Thats great!
From now on whenever i see a “briliant” idea of how Blender should work and look i ll reroute the guy to this project. I think you wont mind people giving you ideas and directions. Right Tiles? Will you make a selection a left click? 
What goes around, comes around.
Take care.
/////never mind.
I am glad to see that the post starts to get traction, and is not pure trolling anymore. Thanks folks 
Let’s see if i can answer the questions that has be risen so far.
So basically, what I’ve read is that you want to make a fork with a heavy emphasis on a mouse-driven UI and lower standards for patch inclusion.
Those two points are part of the agenda, yes. But it’s just a fraction of the whole bundle.
However, if you start accepting hacks …
We really have to come away from the black and white thinking that so many of you uses here. There is so many grey in between. Nobody talks about accepting hacks. Lowering the entry barrer does not mean to accept every utter garbage from now on. It’s about lowering the standards. Not about completely removing the standards.
Too high standards can lead to the situation that needed features doesn’t make it at all into a software. See wireframe colours.
A hack is by the way not necessarily evil. In Gimp we have a fine example what happens when developers finds code too hacky. Cinepaint, a Gimp fork, had 32 bit per colour channel. That was in 2001. The gimp developers decided not to use this “hacky” code, but to write it from scratch. We have 2015, the Gimp development is more or less dead, and we still wait for more than 8 bit per channel.
A fork? Without any current C/C++ programmers? Oh dear lord…
You mean i cannot code with Basic here? DAMN! This kills my whole plans! :'3
Joke asides. I know what is waiting for me. When you want to make sure that everything works as intended, then join and help. This is your chance to plug in the FBX SDK without the BI putting stones in your way
Coding game logic and coding a 3d toolset are two entirely different things
True. But i want to develop a new UI, not to change the core. That’s a job for the cracks.
have you talked directly to Blender itself about trying to work with them rather than forking blender?
I try to convince the developers that a hotkey centered UI is not good since 2009. Without any luck. At the mailing lists i get ignored. So i don’t even post there anymore. Feedback pages like Blenderstorm gets ignored by the devs. I also watch the whole development from outside since a long time. And you might have noticed the incident around Andrew Price and his proposal a while ago. Which has produced lots of bad blood at the time. And showed that there is not just the hotkey jockey fraction around. There is meanwhile this much stuff censored away from me at this board that i finally gave up at it. I had more than one unfriendly clinch because of UI and usability discussions here.
Of course i tried to go around the issues by plugins. Already the first standard feature that exists in most other 3D packages, a simple reset view, gots declined because the module owner did not even see the value in the feature. Which showed me that i can plain forget about any workflow improvements in Blender, since the developers doesn’t even understand the most basic UI / UX issues.
I cannot even blame them. They are coders. Not UI UX designers. And there are so many different opinions yelling at them that they have a hard time to find out what is right and what is wrong. And they still have my full respect for the rest of Blender.
Point is, i already tried everything but a fork. I know exactly where the developers wants to go, and where not. And it’s in many areas the exact opposite of where i want to go. It’s not done with a compromise here. I have already tried everything. And the success was zero. So i had no other choice than to leave, like so many before me, or to start my own baby. Which i did now.
I love the idea of taking Blender to another level. But I always assumed it would take more resources not less.
Well. It is already more by one person. Now it is Blender plus Tiles. And i hope to activate a few of the disappointed people to help me with the project
And starting off a project with a negative premise of “blender is the hardest tool to learn”
The first step to fix a problem is to accept that the problem exists. I don’t only move around in the Blender bubble. I have seen generations of 3D beginners fail at the Blender UI. And being super fine with other 3D apps then.
When you hear people moan about Blender then it’s always about the UI. To quote a unknown user at CGTalk: “The day Blender starts to consider the UI as a serious issue is the day where Autodesk has to start to fear Blender.”
How will you gain the support away from the community of Blender Foundation over to another project?
I don’t want to at all. I want to catch the disappointed users and developers. Somebody who thinks that everything is fine with Blender is at the wrong place. And at a later point i will catch the beginners with a much easier to use software.
From what I can see the answers to these important questions have not been provided.
It’s of course your right to think so
For future reference, the better way to do something like this is to discuss your ideas openly to see if anyone was interested beforehand.
The one says it’s too early. I first have to develop everything by myself to convince the volunteers. But then i don’t need the volunteers anymore. The other says it’s much too late. The ideas needs to be discussed first.
I say it’s the right moment. The infrastructure is done. Means the work at the smallest issues can immediately start. The UI is a issue that comes much later. There’s a ton of stuff that comes first. And so there is enough time left to discuss about it in detail.
Then make it attractive visually, the current logo and website are just not inviting. From the marketing point of view, you should think of this first. Have a viable product that you can show, and then make it look AWESOME. There’s no other way around it.
You are welcome to create a new logo and to help with making it all look nicer
The name stays though. I have already owned the domain name. It’s by the way Be for Artists. Not Blender for Artists. The name is a reminder to myself to develop for the users, not so much for the developers.
And you can toy around with the name in various ways. Shorten it to BforA for example, or even B4a. Or connect it to Bee for Artists. The little helper. A sticking name is indeed important
- The move away from a shortcut centric UI is discussed for blender development as far as I know. Nothing concrete yet though. I agree with you that this should be coupled with a more intuitive interface.
Thanks. I hope i can be of inspiration for a few things
- The move to Qt is quite drastic (and expensive deveopment-wise) if you aim just to get a “standard interface” with square corners. For myself I don’t see what such a move would solve and from what I’ve read you don’t either.
Hm, have i forgotten this point? Yes, it’s a very big effort at the beginning, and it is drastic. But there are quite a few benefits. QT gets developed outside. And updates and fixes itself therefore in a regular manner. This saves resources in the long term. QT has some very nice features out of the box. Like dragable toolbars, and that it is highly customizable. It has a big user base. Nearly every C++ programmer knows QT at one point. But who knows the Blender internal UI code? Add to that the QT designer for a fast workflow. For me it’s really a no brainer
- A lot of the points in the documents is just about looks of the program.
It’s one important point. But not the only one. The grey in grey standard theme is definitely a problem since it is really bad readable.
If you aim for an easier program you should focus on how to solve workflow issues (make it easier for people to do task A, B etc).
This comes later, when the UI is ported. I cannot change everything at once. The forces problem
Editor hopping is a real problem but it’s not solved by beautiful UI. Some workflows, such as UV editing require multi editor setups - define your seams in 3D see the result in 2D. Node Material definitions or even motion tracking (which you pulled out of 3D view because it’s not relevant to modelling…not a good idea) and animation are similar. Use one editor as a configuration tool and see the result in another editor. If you want to throw away things not relevant to a workflow, you need to define what a workflow is (and not in a narrow, modelling only oriented way but in a way encompassing all functionality). And you have to do it carefully enough so people won’t have to hop between workflows to access tools that are in different workflow sets. I think “object modes” come close to the notion of workflow though they were not done exactly with a workflow concept in mind. I’m not even sure if a workflow can be defined strictly to be honest. Maybe the problem needs another notion to properly describe.
I see and understand your concerns. Workflow is a chapter at its own. And i cannot give you a general answer and solution here. This issues needs to be tackled at a one by one base. And i will do when i reach this points. The current UI redesign proposals are just one step at the long road. And i want to change as few as possible at the workflow before the new UI isn’t ported. Because, you name it, you can quickly make things worse.
There is though a ton of smallest changes that will happen before the UI port. I want to make the 3D widget hidable for example.
My benefit here is that i am not only a programmer. But also artist. I do have a idea what makes a good workflow. Which is of course not THE idea, but ONE idea. There are various 3d packages around, with various workflows. And they all have their followers and dislikers.
Slightly skeptical as others but then again such aggression and can-do mentality can bring about a positive change that might benefit everyone eventually (even if indirectly). At very least different solutions for common problems might be discussed and offered 
Good luck!
I guess I’ll be filed under “troll”, but I’ll leave another reply anyway (mostly for those who think using Qt is a good idea)
I think you overestimate how much work Qt can save you, while you underestimate the amount of work for porting the UI. Qt is another extremely complex piece of software that you’d be integrating into an already complex application. Blender’s current UI code is way simpler and you won’t have to rely on Qt’s team to fix problems (good luck with OpenGL integration), should you find any.
QT has some very nice features out of the box. Like dragable toolbars, and that it is highly customizable.
It’s actually not that simple to get a truly customizable UI out of Qt. You’ll have to implement this yourself. The draggable toolbars are part of a “standard” UI setup that’s actually way more rigid that what Blender has (i.e. it is fixed to exactly one “central” workspace widget). Modifying this stuff is also really cumbersome, because it’s all C++ that you have to recompile (unlike in Blender where you can quickly try new layouts at runtime). That is unless you use QML (designed to “solve” that problem) which is another completely different pile of… features for declarative UI with Javascript.
It has a big user base. Nearly every C++ programmer knows QT at one point. But who knows the Blender internal UI code?
Fair point, but I wonder how many C++ programmers actually like working with it? Qt seems to be implementing several generations of misguided UI and programming “best practices”. The class member list just for a simple button contains over 100 functions, most of which are pure boilerplate.
Blender on the other hand has refreshingly-simple (kind of) immediate-mode UI. I think what Campbell did years ago for custom widgets in Python would’ve solved a lot of the hard limitations currently in place and it would’ve been a joy to program for (also: No, performance likely wouldn’t a problem).
Add to that the QT designer for a fast workflow. For me it’s really a no brainer
You really should try actually using that thing before saying something like that…
Well, I love working with Qt. I started using PyQt more than ten years ago, and for the past ten years I’ve used Qt with C++. Being to use Qt is the only reason I still have fun coding… I also like Qt Designer, am not so fond of QML. Qt’s documentation is awesome, the API is generally unsurprising, the cross-platformness is awesome. Much better than any of the other toolkits, frameworks or platforms I’ve used since I started coding in 1982. But the idea of rewriting an entire application in a different toolkit is nuts. The only reason to consider doing something like that is if the toolkit stops being maintained properly, like Motif.
Oh, and a pushbutton, that’s not a simple thing, and you were cheating with that link because you linked to the list that includes everything inherited from QWidget and QAbstractButton, and a generic widget class just cannot be “simple”.
BeerBaron usually has very good views, but this time something went a bit wrong. I’m not saying that Blender should use Qt, but I’m not either linking to documentation years old. Current release is 5.5, not 4.8 (which is still supported, yes), so the link he could have set is this: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qpushbutton.html
Most of the functions BeerBaron is horrified are inherited. Does it change much the situation? Perhaps not, but it looks totally different. This is some kind of weird mind game, where there is no rules. Anything can be claimed, when there is a link.
OpenGL in Qt is very different now days what somebody might have heard from the big boys 10 years ago: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtgui-index.html#opengl-and-opengl-es-integration . Still I’m not saying Qt should be used with Blender.
I wish the best for this project, but I think the wise thing is to do it a bit differently:
Ask (nicely) from Blender developers to have a development branch of your own. Then you have total control of that branch (and that branch only). You let other coders to work with it. And ask to include it to build bot system.
I think all the goals can be met by doing that, and still keep the compatibility with Blender.
It’s not easy to attract people to your cause until you show initial graphic designs about your version of a UI. Blender is a huge 3d package, so you might want to start with Modeling just like when Modo first came out. It was a pure modeler at first and it grew from there.
Bottom line is words mean nothing to many. Supply it graphics, graphics, graphics…
I see the frustration like clicking on empty space to desselect can’t even be made a default.
And this is coming from a user who started with DOS applications like AutoCAD in DOS at a young age when pointing devices were not even available. Meaning, everything was keyboard-centric. When Windows GUI became established, I started to see the value, albeit little to others, of not having to always hanging on for dear life, ie, one hand on mouse, the other on keyboard… hehe… just to relax some muscles… It just meant that the UI is perfectly designed.
Well try some lessons in c++, so you get a bit of idea what you’r proposing here.
Rewriting a GUI, isnt changing the core, and so functionality would be much the same, and likely get behind of the other blender versions.
Your not the first though, there is a blender version with modified fracture modifier (and he’s only focussing on one thing only).
But perhaps you better wait, 2.8 is about to be made, any effort you put in 2.7x-your version might require huge changes later, since 2.8 will change on GUI too…
it would also be far easier i think, for you just to make a proposal, make a good video, of what you would like to see.
Then show it to the curent team, so it might get into 2.8 (and i think this is more your skill level).
Besides the coding part organizing code (leading a project) so you wont endup with spagheti code, isnt that easy.
Soon i think you’l learn reasons of why to dismiss proposals / code etc, because it all has to work together, and be stable etc.
Never mind that, i wish you luck with it because i think you need a lot of luck
I don’t really understand why people keep saying Blender is the hardest to learn. After years and years with Max and Maya and also Softimage I’ve found Blender to be really easy to learn and use. Especially compared to some other big names. I find it incredibly fluid and fast to work with. Pretty consistent on the whole, and it feels very much an intuitive artists tool to me already. I like the official interface a lot myself. and it keeps gradually getting improved upon. I prefer drop down text to hundreds of buzzy icons, it’s much cleaner.
Your not the first though, there is a blender version with modified fracture modifier (and he’s only focussing on one thing only)
There are quite a few more so called custom Blender builds in the wild. With various modifications. One of the goals of my fork is to bundle this forces into one location. Since those custom builds are as quick forgotten as they appear. And i find it always a shame to see all those useful work vanishing.
So when you are one of those developers that does custom builds with features that didn’t make it into Blender, please join. I cannot promise to implement every feature, but there are real jewels around
But perhaps you better wait, 2.8 is about to be made, any effort you put in 2.7x-your version might require huge changes later, since 2.8 will change on GUI too…
I have not yet another year left just to find out if the Blender developers have learned their lessons this time. They haven’t learned it in the last 12 years. There is no real stimulus for them to even think about a change. Blender is a monopolist in its area, and is successful as it is. So it is imho very unlikely that they learn it this time. We will again see just a fraction of the change that is necessary.
When i am wrong, when Blender makes it right this time, then i have learned a ton of things in this year that might be useful for a Blender commit in the future. When i am right though, then we have Plan B already working. Either way is a win win.
Besides the coding part organizing code (leading a project) so you wont endup with spagheti code, isnt that easy.
Soon i think you’l learn reasons of why to dismiss proposals / code etc, because it all has to work together, and be stable etc.
I have learned this lesson long ago already. I have 15 years of developer experience in my back. Being a C beginner does not mean to be a programming beginner. Even when i feel so here and there at the moment ^^
I know about the importance of modularity, a good organized code and the importance of comments. There is in my whole experience no such thing than self explaining code.
I don’t really understand why people keep saying Blender is the hardest to learn. After years and years with Max and Maya …
I guess you have long forgotten how it is to be a newbie at a 3D software when you have spent years and years in so many 3D packages. When you toy around with the big boys for years, then you get used to everything at one point. But i see the newbie dilemma at a daily base in the communities where i am active. They really struggle at a lot of things.
Beerbaron recommended it…
Pretty sure he was just referring to the crying baby. Look closer.
I have no comparison, as I have not used other 3d animation packages (only 3d cad software such as Solidedge and Inventor). But I think the hardest part of learning 3d modelling was not the interface, but the modelling itself. Understanding topology, etc. Ofcourse, if you are an experienced3d user, you will have a different blender learning experience then I did.
Especially given the fact that people are killing eachother over the use of the f-word in CL
First, Some feedback from the old fuck . Would I or anyone else wish to work for this management based on what I have seen so far? I’ll let that up to everyone else to decide. There is working for someone who is an asshole and there is working for someone who is capricious And those are two VERY different experiences. Most people can be content working for an asshole if they know what to expect every day. Right here what I am seeing is someone with a bright idea who is looking for someone else to carry them.
And second, I do have a fondness for low investment solutions, It might be due in part as spending years being the person who had to fix other peoples bright idea’s. But… Here is the one I like for this problem
Its not trying to be more of a dick then I need to be, Just the majority of tasks I have found in blender have clusters of key commands that can be grouped together. Why reinvent the wheel that is about to be remade soon anyway, When there are some far more simple solutions to be done that leave us free for things like…I don’t know. Making art, Editing video’s. Hell making useful plug-ins is nice. Hell making some content for game engines would be cool too.
Right now I am looking at that site and I don’t see anything concise and actionable. I see words, I see vague promises, I see emotion loaded language. I see some very basic 101 stuff. But I suspect 90% of the people reading this ether knows what a material and rigging is, Or soon will with an hour on google.
What blender excels at is being an all in one package. From start to finish in Blender I can make a movie. And if you look around there is dozens of free and even more paid applications that do a single thing better then blender. And actually many of them brand themselves under the concept of “We do this one thing better then anyone”, Z-brush anyone?
And there is a very good reason why that is. Its a fucking shit tonne of work to make an application that you can model, sculpt, retopo, animate, composite, Render, paint, 3d paint. Rig, uv unwrap. and hell the list goes on.
Now this is not to say that I don’t think blender has its things it needs to work on. I would love better caustics in it and pixars open subsurf is something I am waiting for. And I think it would benefit from some work on its 2d painting But that being said. I do like blender for what it is.
And it makes me ask this. How would anyone expect to attract enough devs to put something together to do even half of that, when the person putting together the project can do little more then be an advocate. And those Devs who might be willing to put in some time on this rather then their own personal projects are looking at this thread as a job interview for their time.
My advice would be to sit down, Put together a mock-up of your intuitive and graphical UI Then repitch your idea. Vague amorphous idea’s tend to be hard to act on. But a concise idea that can be acted on is something someone might be willing to risk a few years of their life on.
I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to mislead. My point was that something simple already comes with a lot of complex boilerplate. Yes, it doesn’t just affect buttons, it affects every single widget you will ever use, because you are inheriting a lot functionality that you didn’t you implement, that you don’t readily understand and that you don’t control. It will follow you with everything you do. All of these 100+ functions do show up every time your IDE autocompletes, or when you browse the documentation (especially when you aren’t sure at what point in the inheritance tree the particular functionality is defined).
I could not disagree with this more. There is this meme that a GUI should be implemented with a class Hierarchy, with callbacks (or “signals and slots”) flying all over the place, that it should consist of a complex graph of objects that you have to manage. GUI has been the “flagship” application of where OOP is supposed to work, and yet every single UI toolkit following this paradigm quickly grows extremely complex and tends to be a pain in the ass to use.
Blender doesn’t do any of this bullshit and its buttons are no lesser buttons for it. Also, Blender’s UI is completely scalable and resizes gracefully - something most applications utterly fail at (especially those using libraries like Qt). That may not be a “big deal” to some, but I really I appreciate it.
Yes, you cannot theme Blender with CSS or use Javascript to implement mouse-over callbacks. You have to be a “real” programmer to implement a new look. Whether that’s a positive or a negative, you can decide for yourself.
