No doubt about it, we all love blender, but there’s a few things I tend to be ashamed of when trying to show off blender to someone:
The assigning new material process -
_________you select a face, click New Material, the click Assign and you THINK it’s going to work, but you change the color and the whole mesh chages color. WHY?? Because you didn’t click “make single user” in the other panel. I’m always embarrased when someone asks me “how to make that side of the cube red” It’s really pathetic. it doesn’t bother me personally, but it’s embarassing when I show others.
is there anything that you’re embarrased of blender when you are trying to show it off to someone? (eg, no realworld measurements, etc.)
yes , Spin , Spin dup , Screw
you have to make your polygon curve or mesh in a window and find Another window to apply Spin ,…
instead of having them as a modifiers and Have X Y Z to detemine the rotation angle
Sorry James, but I do believe Larry is referring to this thread . . . possibly along with the others.
BTW: Why are you ashamed about the functionality of software whose development you probably had nothing to do with?
Are you also ashamed to explain that even with it’s unique & sometimes quirky approach to 3D content creation, Blender is a truly professional quality tool . . . freely available for anyone to use & developed by an amazing volunteer community?
Instead of posting foolish topics, maybe your time could be more productively used in fixing some of the problems with this awesome program, helping others get better at using it, or just using it to create something for all to enjoy.
Hmmm… I dont see that this thread point isnt blaming blender or any kind of request of change. I think this thread point is more likely: what is your common mistakes when working with blender? more likely personal view than mistrust blender functionality.
san_diego_james: Correct me if Im wrong. if im right you should form your thread bit better
No man no, was not singling out this thread. At least this one is about Blender. However I do agree with Cire, and your subject line is begging for yet another app vs app debate and “this sucks” rants.
About this site, I wish there was a way to use the NEW POSTS feature without the off-topic posts being included. That’s where most of the distracting (and sometimes infuriating) threads live. That’s my main beef with this site. It’s too time consuming to pick out new info posts manually. So I use the new posts link, scan through the clutter, and try not to click into the off-topic subjects (it’s a daily battle).
I show people Blender, then tell them to read through the docs and basic tuts I know of, and search through this forum as they learn enough to know what they need to learn, and check for new posts here everyday (cos one can build up a huge folder of tips and tuts and also get the lastest news that way).
Then I feel the need to warn them this is not like other forums on moneymaking/pro type sites they may be used to and it’s easy to get distracted by all the posts here that have nothing to do with 3DCGI or art. It’s a wonderful database of info and a great place to seek advice, but it’s also a playpen for a bunch of forum addicts and trolls, some of which are people who don’t even use Blender.
There are also lots of threads here that were locked for good reason but not deleted. So there they sit, waiting to be stumbled upon again and again by people doing searches here.
As for Blender itself, I see nothing shameful about it. That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a godsend to many people all over the world and is getting better and more powerful every few months. It’s a very complex and powerful machine and is not far behind (and ahead of in some areas) apps that cost thousands of dollars to use and hundreds of dollars to learn (tuts for money). It’s not perfect. It’s a work in progress.
Personally, I think those overlapping headers really should be fixed in our “revolutionary, non-overlapping interface”. I like Blender’s UI but having buttons hidden behind other windows and seeing half-buttons would be “embarassing” if I didn’t love the rest of Blender so much!
I’ve never had to use “make single user” when applying a second (or third or fourth, etc) material to a mesh. Are you sure you’re doing it right?
I go to the Mesh window and select “new” in the material panel then I go to the Materials window and create or select a material. Then I return to the Mesh window to assign the material to selected faces
Admittedly the process is a bit muddling but I can understand why it is the way it is since you first choose to add a new material to the selected mesh (a Mesh process performed in the Mesh Window) then you select or create a material to use (a Material process performed in the Material Window).
A common mistake is to switch to the Materials window and immediately edit the active material but since this is initially the same material as is on every other face on the selected mesh, editing it changes the material over the whole mesh.
I can’t imagine any user actually being “ashamed” of anything in Blender. Frustrated or even disappointed maybe, but “ashamed”? Only the coders can be ashamed of anything since they are the ones responsible for it and frankly, they’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.
Actually, I think I know what he meant by ‘ashamed’. Not so much ashamed as; you’re trying to show someone how easy blender makes something, and then… I dunno, that materials thing happens and then they’re all like ‘hur hur blender suks,’ because people–when you show them a bunch of great stuff–will always remember the problems the most.
This has never happened to me. I’m just taking a shot at interpretation.
blender’s immature, prankster ways make it really hard to take him out in public. I’m a little ashamed of him, but maybe he’ll stop all the hooligans, shenanigans, and rabble rousing some day and I can be proud to have an application like that.
I’ve never futzed around with the “user” counts either, frankly I don’t really understand how they work (too bad btw that the BSOD section on the Blender data seems to have fallen through the cracks).
The Index <-> Material thing is confusing, took me awhile to figure it out, too.
You misunderstand. If you look on the elephants dream dvd, you’ll find my name in the credits (translator). If you look in the bug tracker, you’ll find Ton recently thanked me for submitting a bug in sculptmode that crashed it. (obviously thanks go to him for fixing it). If you look around the forum, you’ll find me answering blender questions all the time. If you look in the finished work, you’ll find a few renders and animations (nothing that great).
my point is, I love blender and it has become a wonderful part of my life. I have so much fun that I regularly show others, but sometimes I get embarrassed a little. For example, I was showing an architect who uses autocad and max, and almost the first thing she asked was about realworld measurements (meters). :o well, uh, theres a script you can download. . .:o (see what I mean) I just started this thread to go along with the what do you like best about blender thread.
I was wondering if others had similar things to mention, and some suggestions for improving UI or workflow might come out of the whole thing.
I’ve never had to use “make single user” when applying a second (or third or fourth, etc) material to a mesh. Are you sure you’re doing it right?
I go to the Mesh window and select “new” in the material panel then I go to the Materials window and create or select a material. Then I return to the Mesh window to assign the material to selected faces
Oh, I see what you do. Well, If instead of clicking the materials window and clicking Add New, you click the little number that is “2”, it will automatically create a new material when you click on make single user. same effect, but I guess your way might look a little more normal to people when I’m showing them in the future. I think I’ll do it that way. Still, I’m hoping sometime that when you click on the big New button, a little dialog will apear automatically, giving you the choice to add new or select an existing.
Mike: I just found the Glen Moyes video on Blender’s Datablocks last week, and it was a real eye opener. I learned a lot. It’s really well done and a good substitute for the missing BSoD section.
it doesn’t bother me personally, but it’s embarassing when I show others.
I’m just taking a shot at interpretation.
