Blender ease of use

Support Basics & Interface
#1

I’m definitely a noob In Blender, but not in 3d cad programs. I mainly use Autocad for 2/3D designs and decided to try out Blender 2.5X for awhile.
I think it’s gonna be a really nice program if programmers would think in terms of simplicity of interface to allow operations to be more straightforward and easy to comprehend.

Today for example I was importing a material, it was such a pain and it’s unnecessarily complicated for my tastes.
Why can’t we just link to the folder where we keep all the materials from the “Browse materials to be linked” in the Material Tab directly instead of going through so many steps?

So far I’m enjoying the program, but I feel it’s complicated interface keeps my learning curve from growing at a reasonable speed!

Thank you,
Dom

#2

What do you find so difficult ? It takes just seconds to append a material from an existing blend file.

#3

Here we go again. :spin:

Edit: That’s not helpful. Sorry.

I think it’s gonna be a really nice program if programmers would think in terms of simplicity of interface to allow operations to be more straightforward and easy to comprehend.

Blender just went through a 2-year massive overhaul, much of which came about because of statements like this. You couldn’t know how many massive flaming threads are in this database that all begin the way this thread has. I’m sure you will find out… but without the flames thanks to our new management here.

The here we go again shot was because it’s funny now. I almost fell out of my chair.

Blender is a beast, no matter what the interface is. It’s a piano for the eyes.

Welcome to Blender Artists Forums!

-LP

#4

Blenders database system is little different. You need to think in term of handling data, and not in term of bits and peaces of files.

Imagine working in Autocad making parts. Wouldn’t it be nice if as 10 people work on their individual parts, Assembly update itself at the same time? Well that’s how Blender database is setup. It’s little complicated, but you can’t beat it if you are working on large project.

#5

Good point really. In some other programs you work this way. But in Blender all the data is saved in one file. Since this is the case there is and will never be such a folder.

The workaround is to save blend files for specific purposes. You could create a file for instance that had all of your favorite textures. Or several different blend files to organize textures into groups. The draw back of course is that these files(“directories”) would have to be maintained manually by importing textures from other places if you created them in other files. After you worked this out, it would be no different than loading up textures in other programs.

It is a great system but this is a drawback in my opinion and I am not sure you’ll see it change anytime soon. Like many things in Blender you’ll just have to learn it the Blender way and find ways to work around things you are used to.