Helpful Complete Blender Documentation. Where does one find it?
Do the maintainers of blender ever state when and where helpful base documentation should be?
I would like to have an educated expectation of blender documentation so I can make informed decisions.
I am having great difficulty finding helpful blender documentation.
(I have enjoyed some success with Blender …but )
I tend to believe that all fundamental base features of a software program should be documented by the providers.
Helpful Base documentation.
Then all the secondary documentation appears in the microcosm.
I realize this is open source software.
Does such a thing as barely complete documentation of Blender exist?
Do the planners and developers release some official document?
For example will Blender 2.5 ever have barely complete documentation?
I do not have a great deal of experience with Blender, I am using Blender 2.5. I have only used 2.49 for a month and then used 2.5.
I have no previous experience.
I have viewed a number of videos on youtube and other sites.
Unfortunately many refer to 2.49 … I am using 2.5.
Some are useful. Some are quite less useful.
(No glory or blame in the above statement)
Many videos express uncertainty about Blender features and documentation.
(I cannot believe I am finding all the bugs in 2.5 … I probably need to know the <<intention>> of the product via documentation.)
Intention told by documentation is something I am lacking at this moment.
+++++++++++++++++
I will put an example of my lack of ability to find rather complete documentation in a connected message.
I do not want to put many questions into one message.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Main_Page
Updated documentation for 2.5 will come when out of beta. It is a wiki so any users can contribute to the documentation. So if you want to help with this I’m sure you will be welcome.
If you find bugs then report them to the tracker so they can get fixed. If the developers don’t know of a bug they can’t fix it. There is a link to the bug tracker in the blender help menu.
I have read tutorials at blender.org. Seen videos at youtube and other sites. Looked at some books in bookstores. Many have been useful. But I still feel many of sources could be more useful if they knew the intention of the maintainers of the software.
Example 2.5 documentation issues.
I used 2.5 after a month of 2.49 because I wanted to use the Spline IK Constraint. The insert curve feature seamed to disappear. (related to insert key).
I cannot find direct documentation of the above.
I do not seem to be able to use the nla editor to full strength.
Some animation becomes quite static when I press the icy cold snowflake.
I cannot find direct documentation of the above.
Since armatures are a powerful technique for mesh animation and enjoy some special name features. Is there documentation about how to use armatures to control curves not meshes? Is that the intention of the blender providers?
I feel I see many examples of features. But I do not see the possible exotic uses and the philosophy behind the software very often. Philosphy expressed in documentation with the intention of the software providers as well.
I do not want to reverse engineer.
Being told the intention of the software can be very useful.
Blender 2.5 is a beta release - it is not fully stable and ready for production use, and has not been fully documented. 2.49 is the current stable release and has a much more complete set of documentation.
If you choose to use 2.5 because of its new features you will need to live with the fact that it lacks comprehensive documentation because it is still changing. You will find that there are a lot of people on this forum that will try to help you if you have a specific question about a feature in 2.5.
(Incidentally, I’ve never used an armature to control a curve before - I didn’t know it was possible! In 2.5, add a curve and an armature. Select the curve object and give it an armature modifier. In the modifier, set the object name to that of the target armature object. Leave Bone Envelopes selected - you can’t use vertex groups because curves don’t have vertices. Now if you select the armature, enter Pose mode and move the bones around, your curve should deform accordingly.)
It is a little difficult for me to understand how 2.5 features leave the 2.5 documentation so far behind. I can help create documentation more reliably if I had some idea of the intention of the software. I do not have access to the software developers or management. I cannot tell if I am using the software correctly or incorrectly when when I am not told what to expect in some form. when I am not told I would just be guessing with some degree of success or failure.
I cannot even tell if I experienced a bug in relation to what I wrote earlier. I might be using the software contrary to the intention. When windows 7 indicates blender has caused a problem I can identify a fatal situation.
I will see graphicall.
I do not understand how they would have a better build the blender.org or why I did not see a link to that site.
What I really did not take the time to say was something like this.
The spline ik constraint can use a curve to control an armature.
To animate the curve I used hooks … which each have their own name.
I have been told to get a single object to be the controller one might use an second armature_two to directly control the curve or control the hooks. The armature is a multiple object controller of the hooks.
Since the armature bones seems to enjoy special name privileges and the armature is one object … a user might get better control in the action editor.
One armature is controlling multiple N points on a curve
as opposed to
N hooks controlling N points on a curve … which might also require multiple channels in the NLA.
Please excuse my vagueness and inaccuracies.
I will see graphicall.
I do not understand how they would have a better build the blender.org or why I did not see a link to that site.
Blender Foundation periodically release official builds on www.blender,org when certain milestones are reached. The milestone for the current 2.54 release was the entering of the beta phase of development. This is therefore the Official 2.5 beta release.
www.graphicall.org is a community run site (unofficial, but well connected). Kind people from the community regularly build Blender from source (it’s open source ;)) and release their builds on graphicall. Since these builds will contain the latest features and bug fixes committed to the source code they will, over time, become a more current snapshot of the code base as compiled for various platforms than the official release.
There is currently much confusion over where various features have moved to between 2.4x and 2.5x versions of Blender, but this will be remedied over time. Blender 2.5x has only recently entered beta so most of the people working on the code are busy fixing bugs rather than documenting every aspect of the new implementation. There are numerous tours that give an overview. http://blenderlabrat.blogspot.com/ is one of the most comprehensive sources of video tours, though more and more are springing up.
Hope you don’t have too much frustration learning the new Blender.
