Blender's image(visual) comes across as childish

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
#1

As I grow older I notice this more and more everyday, to me the look of blender(as a whole) is becoming more and more childish.

When I go to the website (blender.org), it’s covered with cute characters and bright colours.
In blender 2.5x the icons are colourful and the buttons are BIG, spread out and soft looking… they look like toys. I know that sounds a bit harsh but I hope you can see what I mean.

When someone is considering using Blender over a commercial software for professional uses, this childish/gamish/toyish/unserious image I don’t think will help at all.

This look is starting to annoy me, I’d like to see what other people think and hopefully some people in the know can comment.

#2

I don’t know, as I grow older, I start to appreciate the big buttons!

I’m curious–what software has a look that you consider grown-up and professional? Did version 2.49 have this look?

#3

interesting you say that.

I have to put myself in line with CD38 and appreciate bigger buttons lol :wink:
strangely today I find the 2.49 interface a nightmare and 2.5 modern and flexible.

I would not be too concerned since I found that I hardly hear somebody who is
new to Blender not liking the interface visually.

#4

I suppose Windows 7 is childish too with the giant taskbar buttons and desktop? I think (am only certain about 7) that it was made that way for tablet (desktop) users or touchscreen.

#5

I think most of the Blender users dont use Blender for anything.
They all loves 2.5 and big funny buttons. :slight_smile:

#6

Why would anyone worry about the loss of potential users that don’t take the time to use blender and the community around it before forming an idea about its maturity? I think someone pushed your grumpy button.

As for the interface, if you want small icons you can use the scale function, if you want command-line that is possible too.

#7

I find nothing funny about the blender buttons.
They are not colorful, and i don’t see how they can look childish at all.

For me, Blender 2.49 GUI looks “Geekish”, like “Programmer graphics” and i allways found it more or less ugly.
2.5 looks more or less just right. It’s not as stilish as modo for example, but it does look good.

I wouldn’t say 2.5 have big buttons, they are actually normal sized (Compare them with other buttons of your OS interface). The thing is, 2.4 buttons are actually really tiny to start with.

A nice looking GUI always attracts users. And Blender has that. A lot more users to do nothing, you may say, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing nothing with blender.
Many use blender for entertainment, like, make a cloth sim, yay. What do you have against them?

But yeah, imho the Blender homepage needs to be completely redone from scratch.
The blender homepage gives a childish impression because of the characters rendered with blender.
We can not have any architectural visualizations, or anything that looks completely serious, simply because the blender renderer is best at rendering cartoons. Simple as that.

#8

I agree. In fact, I found thissupposedly professional site is full of funny cartooncharacters that are childish toys even, bright colors, silly poses, and all that. We should really focus on pie charts, business graphs, maps and images of cemeteries and dead depressing things. That will surely attract more professional users.

#9

Omg, that looks very childish. Are they even in business? Take a look at this… They are even worse.

#10

The functionality of the GUI is the most important part, and 2.5’s interface is what finally drew me into Blender. I come from a small button arena with the likes of LightWave, and have seen/used larger buttons, such as XSI, but like I said, it’s the functionality that is important. The easier things are to find, the less clicks you have to make, the straight forward labeling that allows a user to understand function at a glance is important. Besides, I have been customizing the look of the recent builds of Blender (and have to do it over and over again since the API and other things under the hood keep changing) to suit my needs.

In short, coming from professional packages into 2.4x was a nightmare, and not just for me, but stepping into 2.5x was an eye opener. There are many other people on other forums dealing with commercial software that are speaking highly of Blender now, and a lot of it started with the UI changes.

#11

big colorful toyish buttons can be traced back to Windows XP and its heir. Blender is just keeping up with the times rather than still looking like a DOS app refugee… like indeed many old fart professional 3D apps look like.

The look of 2.5 is the same as the look of many professional IDEs today…

#12

Childish?

Have you seen Blender 2.4x? Or Blender 1.x?

Or the old websites?

#13

How did the website look like in the 1.x days?

#14

I’m guessing those are the exact same people who won’t consider blender as long as it isn’t a free clone of max/maya/LW/whatever…

#15

Producing cute charachters is a huge industry with many professionals involved;)

Also it’s not like the blender site or inteface is anywhere near something like this http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/

#16

If we had the ability to save the zoom level that we have the UI at we could then open Blender to smaller buttons, smaller font, and less space taken up by the UI.

Have you even seen some of the newer design apps. or newer versions of things like Photoshop, they also have more colorful vista-like graphics filled with eyecandy, and that’s pretty much becoming a standard with many commercial apps.

#17

Well, I’d send you to:

The year 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/20000229161021/http://www.blender.nl/
The year 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020327094931/www.blender3d.com/

…but as always, images don’t work @ archive.org :frowning:

#18

As for the interface, if you want small icons you can use the scale function, if you want command-line that is possible too.
I’m aware of that, it hardly makes a difference though, there’s still 2 buttons stretched horizontally across 1/4 of my screen, this is more of a different discussion though.

Maybe you should be comparing to a product that is comparable : https://renderman.pixar.com/products/index/renderman.html
Now you’ll notice that throughout the site there are some cute looking characters!, but they are used in a different way. Used to describe shortly some of the features of the product, unlike on blender’s page, where the images are more like a decoration.

I think the website as a whole needs some work, in quickly showing to prospective users what can be done in blender, and convincing them that professionals do already use blender.

Yes it is, but to first time user’s, initial impression can be most important.
If they open blender, look around then come back to me and say it looks like a toy, do you think they would then like to play with it – what they now see as a toy in their mind – to find out its functionality.

Now I’m comparing to this, maybe max’s interface is uninspired, I do not know, I’ve never tried it. When you see the two windows together I think you might see what I mean.
http://s3.postimage.org/bPoNS.jpg

#19

While the bottom part of Max’s interface is of a technical-style design, look at the top, shiny at the very top, with an very shiny ribbon interface with brightly colored icons, and then you have nice big icons on the top bar (though not colored)

Apparently that screen has a mismatch in UI styles (which may not be something you’d expect in a “professional app. for adults”)

It seems side-by-side the 2.5 interface takes both styles and blends them together somewhat. I also notice the Max interface is boxy, but who said that professional interfaces can’t have rounded corners if they’re used in the right places.

#20

like indeed many old fart professional 3D apps look like.

HEY!!

I resemble that complement:)