Haha, 3d coat’s interface is terrible, even long time users admit it.
Me too. That’s why I don’t like maya’s shelves, cluttered as hell.
Sure, customization is a must.
We all know that Campbell and other devs read this forum and also rightclickselect site, where you got good comments and a lot of votes.
So I’m just curious about why so many people happy with that proposal and can not see the problem that I see, and that’s why I’m asking you to see how badly I’m understanding your proposal (which is likely), or maybe people do not see the problem because they really use very little Blender, maybe just to modeling and the rest in other programs.
Well, it’s important when you make a proposal to know how that would supposedly work. I do not know if millions, I can think of only one and it’s like all the other buttons are working in TopBar, unfolding below over 3DView. So sorry for misunderstanding if it was that what you had planned was another behavior. I had asked and I did not get an answer anyway.
1 Like
Honestly, it’s not possible for the Blender devs. to combine every interface of every app. into one thing (because of incompatible elements and layouts), so the best they can do is unveil a design that will be good enough for most users (even if some aren’t totally happy with it).
The only way around that is allowing an intense level of customization, but how much should the devs. spend on that idea as opposed to finishing the major aspects of 2.8’s design before the Code Quest ends?
Seriously these are just literally shelves filled with tools. They are supposed to be packed because you want your tools at hand, this is not a design flaw.
3 Likes
At the risk of repeating myself and bore people, i think that the only
Is an interface with
You make it sound like it is comparable to an core rewrite. But the fact that Campbell did that customizable Favorite menu in a relatively short time with not too much lines of code speaks a different language.
Its also the most future proof solution.
Incombatible elements and layouts can be fixed by using workspaces.
I was a fan of maya’s ui before, even modo, but once you touch c4d’s interface, man, there are no words, the app is intuitive and organized like hell, no 3d app comes close. Only after starting using c4d I realized how cluttered and slow maya’s ui is, same for modo, in fact, modo is even worse imo.
So yeah, this is it, but I still believe that blender can become even better than c4d. 
1 Like
I don’t understand the love people have for Modo’s UI. Its a mess. Lots of boring and identical looking lists.
It even got worse in the last version, now there is even more clutter and small icons all over the UI.
1 Like
Eh, to be fair Maya’s top bar is not all that cluttered. You are thinking of a separate panel, which can be hidden, that exist on the top. This is broken up into functions and modes. It can be very useful for plugins as well. Thing is, a lot of beginners tend to rely on it at first, but then hide it and use pies or other menus to access it. If we are going by looks, I agree it doesnt look great, but it is at least structured with tabs.
I can’t imagine how you possibly see Modo as worse. Modo suffers more from relying on text lists to approach certain selections, it works but lists can get boring and not much stands out visually. These are generally hidden away unless pulled up. Its actually one of the easiest on the eyes tbh. Here let me show you the default UI for 12.1 and the Zen interface option. Its objectively hard to say this is worse. (There are still things that bug me about it, but I also have those for all GUIs so far.)
Maya and Modo do have something in common which I would consider bad design. That is the creation of additional tabs based on whats going with an object, its history or scene. This can add way too many tabs to go through in the “attribute editor” sector of the GUI. They are more of an eye sore than anything else.
I agree with you on C4D in so much that its minimalist and has high readability, though it still shows a bit of the clutter issue down at the lower end of the screen as opposed to the top in other apps.
So far, I think Blender can find a good middle ground based on what we have seen so far. Additionally, if they could take what works well with Modo, C4D and filter it through a Blender aesthetic, it shouldnt be too far from that mark.
I still work with maya and modo from time to time, but yeah, not a fan of how things are organized in modo, also the overall workflow is not that great imo… still a great modeler tho…
But again, I liked those apps before, they were great until I discovered c4d’s ui.
Yes, I’m with you. As I said earlier, while it’s nice with those tiny cute icons aligned, it’s just totally wrong in Blender. It’s curious how, even if explained, people can’t see it, or ignore the caveats.
As of now, I can take that mockup just a quick Photoshop exercise
@L0Lock
Something like like this?
1 Like
I understand that as an undo/redo button equivalent to undo/redo items in Edit menu.
Then buttons present in toolbar of 3DView.
OpenGL render buttons that are relative to Camera view when called from Render menu.
Anyways when workspace is containing several 3DViews, you need to use View menu of editor instead.
So, as global settings, it could correspond items for Camera View in Render menu.
And basically, last buttons could correspond to items of Add menu or add modifier menu.
So, Regnas proposal is not a total non-sense.
But like Hadriscus said it is just another shelve. Everything in his proposal could be inside vertical toolbar in object mode. It is just same thing proposed horizontally.
There could be a switch to say make toolbar horizontal instead of vertical that would be equal.
If this move is done, question that you have to solve is what do you do with things that are currently in toolbar. Where do you move them ?
But currently, there is no move announced from current situation : Topbar for Manipulators and Brushes settings.
1 Like
It’s amazing how you guys can’t see very obvious things, not to mention the non-sensical drama.
So, teach us the obvious, please!
You and Regnas, other than say “I know what is better” or “because it’s the standard” still didn’t prove it. Unless you intended that mockup, which imho fails, and I explained why.
“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein
2 Likes
Oof…
No no no, enough of BS… If most people were able to understand it immediately as you can see here and you don’t, this sounds like something else to me…
Have fun… 
My concern was basically the buttons that I have indicated with the red ellipse, which apparently have similarity with the icons of Properties Editor
Add what menu? Is this explained in the proposal? Is it a menu that currently exists in Blender 2.8? Where will that Menu appear? Will that hypothetical Menu also cover and bother the view of your work in 3DView?
Edit:
Or do you mean to use those buttons just to “Add” things? What would be the advantage of occupying TopBar with those buttons only to “Add” those things if in the majority of them you will have to go to the Properties Editor to configure then what you have added.
You talked about Properties editor tabs because of icons shown in buttons.
But exactly same icons are used in Add menu (shift A) that permits to add objects to scene.
They are used in outliner too, to represent objects. In 2.79, they are shown in Create tab of toolshelf.
I just understood the use of these icons in a toolshelf as a quick access to objects creation.
In 2.79, Shift Ctrl C is a menu to add constraint. If you pass through search to launch Add Modifier operator, you will end up with same kind of menu. You can add a shortcut to this operator.
In 2.8, it looks like a modifiers sub-menu is missing under object menu to be able to add it to favorites menu.
So, after that 2 examples, we can understand that last 2 icons could be to add particles and physics effects.
In video dedicated to grid layout, pablo says that user may have control of width of column through python.
You can zoom in and zoom out in a properties editor.
I don’t know if width of column could take that into account ; or , if it is preferable to let user adjust zoom and width independently to allow him to have abbreviated labels but bigger values.
IMO, a column width should be a value inside header of properties editor to have it adjustable per editor. But it will probably not fit into a vertical header.
It could be a popover. Click on icon on header → popover containing a slider → Use slider to change aspect of interior of editor.
I would prefer a multiple columns like in d.b.o. task to a grid layout. So, maybe a popover for properties editor could contain a preference about that. Maybe, it could also contain other preferences like text alignment or decorator/panel hiding.
1 Like
We could go on facepalming each other, but I don’t think it’s the best attitude here. Let’s stop it and be constructive please. Which also means when somebody asks something, giving an answer is nice.
Back on topic: I raised up issues of @Regnas Topbar, you answered:
Which to my ears sounds vague rather than obvious. What you meant? More details?
This looks very much like to Properties Editor. I asked many times about it, it would have been very simple to reply “This is for Add things”, but I did not get answers. I really doubt that this was the original idea of the author of the proposal.
Anyway, if it is used only to “Add” things, I do not see any major problems in it. I just do not see much use, in some cases it is redundant because there are better methods to add things, and in other cases it does not save anything because you must go to Properties editor anyway to configure what you have added. So if nobody finds anything more useful to fill TopBar, I have no problem with those buttons being to “Add” those things.
Sorry, I just missed your last editing.
Not always. For example, to add a copy location/rotation/scale constraint, you don’t need to configure it in properties.
You just need to select target of constraint, owner of constraint and then add constraint.
Although for same kind of things, an addon is needed in 2.79 to add lattice, workflow could become similar in 2.8.
For mirror/skin/triangulate modifier, you may be fine with default settings.
And it would be relevant for quick effects that are using presets adjustable in redo panel.
You should add this suggestion to discussion on d.b.o.
it looks like they will stick to 2 columns principle (1 for labels | 1 for values).