Irritating facts about Blender 2.5x (with video comparison on page 4)

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
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The development of Blender is going to kick off again so I decided to share my feelings about its current version. First of all - so many cool features were added that all I can say is thank you devs, you are doing truly fantastic job here! Everybody is excited about all the new features that will soon be merged in trunk but I’m afraid that some of the solutions made within programm are kind of a step back. Perhaps some of you remember my thread :How to make our work easier in Blender with only a few improvements. Today I’d like to start another one, filling up my previous list with some new pointing outs. So here are all the things that really bother me in Blender.

  1. there’s no Percentage/NonPropLength tool that would help us slide newly created loop (available in Blender 2.49b)
  2. no snapping options for knife (available in Blender 2.49b)
  3. we cannot align view to selected face (*numpad in Blender 2.49b) FIXED
  4. moving object from one layer to another takes a lot of time (on a scenes above 1.000.000 polygons it’s around 20 seconds! worked like a charm in Blender 2.49b)
  5. we are sentenced for angle based unwrap (just after unwrapping object we can switch to conformal algorythm; sometimes it takes around 60 seconds to unwrap model and if you don’t want angle based method - you waste your time)
  6. no network places while searching for files and textures (it really is a problem in a big company like the one I work in)
  7. all the tools and options take too much space; default font size is definitely too large
  8. lack of 3d Manipulator that would let us move/scale/rotate objects on two different axis at the same time
  9. automatic texture images update (now we have to reload our scene or each texture manualy)
  10. really unfriendly way of switching between different cameras on a scene (very simple solution in Blender 2.49b - Viev->Cameras->list of available cameras) FIXED
  11. Blender lost its speed in 3d view; I always have a feeling that it keeps working on something unnecessary; Blender 2.49b was much faster in all modes
  12. when I change given parameter I see realtime result in 3d View (e.g. changing object’s diffuse colour); in most cases that’s pretty cool but sometimes it’s a pain in the neck; I’m unable to change seed for my 10000 hair particles from 5 to 10 by just sliding it; Blender starts working on updating the scene for every parametr in between these two (6-7-8-9); in such cases you need to type desired number which is not a comfortable solution
  13. saving final render image takes a lot of time if you want to change file type (on heavy scenes such as my “Dung Beetle” it took about 20 seconds)
  14. ridiculous changes in shortcuts (e.g. C for brush select, Shift+Alt+S for To Sphere, Ctrl+M for mirroring, Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C for origin setting)

Now if I made a mistake and some of the things I mentioned actually work in Blender 2.5x than I’m terribly sorry. Still lack of some of the functions from Blender 2.49b makes me use that old version for most of my projects. I know that other experienced users from my country have the same feelings as I do so please think of all the things I mentioned here. I would be really happy to see them fixed before Blender 2.6.

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A few of these will come back when Bmesh is merged (which has been under active development over the past month or so since Campbell was assigned help it be ready for merging in the near-future)

As for real-time updates being an annoyance, it’s actually supposed to be one of the hallmarks of the 2.5 overhaul, watching it update in real-time is faster than drag, stop, check, drag, repeat, but I can see your point in that the notifier use could be dialed down or made smarter for heavy operations like changing options for 10000 particles.

For UV-related items, some of this may come back along with a big array of new features when the GSoC branch concerning UV-tools is merged in.

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Hmm the networking one sounds like a deal breaker for most.

How did they get around this for Durian? I thought they had a central server for all of there materials?

I also agree with everything else you’ve said, there is actually quite a bit of polishing still to do with 2.6x.

Selecting large files, and moving them is painfully slow in 2.5x.

Also with sculpting, when sculpting on a very high poly object WITHOUT a multi-res modifier there is no lag after a brush stroke, however with a multi-res modifier added there is always a 1-2, or even longer in some cases, pause after a stroke which is very, very annoying when you’re trying to sculpt on a model, it just constantly distracts you as you have to do a stroke, wait for a few seconds, then do another one.

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I agree 100%…especially thos hotkey assignments, for me, those are some of my most used…and biggest PITA…modelers need to have custom modeling keymaps…I know I do…but then it seems every other build or addon I use forces me to reset to defaults…I know that just comes with the territory of evolving software…still even more reason to change it at the core…

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Horizontal panels are buggy…

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In our studio we have the network resources mapped to network drives, so they have driveletters. Which makes it worse. :smiley:
Blender can´t display drive id´s, so you´re left to browse through I-Z (C-H usually in the system) to find what you´re looking for on the server. Best is to use the bookmarks. But it´s not very userfriendly over all.

+1 from me on all.

and to add 14) for animators the current system of the curve editor is beyond cruel. I often have 50+ animated objects and would need to tweak a single curve of one entity. Don´t I know how or is it impossible to easily select one entity and isolate it´s curves, is it really necessary to have all curves visible at once?

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and to add 14) for animators the current system of the curve editor is beyond cruel. I often have 50+ animated objects and would need to tweak a single curve of one entity. Don´t I know how or is it impossible to easily select one entity and isolate it´s curves, is it really necessary to have all curves visible at once?

I believe you can restrict the visibility of the curves, try playing around with the visibility and draw settings.

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  1. moving object from one layer to another takes a lot of time (on a scenes above 1.000.000 polygons it’s around 20 seconds! worked like a charm in Blender 2.49b)
    Experienced this one in full force at work the other day. It basically had the same responsiveness of 3ds max trying to achieve the same task. So after trying those two options I just went back to what I always do and used 2.49 to get the job done.

Even with the version numbering, I still don’t feel like I’m using something ten versions out of date.*

That being said, bringing in Bmesh, Cycles and it’s associated render api and ui tweaks will hopefully fix (or lay the groundwork for fixing) some of the gripes so generally speaking I’m keeping my mouth shut for a while. Other things like the effective lack of horizontal panels, forced realtime updates (unless there is an option somewhere I’ve missed), modal everything (unless I misunderstood the consequences of that), loaded T and N panels, etc probably just need more getting used to on my part as a user though.

But seeing as they are both free I can use 2.49 whenever I need it. :slight_smile:

___Edit:

Hmm, don’t want to appear too blunt because it’s obvious a lot of people put a lot of work into Blender. I spend most of my Blender time modelling*. With everything being on hold and waiting for Bmesh, that explains a lot. If I was an animator for example, it would probably be a far different story.

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This^^. I hope a keep UVs square option is in there, like 2.49

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Arexma, you can isolate curves for a single object in Graphing. Go to the bottom of Graphing screen, and click the little arrow that looks like a cursor. It restricts curves visibility to just the object you have selected in the Graphing list.
And if you hit the HOME key, all keyframes and curves of an entire span of frames will fill the graphing window. Makes it easy to see everything that object does throughout the whole animation.

I don’t know if there is an easier way of representing animation data than a graph or not. I remember hating the Graph Editor when I first started with it. But now I’ve gotten used to it and have come to view it as my best friend. I’d go nuts without it. First time in my life the graphs of hated math classes EVER made any sense!
I remember the old NLA editor in older Blenders. I remember that it was like pushing the Flintstones car up a mountain. Talk about slow! If we had to go back to something like that I would delete Blender, move to Chile and take up banana farming.

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My main complaints about 2.5:
The retopo tool only seems to work on one vertex at a time, and the process seems complicated compared to 2.49.
And there are a couple of compatability issues with my aging system.
But mainly the retopo tool.

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The one that bugs me the most in 2.59 is the moving render-visibility-display icons in the modifier panel, I hate having to hunt for them when toggling them on and off. I believe this was discussed here a long time ago, at 2.57 if not earlier… I could do without a lot of the ‘latest and greatest’ if basic stuff like this was fixed first.

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I add another thing to my list. It’s the idea of how knife tool works - first make a cut and then decide what kind of cut you want to make (exact, midpoints or multicut). It doesn’t make any sense to me. Yeah, I realize that knife tool and other modelling features wait for bmesh but it’s really sad that I’m unable to work with Blender 2.5x for more or less 3 yeas now. And I have no idea if problems with unwrapping (no. 5 from the first post) and knife are actually a new big feature for Blender. Of course there are addons that come in handy but I don’t want Blender to become another 3dsMax - usless without some extra srcipts.

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I found this out be sheer accident. Using the shift key in combination with the numpad keys to align the view will do so but in regard to the selected face/object instead of the global coordinate system.

To the rest I have to agree with you. For the last two years I have now worked on my movie project using both versions and the old 2.49 generally is faster, feels snappier. Screen estate is always a problem in 2.5x and I find myself a lot of time adjusting panels, window sizes etc. which is not the case ( or at least not to this amount) in the older 2.49 version. (Working horizontal panels would help a lot here ).

2.5x is undoubtedly a huge advance for blender I have to second the thanks toward the developers making this possible.

But now after this huge effort of rewriting, refactoring and adding new features, I would suggest a phase of consolidation, by getting feedback from serious users on how blender actually works out in the wild. This thread shows that there are issues (not necessarily bugs) and my feeling is that getting these ironed out should have priority over adding new features, which are definitely cool but wont make your existing workflow any more efficient.

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  1. there’s no Percentage/NonPropLength tool that would help us slide newly created loop (available in Blender 2.49b)

There will be no modeling improvements till Bmesh.

  1. no snapping options for knife (available in Blender 2.49b)

Bmesh knife has snapping.

  1. all the tools and options take too much space; default font size is definitely too large

I find it to be just right.
But the font in Cycles is way better.

  1. lack of 3d Manipulator that would let us move/scale/rotate objects on two different axis at the same time

You can. Just press Shift + one axis on the manipulator.
Though i think it would be better if this happened if you clicked between axis.

  1. Blender lost its speed in 3d view; I always have a feeling that it keeps working on something unnecessary; Blender 2.49b was much faster in all modes

Except for sculpt mode…

  1. ridiculous changes in shortcuts (e.g. C for brush select, Shift+Alt+S for To Sphere, Ctrl+M for mirroring, Ctrl+Shift+Alt+C for origin setting)

I don’t find anything ridiculous about these…
But the things that really NEED to change have been left as they were, which is ridiculous…

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There will be no modeling improvements till Bmesh.

These are not improvements, all the tools were present in Blender 2.49b. Without them Blender 2.5x is almost usless when it comes to modelling.

Bmesh knife has snapping.

Bmesh is not stable, besides it’s really hard to tell when it’ll be ready. I guess switching to at least 3 different versions of Blender during one project is pointless.

Just press Shift + one axis on the manipulator.

It’s not “just”, I tried this solution now and it’s completly not intuitive, it’s user unfriendly. It’s like not having such option at all.

Except for sculpt mode…

Most of the things take place in other modes; Edit Mode and Object Mode is slower than in Blender 2.49b.

I don’t find anything ridiculous about these…

Sadly I have a feeling that the opinion of users who try to do professional work with Blender doesn’t matter.

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It was listed in todos a long time ago. It will probably reappear into Bmesh before into trunk.

They exist in Bmesh. I believe there are some in Fake knife add-on.

false. shortcut was changed. No more Shift V + menu choice. Now, Shift 7 for top view or Shift Ctrl 7 for bottom view.

true. We can change default method for UVeditor but not for 3Dview. You can use repeat history. But I’d rather Blender have an option for this in Editing section of User Preferences or in Mesh options panel or a new UV panel in toolcolumn of 3DView.

You can change font size. You have to use outliner to access Styles section of user preferences.

Shift click on axis you want to exclude. like in 2.49.
I agree. It is not perfect for users who have only one hand.

Autorefresh for sequence image works, here.But refresh is not automatic when we are manipulating texture.

You have lists of camera in scene properties. You can specify a different local camera in 3DView properties using list if with you unlock 3D view.

Did you disable smooth view?

For a seed parameter, it is really rare case to know how would react particles at a given number. It is really a small pain have to shift click compared to the pleasure to see particles give a good visual feedback.

B-> border select, C->circle select. 1 key press instead of 2 with BB. And now, it works in object mode.
S, Alt S, Ctrl S, Shift S are all used.
Ctrl S is a standard for saving.
So, Shift Ctrl S for save as. It is logical.
So need to change 2.49 shortcut to Shift Alt S. Not so different to previous or difficult to remember.
Ctrl M, same shortcut in 2.49.
I don’t know there was a shortcut for origin settings in 2.49.
These changes don’t seem so ridiculous from my point of view.
But you are free to propose better ones sharing your keymap.

I agree with rozmariek and loramel.
Except things that can be customized, some little regressions are sleeping in todos.
290 in the tracker. I don’t know how many are feature requests and how many are regressions compared to 2.49, how many have a status who should have been changed to Fixed.
http://projects.blender.org/tracker/index.php?group_id=9&atid=498&power_query=1&query_id=74&run=Power+Query

A phase of consolidation would be appreciate.
But I am afraid in Ton’s mind, it was the role of 2.58 and 2.59 when users were in holidays and devs mentoring GSoC.

We are only users.
Reading 2.49 missing features thread and todos list is a dev’s job.
They are the only ones able to say what can be quickly restore and what can’t.
This page seems to be partially kept up to date (check in onion branch) and globally outdated.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Development/Todo/Tools

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No bmesh - no use of Blender 2.5x in modelling. I don’t expect many cool features, I want the old one from 2.49b.

shortcut was changed. No more Shift V + menu choice. Now, Shift 7 for top view or Shift Ctrl 7 for bottom view.

I agree, I didn’t know about it. Thank you!

Shift click on axis you want to exclude. like in 2.49.
I agree. It is not perfect for users who have only one hand.

Try to rotate the object on two axis only.

You have lists of camera in scene properties. You can specify a different local camera in 3DView properties using list if with you unlock 3D view.

Can’t find it. Do you mean the outliner?

Did you disable smooth view?

Yes I did.

For a seed parameter, it is really rare case to know how would react particles at a given number. It is really a small pain have to shift click compared to the pleasure to see particles give a good visual feedback.

Well sometimes Blender gets laggy (if such word even exists) but OK, I withdraw this one. It’s more advantages than flaws.

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Me, too. But there are problems to restore some features because 2.5 interface changes.
Midpoints knife is available. Fake knife add-on restores view constraints.
Only snapping on vertex, it is really missing.

Bmesh branch is beginning to be stable for basic modeling.
There are some knife bugs depending of ortho/perps views.
Snapping is working but very sensible. Mouse Cursor should stay over a solid face.

There are many add-ons for modeling, now. Bevel, Looptools, Inset Polygon, Relax.
Many more select tools. Every N number of verts, Side of active.
Better modeling tools. Visual feedback for Spin, Screw modifier, Solidify modifier.

So, OK! From some aspect, work is slower because of some lack of feature. But it is faster on other aspect.
<<No use of blender 2.5X in modeling>> is not really fair.
I can understand edge slide and knife must be central tools in your workflow.
But people can model with 2.59, it is not 2.50.

2.49 can’t, too.

In properties editor, Scene tab, Scene panel.
Click on Camera field. List of all cameras in scene show up.

In N column of 3Dview, View panel. Local Camera field is locked .
To unlock, make 3DView unique by clicking on icon in header’s view.

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I agree with alot of these, the manipulator is very weak… and network support is shocking