Frustrated with 20-minute videos for simple tips, I built a site for quick, no-fluff Blender tips. Each one has a short text and a 20-sec silent background video. There’s even an ASMR mode (though the audio isn’t top-tier). The idea is to scroll through a couple before bedtime, or during your break.
It’s still a work in progress, so feedback is welcome! It’s also meant to be collaborative, there is a form if you want to contact me!
I have a suggestion for the background video.
The website has a gradient on the upper and lower part that hide part of the Blender UI and this could confuse users, particularly the newbie Blender user.
Thanks mate. The gradiant is there to make the text more visible. I added a small feature though, not sure if you noticed it: if you press on the video, it should scale it down and center it. But regardless I agree with you - there is something I need to improve there.
In my opinion, as the Blender UI theme you’re using is mid grey, the text is visible also without that gradient.
About the zoom out when pressing on video I hadn’t noticed and after tried it I’m not sure it’s the best for 2 reason:
it seems it’s not an active button as the mouse cursor stay neutral as any other part of the website
zooming out you lose a bit of text readability of the Blender UI
Thank you so much, youtube has become a scourge for technical documentation and process learning. I created this account just for this event.
I would love to see two things:
A searchable index that is also the landing page.
Redesign of the site UI. The way it is now, it hurts my brain trying to separate the site UI from the instruction video. Some sort of border is necessary to separate the two types of information, educational and navigational. The video is too big and the context for the video is too hard to see.
Thanks for the brilliant feedback. I think I’ve had too many people complaining about the UI so I will have a think in the upcoming days and come up with something cleaner. Cheers!
You have made very good improvements! The most relevant content is easy to see and doesn’t interfere with the interface.
Some other areas that could be improved slightly:
The search function isn’t available once you’ve entered the tip-stream.
The reverse and forward buttons are useful, but users would still significantly benefit from an index that gives a little detail about what each tip number is about. If this site gains popularity there could be hundreds or thousands of tips, so it is a good idea to get ahead of this problem.
Hey! Initially, I wasn’t a fan of having the search function accessible everywhere, but I’ve changed my mind, and the website has been updated. I’m not implementing your idea for the next/previous button just yet, though. Up next: I plan to add a toggle for “all tips/expert tips” for those interested in advanced tutorials only.
Hi all,
You can now install the Blendtime Stories webapp (similar to an app, but does not require updates, is super lightweight, and lets you have notifications) via this link.
Cheers!
F