I’ve been wondering if it is worth looking into learning the Industry Compatible Keymap. I’m kinda just curious but I wouldn’t want to spend time learning it if it doesn’t offer any advantages.
Any good resources, like tutorials or visual keyboard layouts, etc.?
Might it just be a preferences thing? Anyone tried it and switched?
I think that the idea is that this is a mapping that users of other industry software packages might be more accustomed to.
Yeah I got the impression that was mainly what it was for, to help people learn Blender that knew the other tools.
But since someone took the time to make it, does it make any sense to learn it and see if you like it better? Are there any clear advantages?
I found the basics here:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/interface/keymap/industry_compatible.html
It depends entirely on you, I have no issue switching from softwares with different keymaps, my brain seems to just take a few seconds to “flip” the memory of the keymap, but I have a hard time learning a new keymap for the same program once I learned it one way.
Tho, I think it doesnt matter in the end which keymap you pick as long as you are happy with it.
I think I like the idea of not rotating on the Middle Mouse Button. It’s wearing out my mouse.
Few videos I found.
Generally it’s better to stick to defaults because every tutorial or informative material should also rely on default settings.
Industry compatible keymap is there mostly for people coming from another app that need something done in blender and they don’t want to go into how blender works. If they are serious about blender they have to switch to defaults.
More time is spend finding the good defaults that really fit blender, it’s constantly evolving, while the industry standard keymap gets update only once in a while. And it’s not as tested as the defaults.
But anyway maybe by using it you’ll find useful ways of doing things.
That doesn’t means defaults are perfect…
In your case it sounds like you should not try to learn using blender with the industry compatible keymap. From what you’ve written it sounds that you are familiar with blenders default keymap already.
If you already got into that and feel fine with it then there is no need to switch and no then there also is no real benefit in that. The opposite might be the case. Blenders default keymap gets more attention in being updated than the Industry compatible keymap currently gets.
In short the industry compatible keymap is basically just another layout. I read often that it would be there to learn blender. That is not the right way to look at it and also is no good advice.
Using the Industry compatible keymap is fitting better if you already learned other 3dtools and would like to see blender resemble parts of well known control schemes to make your life easier. So if you have used other 3d tools before some shortcuts may be burnt into brain, like selecting elements with left mouse button, like w,e,r for move,rot,scale or have direct shortcuts for vertex,edge,face edit and object mode . You migh prefer that concept over blenders edit mode, object mode TAB switch. Luckily Blender is very customizable under the hood. Overall there are quite some similar input concepts that you will find across well known DCCs aswell as many of the small tools who resemble these “standards” too and the IC keymap is blenders option to behave like that too. To me, that is what the IC Keymap is about.
But if you learn using blender with the IC Keymap you will stick to it because you will very likely prefer the similarities tomorrow as much and you learned using blender that way. So it makes no sense to learn a keymap for a 3dtool and once you got good at it, throw it away and use a completely other one.
William Reynish put a lot of effort into designing these alternative keymaps and I think he did a great job with it. Its giving the user the choice, that is great. But as an official keymap it needs regularly maintenance. I read somehting that he got another job and with it, it seems the IC keymap lost its main developer. The Industry compatible keymap now needs a new update concept to stay up to date. Some important shortcuts definetly did not find their way into the IC keymap recently.
Most people tend to alternate the keymap after some time with blender and at that point its rather important how good keymaps can be adapted. Generally that is an area where I think blender still needs to evolve, to make customization easier, offer support with solve input conflicts and make the whole keymap and its editing more streamlined and lightweight. Parts of these needs got adressed within the Industry compatible keymap. It’s definitely smaller, and so its easier to customize, some other ui developments also help reducing that massive amount of shortcuts. Blender has thrown away quite some old input concepts recently, perhaps a more modular and easier keyboard shortcut system will show up. Until then I hope Blender finds a way to keep both keymaps equally well up to date.
For Blender - there’s no point. The thing about this “industry compatible” thing is that it’s copied from designs that are completely different to Blender’s workflows, mostly to please migrating users but completely missing the mark of its actual purpose. Active tools implementation in Blender are just not up to snuff, they’re still married to modal keys (in some cases hardcoded), gizmos aren’t versatile enough, and Blender’s “select then operate” philosophy is outright alien to some of those designs. Plus, that keymap regularly goes out of date as new features get added. IMHO, this whole splitting up into three keymaps was a mistake and is now just a waste of good dev time.
That said, what I would (and do) recommend is setting up and using keys the way you want them (as far as the program allows).
If you do happen to switch to Maya or Max or whatever, it’s really not that big of a deal to adjust to their “QWER” layout, which is like 90% of the “industry compatible” misnomer - most of the other keys are software-specific anyway, including navigation keys.
This makes sense if you have to constantly switch between different programs with similar controls in your work. I use Unity, Substance Painter, Marmoset, Maya all the time throughout the day and find the Industri Compatible keymap very handy. If you only work in Blender, there is no point in wasting time.
In my opinion the Industry standard is much better for general work, clicking the middle button constantly is uncomfortable and whers on my finger. so much i even use Logitech to re map it to a side button.
how ever in blender It seems that when in the industry compatible key binds, some functions like the Ctnrl+L is disabled. I mean its totaly gone , i cant even find (Link/transfer data) where you can create custom binds. is it only me? And i don’t really se a easy work around.
Anyways I realy like Blender in total.
