I just finished watching a post of a new project on Blendernation.com, it’s not important which one, which was very well done but suffered from “blender default font syndrome” or B.D.F.S. This condition left untreated can make projects look amateurish and diminish the otherwise high quality of work:)
Serious though this was an okay font in the 90s but it looks horribly dated. I don’t want to be one to complain without presenting a solution so here’s a page, thanks to a 2 second google search, of free and opensource fonts.
I am able to use any of the hundreds of fonts already installed on my computer, so what does it matter what font comes with Blender? BDFS is not caused by that one font being ugly, but by users failing to select something more suitable from the fonts they already own.
You’re exactly right! I suppose this is just my desperate plea to save users from their bad, or more appropriately, no font choices.
Whether people realize it or not fonts are really, really, powerful, and posting projects without considering ANYTHING other than this ugly, dated font gives a really a bad representation of how excellent Blender is.
Final thought however, isn’t the point of having a “default” the ability to open a .blend by any user and have this font available to them? If you do chose another font which others don’t have access to, it will be replaced by the default. Really this would be the simplest decision to make/execute… UI Team!!!
before anyone posts any angry UI comments please don’t
If I remember the recent font discussions on mailing list correctly, it isn’t so easy to replace the font, because it’s a customized Dejavu / Droid Sans. It has many non-latin chars afaik from other fonts to allow for i18n. There is no free, “complete” alternative available.
I’m not so sure about this one. In my experience fonts behave more like codecs they typically don’t travel within files. I’ve tried before using Pack external data and it didn’t work… I’ll have to test again to confirm, there are very few programs that do this.
I just tried it between two PCs at home one on linux the other on windows and it works, I stand corrected:)
I mustn’t have packed it as external data in the past.
but don’t get me off-topic, REPLACE THE DEFAULT FONT
No, not at all. In particular, the “u” is annoying. But if you wanted to make an argument, you should at least superimpose the font at the right size on the right background. Even then, it would probably render a bit different with Blender’s freetype settings.
To quote Canonical: “The way typography is used says as much about our brand as the words themselves.
The Ubuntu typeface has been specially created to complement the Ubuntu tone of voice. It has a contemporary style and contains characteristics unique to the Ubuntu brand that convey a precise, reliable and free attitude.”
A default UI font is not supposed to have personality. I don’t know if Canonical uses it as the default font in their OS (or even as the default sans-serif on the system), but if they do, they shouldn’t.
For what i know, the problem with ubuntu font is the licensing: According with canonical the licensing is incompatible with the GPL (i think canonical font question #187634 have some insight about it) , but you can include the fonts and distribute with your software as long as is fully separated from the executable. (e.g. the font must be distributed separate from the main software, with their licensing files, and modify all licensing documentation to mention the software uses the font.). This doesn’t work for Blender, since the fonts are embedded in the executable.
And AFAIK (so take with one or two grains of salt, devs anyone??), Blender uses DejaVu fonts as a base, and is patched with some other fonts for internationalization. AFAIK there’s was no real suitable alternative back in the 2.5 days, but maybe is time to look for some. (or at least, some GPL compatible alternatives).
I’d rather see them concentrate on finding a way to visually see what the fonts look like when your going to select them. Like photoshop does. Who the heck can remember what the hundreds of fonts in my font folder looks like just by the name.
edit…whoops didn’t see your post 3 point edit… so I second, what he said
I’m sure there are other apps like that, but many programs have this function built in. I use many PCs with my Blender on a USB stick so it’s a pain to go out to another application (especially if there isn’t a portable build of it).
Worst font ever made xD