how to use the various sculpting applications and note how many of them are for Zbrush vs others (i.e. supply & demand of knowledge/skills).

Again, it’s often a matter of “highest potential return on investment”. Like it or not, Zbrush does have that highest potential return, at least partially because some of the tech it uses to get the polycounts it has is patented and cannot be used by the competition.

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I think I actually like the new left click keymap behavior, it works similar to modo I think.

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Not a absolutely huge deal, but if a lot of people want it, then okay. I’m glad they still have the old keymaps. I really like them because, even if people say it’s hard to learn, it’s very fast once you get it. I jsut hope they don’t get too zealous changing things for wider appeal that they derail. I’m thinking probably not, though.

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click 1500 times to select half of the model for example? no i don’t think so))) i’d prefer to have a separate sticky key for a tweak mode like in maya ` key, but leave drag+lmb for rectangle select as is.

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Like I said, nothing change, everything would stay as it is right now.

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I would agree with you, if not for the fact that you have left your assessment incomplete.

Everything (with the exception of some right click pop up menus) is left click. I think it was a fairly astute observation on Ton’s part to recognize that this being the case, that in all other apps you spend an unbalanced amount of clicking with the LMB. Therefore simply putting a very common (and easy to change) selection process to the right button, it ergonomically evens out the exchange.

This is not reasoning after the fact. Do some research. In interviews and writings for a very long time he sated specifically, this is why we have Right Click Select. It was a conscious calculated move.

The question is not did this give a benefit. The question is if this benefit outweighs existing familiarity.

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And whether it remains of actual benefit in an age where a graphics tablet is becoming a standard tool in the digital artists kit.

And then there is, of course, the fact that it being a deliberate decision doesn’t necessarily make it a good one. Selection is done all the time in modelling, rigging, animation, etc. Placing the 3D tool is not used anywhere near as often. As such, the right-click select didn’t so much “even out the exchange” as simply move it to a different button.

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Yep. I can appreciate that view. And it is a valid question if, in fact, doing this was an over all best decision.

I think it was. And I feel that most artists take these things in stride. So I don’t personally think, from my experience, that it hurts Blender. I have not seen this in my day to day life, which includes working with 15 artists at a studio where we constantly go back and forth between Maya and Blender. And I have trained probably nearly two dozen artists personally. I see the reaction to Blender from Maya people. I see artists come to my studio from a school that teaches Maya and many of them also already know Blender and use it. The others take to it very fast. A very small minority, maybe less than 1% don’t.

That does not make my view the best answer. It is just what I see.

And the kicker is that is the polar opposite to what most people claim is the case “in the industry”. I sometimes wonder what industry that is. I guess as an animation studio that makes a living using Blender and Maya, and employing several artists, and also being an accredited training studio for 4th year students who come to me for a year on a training program before graduating does not qualify me.

Now you can say what you say about my “unique” position. But I don’t have anything to compare it to. My students are being trained to go out and work in studios. I see a cross section of what will be in the next few years, workers in “the industry”. The students that don’t come to me, go off to other studios who primarily use Maya. So it is not like I am getting some odd test cases. These are just a cross section of people on the way to the industry.

And also, I deal with artists who are veterans in the industry. Many of them also take to Blender quickly, if they don’t know it already.

So if I don’t have a direct cross section of the industry, I don’t really know what to say.

The question to ask then is, does my experience count?

Seems like it doesn’t. People would rather just say “the industry” and make it seem like that means something…over there.

Well for me. It is right here when I walk in door every day.

So my assessment, is Right Click is just fine, for the reasons it was decided initially. Because I don’t see it getting in the way of using Blender.

Going back to a post back there a ways. There are a list of at least a half dozen key areas, that do matter if Blender is used or not. And those areas get little to no attention due lack of funding.

But I can say with no exception. Until those things are addressed and fixed, Blender will not replace Maya in my studio. So am I happy they are paying developers to try and “fix” Blender in areas that I don’t see matter, and continue to leave untouched these other key areas? Of course not.

And while I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with me. And maybe overall you are right, it was not the best decision. But to agree with that, I’d have to have direct experience for that. And I don’t.

Does not mean I don’t recognize others have another experience. But what am I supposed to do? Just forget what I see and agree with someone I have never met? And take their word over my experience? Just because they think it is the wrong thing to have done?

If we all did that, all we would ever get is everyone agreeing with things they have never experienced and people could just make shit up. Like they kinda do anyway, and then expect everyone to just agree.

If I lived my life like that, I would never learn anything. And if I chose software like that, I would just be writing my own code. Because according to the internet on any given day, all software is shite.

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You had me nodding right up until that line and then you killed whatever meeting of minds could be possible.

As soon as you start throwing accusations like that around, everything falls into @#$%. After all, the same could be said about your experiences (i.e you kind of “make them up anyway” yet expect us to agree they’re real & representative of the industry).

Best way to get someone offside in situations like this? State or imply they are lying. People just love it when someone starts taking shots at their honesty.

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Yep. Agreed. That was a poor choice of words. My bad. I should have used another phrase because that can be construed as you say as “lying”.

I don’t mean that. I mean mostly people taking information and repeating it without examination, or just kind of theorizing on something that seems logical for whatever reason. But that may or not be actually true.

But back to the head shaking part. I agree. You and others could be right, regardless of my personal experience.

In the end I will use Blender or not based on how useful it is to me. Not based on Right or Left select.

That is ludicrous, if you don’t mind me saying. And as I am certainly not a hypocrite, if it came to pass that the entire way Blender was set up to work changed, and I had to learn another way to do things, I would. To the degree that Blender was useful to me.

So to the point. People like me using Blender for work don’t really give a hoot what the method is. As long as it works. And Blender gives tools we can use.

Everything else is secondary.

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I just would like to thank you and everyone who has invested significant amount of time customizing Blender in sharing their setup. It’s really useful to build my own setup on.

New, better Blender configurations don’t come from a committee, they don’t come from the forums, they don’t even come from the devs, they come from hard working artists who are constantly pushing the boundaries.

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My original post was not directed at you,

and yet you asked me, “What would you place on LMB, and why? perhaps it could be better utilised.”.

I gave you a valid answer that LMB should be used to select. Every other software and OS agree with me. And yet you called my comment “smart-ass”?! Not gonna waste time on you anymore.

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I have a useful, practical suggestion:

How about changing the edit mode right click menu in left-click-select mode to display the Vertex, Edge or Face menu depending on which mode you happen to be in?

The Specials menu is not used as often as those three.

(for mixed selection modes the operator would just have to prioritize them)

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It won’t work well with mixed selection modes. Verts+Edges, Verts+Faces, and so on.

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Your initial post didn’t seem directed at anyone specific. But you seemed confused as to why a trivial tool like the 3d cursor might be put on a primary button, I answered that question, given the context of blender’s development. You can’t ignore that context, as it’s the reason behind why any tool is on LMB instead of selection.

“Again, remember, the initial decision is to separate action and selection. Given that,”

If you had a problem with the LMB being used for a tool that isn’t frequently in use, you could have suggested one that would be better in that context - but it turns out you’re problem isn’t with which tool is on LMB, it’s just with selection not being on LMB. But instead of saying that, you decided to say that the cursor specifically shouldn’t be on LMB.

Context-sensitive menus are typically awful things. I wouldn’t suggest using them ever, they break muscle memory and lead to confusion when the computer mis-interprets. A button should always do the same thing unless context has significantly changed.

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Users aware of those modes are quite rare, especially now with the 1 2 3 keys being just faster and less troublesome to operate than to choose mixed modes.

It’s a good compromise to just display the highest-number-element related menu in these cases. E.g. if you’re using vertex + face mode, you display the face menu. For vertex + edge mode you display the edge menu.

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That’s a good point, but in this case, using prime real-estate like the right mouse button for a menu used once in a blue moon is just not useful.

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Nah… I use it all the time and I believe I’m not the only one.

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I’m not saying there isn’t a better option than the specials menu, just that it really shouldn’t be context-sensitive.

Perhaps the Face/Edge/Vert menus can be combined in a pleasing way into one menu/panel?

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Of course you’re not the only one. Nobody said you were. But I get an ‘ooooooh, that’s a neat trick, never knew about this!’ each time i mention it. It’s anecdotal to be sure, but again, there no real telemetry data to base decisions upon.

As an alternative to just displaying the highest, four additional menus could be devised, one for each of the modes, with a mix of the most useful operators for each.