OK. Thinking about giving up on Blender. I started out with 2.49 and was just getting it down ok, then the 2.5 and was working my way through learning it. Now the 2.6 is out.
Everything changes too quick, and there is always so much to learn each time. I started a project with 2.49 and still haven’t finished because every time I work on it, I want to always go back and edit, add, and incorporate something new from a new release.
I’ll just leave it to the people with 2 brains, 'cause I only got one, and between work, and my music, I just don’t have the many hours it takes to keep up with all the learning of the changes,(or the brains evidently).
I guess its just the nature of open source. But too many changes, too often.
Not the nature of open source - it’s the nature of software in general. Try becoming (and staying) a web designer/developer, and I can tell you: it’s 100 times worse than 3d stuff (I am a professional web developer and designer since 15 years now). But yeah, 3d apps, whether commercial or open source, keep changing and evolving at a rapid rate as well. Which is a good thing!
They’re just tools, though - and the principles of design, art, music, animation, painting, etc. remain the same. Just focus on the tools you really require for what you want to do. Don’t focus on details and ‘the buttons’, but on concepts in software. Whether in Blender, Lightwave, Maya, Max, Cinema4d, etc, the concepts are identical. Don’t focus on the details too much in software: in my experience all software (even Blender make use of the same GUI principles. Rather focus on commonalities, than on specific differences.
As far as your project goes: one of the challenges of personal projects is to know when to finish and stop working on it. Move on to new projects. Set yourself a definite deadline, and stick to it. (Hardest thing to do, I know!) And focus on one or two things you love to do at a time - otherwise fragmentation sets in - and with that frustration and depression.
Life is change - stop learning and evolving, and you get left behind. And after all the struggling to keep up, our patterns dissolve back into flow of the universe!
That’s weird.
Everytime a new feature comes in, it is not destroying anything else. Just because a new feature is there, doesn’t mean you have to learn it. Why is it getting in your way? Just use the old tools.
It may displace some older buttons, but how long does it take to get used to it? It takes me one or two uses to get used to the fact that a button is moved…
Blender 2.6x is not much different then 2.5x
Everything is pretty much the same (with some exceptions), just that it’s more stable and has more features…
In case of 2.5 vs 2.4 - That is a huge difference. And it took me like 30 minutes to get used to blender 2.5 when I was trying the pre-alphas… But that’s because blender 2.5 totally resonated with my way of thinking. Probably took other people more… However, I did get into some trouble finding some more hidden/moved features later… but not that much…
Let’s not make it too dramatic. It happened to all of us. Not just using blender, actually things are more normal in blender than some other software.
Two brains, you say. Here, blender 2.4-2.6, zbrush, 3dcoat, sculptris, sketchup. (and groboto, meshmixer, meshlab etc etc and adobe suite of course.), you also play some music I guess (like me) and lot of apps again.
Have you tried the zbrush UI for instance?
What about three OSs?
Have a nice glass of wine, think about it. Cheers, it happened to all of us. Most of all, try to have as much fun as possible.
You’re either going to complete the project you started, or you’re gonna keep playing with the new features and learning to use them better. The difference between 2.59 and 2.61 is minimal when it comes to 90% of the tasks you need to use it for.
Just continue to work in 2.49, and keep a 2.6x version of Blender to learn it while you’re completing your project in 2.49b, no need to always use the latest version for everything.
OP has echoed my sentiments. I’m just an occasional Blender dabbler, and version upgrades really trip me up. I upgrade when there’s a cool script I want to run and it needs a newer version than what I have installed.
Nonsense, they are all virtually the same…if you can blend in 2.49, then you can blend in the next 2 generations…is this some sort of cry for help or ant blender act?..people are retarded.
If only there was a reasonable priced 3D software to replace Blender. Something in price range 300-600€ with solid ngon modelling, better UI than Blender (not hard to do…) and good renderer. It seems to be a hard task for software developers to come up with something like that.
Technically speaking you actually have 3 brains but that’s beside the point.
Honestly, if that is your only reason for quitting Blender then go ahead and quit, use Autodesk software for a couple of years and then come back here and complain about BF giving you regular software updates for free…
It took me a few weeks to make the switch, and I won’t disagree with you. It drove me crazy sometimes. It’s sort of like the devs can’t figure out how they want to do something.
That said, they know more about it than I do, and I can always stick with a version I like. I can’t complain (too loudly), because I couldn’t create Blender myself. Blender can’t stay the same at any rate - technology is progressing very quickly. People may complain about changes, but they also complain about features they wish Blender had. I wouldn’t want to be a dev and balance that.
Some people stick with things and succeed. others quit and fail. It just depends on the type of person you are. But remember this: quitting is habit forming. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself giving up on other things in life.
I opened in my browser this topic just to see abc123’s “We need more features! Now!”. It seams that for today he lost his habits: Some users here will be happy of this. Even thought
I think the changes are minimal
can be interpreted as “we need more features”.
In production, we “lock” a version of software that we’re using so an update won’t screw things up. You should think about doing that for your project.
…but honestly, if you’re working on a project that has spanned back to v2.49, then maybe that’s a bit over ambitious at this point. I’ve been playing with Blender for almost a year now and I started with v2.5. Maybe you’re discouraged at the pace of your project? Try narrowing your focus to something that is more reasonable to accomplish. There will always be parts of a cg project that are not fun. You have to push through those to get to the fun stuff.
Thanks to God and Ton.