The guy who did the monochrome icons was chosen as the designer because he was the only one who stepped up, and the BF will usually not search for someone from outside the Blender community unless there are no other options. It is a little too late to change them now.
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Yea I know, I can live with it!
I’m not think that Blender should stagnate or stop developing. But take look on Microsoft. Will new interface make Windows better? They just waste of programmers time. They can improve security instead, or usability. Instead of improve Control Panel functionality they just drop it, and waste time for make “Settings” which is nearly useless.
I also like useful improvements of Blender UI like selecting without pressing “B” key first.
But there is difference between improvements and unnecessary change, like move something from top to bottom or from left to right.
Also I think that 2.7 icons was more readable. I don’t know why everyone following “flat” standards. Because corporations say that it’s look better? Windows 10 looks better than Windows 7 with Aero glass, really? For example GIMP make awful UI, but they let users to restore old icons, and disable tool grouping (one window is good change)
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Because new architecture allowed blender to have things like n-gons, better IK/FK solvers, better rigging tools, etc.
You have to realize that backwards compatibility is a nice gift, at best. When you go shopping for new furniture, do you buy things based on if they will fit in an apartment you lived in 10 years ago? Of course not. When Devs are writing code, their priority (rightly) is will this feature work in the version of the software that we are writing it for?
If it doesn’t work even in the previous release - why should it? Use the new version. Or keep using the old version. But why on earth would anyone expect that everything they make in 3.6 should obviously work in 3.5, 3.4, or 2.7? It literally makes no sense. If you HAVE to use 2.79, then build your scene/assets in 2.79. Don’t expect that somehow this edge case should be catered to in perpetuity.
The only thing I know about Audacity is that it edits audio. Never used it, so also not aware of whatever they’re doing… also doesn’t seem relevant to this topic (neither does Microsoft or Google.)
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As much as we all hate to admit it, tech fashion is a thing, and having an attractive UI does lend an air of competence and power to the overall package, even if it is just bits 'o bling.
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Yes, those new “flat” icons was a really bad and generally dumb idea, but its only one really bad desicion which was maded during transformation to 2.8.
There are alwasy this up and down…
up: nice i wanted this feature soooo badly 
down: why is my browser no shipped with game include 
(i also never understood why apps has to have clocks embeded ??? Actually i have one my the task bar and my browser is also showing one direclty above it… and on the second screen (directly to the right…)… alsoWhat… why didn’t have seen this before ??? )
Yes, Win10 does look far better. Aero looks dated, although nothing has been as terrible as Apple’s Aqua.
I also like the current Blender icon set, far more than when a UI looks like a bag of Skittles exploded on the screen.
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Later versions of Aqua weren’t all that bad, though I don’t think anyone will miss that old brushed metal look on all their windows.
There even is a scientific paper, that proves the superiority and better readability of the new blender icons.
I should really publish it already …
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Yes I was fond of the old Icons too. But one thing is for sure many new users were attracted to Blender thanks to the complete UI overhaul.
There are many that argue it was the reason finally took up Blender.
Change is hard, going from 2.79 to 2.8 was hard for me too but it was well worth it.
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They made the UI way more consistent. They moved a lot of things to the places where they are supposed to be. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of places where it is not consistent, but the UI made a massive step forward in that regard.
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I’m still waiting for them to reorganize how materials are sorted.
Hello !
I’ve been using blender for ~20 years now, and it has gone through many changes…
Each big UI refactor came with some cool functionalities lost, but in the meantime many more benefits.
I regret some functionalities from 2.49 but in the meantime I find many things so much easier to do now, blender become more simple and more powerful in many areas.
My advice is that it’s better to embrace the change even if that means loosing a few things.
You like to keep your habits with 2.7 shortcuts, but maybe the new ones are better once you get used to them. Same with everything else, given some time I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy last blender better, just like 99% of people using it… Maybe the issue is just taking the time to learn the new UI.
I’m pretty convinced blender is going in the right direction, if not it probably won’t attract new users each releases and get more funding every years.
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Well…
I was mostly into rigging in past four years, so my point of view is somewhat narrow.
It is clear that Blender devs need to come with new features to keep blenderheads happy and interested. But beneath these shiny new things are foundations - and these foundations are getting more and more cracks and it looks like nobody is attending to them, because there is no time/personnel for that, as I see it. There are features that worked before 3.x, they are still included, but they don’t work as they should.
I would really like to see a version, that will be focused primarily on maintenance, on repairing things, that are broken instead of adding new features.
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Hum, it’s a circle, some areas got a revamp from time to time once the cracks are getting too big.
Funnily enough, I used to rig a lot in blender, and recently had to rig a full cartoony character from scratch and find that I use way less bones than before.
My setups are therfore much more simple to do, thanks to new constraints …
I’m not saying it’s perfect and we find a few bugs that chimed in, but TBH rigging was something I had in mind when thinking about blender getting better 
That said, I’m also looking forward to more fundamental improvements probably with the upcoming animation projects. I think it’s very difficult to organize these refactor, and that’s why they really happen when stuff is getting very old.
It’s something common to giant monsters like 3D software or maybe After Effect, it’s keeping the same basis since forever and that’s why , while new feature are always added it’s also always unstable in other areas. I think it’s not a blender issue, but a general issue that append on every big software that got decades of development…
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No time/personnel, or personnel not interested in focusing on such things?
Time and personnel were found to add a Kuwahara filter to the realtime compositor; whether that was time well-spent, or not, is debatable.
At this very moment, personnel is spending time having to deal with the size of an eyeball in the asset collection, that’s apparently causing one user to experience great deal of stress.
I’m not writing this as a criticism of staff who are trying to improve Blender, but merely an observation that it’s stated with regularity in forums that devs don’t have enough time, BF doesn’t have enough staff, etc etc… and while that may be true, it’s also true that where one is told to spend their time might not be the best way it could be spent.
On the other side, there are certainly areas that don’t get much public attention - such as the GSOC/refactor happening with the Outliner. That will never be an exciting, sexy press release… but it’s a great deal of work, and will definitely help make OTHER things great in the future. The new node preview looks pretty cool, as well.
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I think because blender is getting a raising audience… it also get a raising amount of people who disagree in some areas… so amount of people and amount of areas…
This is also because blender is not just one:
- modelling
- 3D painting
- sculpting
- animation
- compositing
- shader editor
- real time renderer
- nonbiased renderer
- and what nor else
app…
…so the path to go is not only one… it’s getting broader and wider… so there are people on this “broadway” which even can’t see some others… so the question if something is good or bad… is more a philosophical one…
Someone can use other tools to do just the parts mentioned above someone needs… and then for example use any game engine for the final task…
(ohh i forgot: text editor 
)
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Hi, muscle memory is strong, and it’s not always easy to change it. However, Blender 3.x is better in every aspect, so my advice is to just use it, and get used to it. Good luck
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yepp… and still… have to change my behaviour on some internet sites once in a while… (even for those using the same software… not updating simultanously or using the same plugins) and it also doesn’t happen at the same time… and we learned right-click-select and re-learned it… and… and…
So sticking to an older software for specific purposes does make sense… but someone should also look into the new one to not been left alone some day… because then it is dificult and especially for blender you can do this…
( i often repeated that i do have still a b2.49 running here on my system… but not really using it any more… the 2.79 version sometimes is used… but also decreasingly… )
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