4 ms·

Another free 3D sculpting application: Blender.

by bayesian_horse 8y ago

ddtaylor 8y ago
Has anyone ever got Blender to run in WebGL using emscripten? That seems like it would be pretty awesome.
- greggman 8y ago
  there's Clara.io yea I know not the same as blender in emscripten but the same as in a pro modeling package in the browser I think the biggest hurdle tho is data. 3d editors generally need access to 100s of megs of data so you'll likely hit a wall pretty quick past a certain size. no idea how clara.io handles that
  - bayesian_horse 8y ago
    You can get around that by having much of it in the cloud or avoiding things like huge textures and the likes. Then again, browser processes with hundreds of megs of RAM aren't exactly unknown. Blender can actually be quite efficient in terms of memory. I have been using it as a command line application at times, because it starts up really fast.
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  I would consider that a very hard and pointless port. Blender is extremely complex and has a ton of dependencies.
  - ddtaylor 8y ago
    Do you think users want to download and execute binaries versus using web apps?
    - bildung 8y ago
      Just as an anecdote: If the problem is anything non-trivial or anything with graphics, a web app would be a clear pass for me.
      - solarkraft 8y ago
        Gravit designer (designer.io) is a graphics app (photo, illustration, vector stuff) running performantly in The browser. It's a great example of how good a web app can be. Many web apps I find terrible and I'm sure it uses a bunch more resources than it would need to, but it runs on my FOSS operating system of choice and really works quite well.
    - bayesian_horse 8y ago
      I'd prefer to download a 100+Mb binary once versus downloading the 100+Mb web app a couple of times. Blender is one of those applications which is meant for people spending countless hours in it. Installation convenience just doesn't count.
      - ddtaylor 8y ago
        Do you think it's possible for a web app to utilize caching? We may be in a position right now where WebGL is new-ish but this is changing and 5-10 years from now the difference between a native and webapp likely won't be much. It seems silly to argue that users should go through an extra step / give large amounts of trust to an application if they don't need to.
        wtetzner 8y ago
        > users should go through an extra step / give large amounts of trust If it's a webapp, then you have to trust that the application won't disappear overnight, or be changed it ways you don't like. If you have downloaded the software, you can continue to use it. There are trade-offs in both directions.
        ddtaylor 8y ago
        Good point.
        bayesian_horse 8y ago
        Caching is imperfect, and software does change from time to time. WebGL is great, and can be used to great effect. Blender, at least since 2.8, is definitely exceeding whatever WebGL could provide.
    - rootlocus 8y ago
      What a useless question. Just in the segment of 3D art you have: 3DS Max, Maya, MODO, ZBrush, 3D Coat, Houdini and many many others, some of which are gigabyte large and nobody ever thought they should be served as web apps. People still use offline software without problems. Even developers use large IDEs or even code editors offline. It's not like you have to download it every time you use it. Loading and linking binaries is also orders of magnitude faster than fetching resources over HTTP and executing JS in the browser.
    - rebuilder 8y ago
      Yes a thousand times. I use Blender in a professional setting, and the way it works is you set your software up and you do not touch it in the middle of a production if you can help it at all. No upgrades to newer versions, and certainly you don't use webapps. The risk of something breaking to new bugs, backward incompatiblity or hosting unavailability is unacceptable.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      Do you think I want to download and execute binaries every time I start the program?
lostgame 8y ago
Blender: The invaluable, indespensable FOSS application with the worst UI/UX to ever disgrace a computer monitor.
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  Blender's UI is quite efficient. Unfortunately it is very strange, both for the user and for the addon developer. When I inquired about certain things (like callbacks for buttons, or custom panels/windows) a core developer gave me the rather annoyed reply (paraphrasing): "Blender isn't an application framework and Python is meant to enhance functionality, not create it." Which is unfortunate, because Blender has become a de facto application framework, even if the developers don't want to admit it.
  - Doxin 8y ago
    I'm more than sure that python plugins are allowed to add panels and buttons and whatnot to the interface. I suppose you just ran into the wrong person to ask questions. OTOH I'm afraid I don't know specifics either so I guess I'm the wrong person to ask as well.
    - bayesian_horse 8y ago
      Oh, it does allow you to add buttons to panels. It doesn't allow you to add area types, dialogs and tabs in the properties area. Also there is no such thing as a button callback in Blender UI. The only thing you can do is insert a button which calls an "operator". You can define your own operators of course, but this only works as long as you don't want to generate the buttons dynamically. Then you'd have to generate operators dynamically, and things only go downhill from there...
- thedaemon 8y ago
  That's just, like your opinion man. I personally find Blender to have the best out of all of the 3dcc applications out there. Just because you haven't taken the time to learn how to use it, doesn't make it the worst UI ever...

Another free 3D sculpting application: Blender.

ddtaylor 8y ago

Has anyone ever got Blender to run in WebGL using emscripten? That seems like it would be pretty awesome.

greggman 8y ago
there's Clara.io yea I know not the same as blender in emscripten but the same as in a pro modeling package in the browser I think the biggest hurdle tho is data. 3d editors generally need access to 100s of megs of data so you'll likely hit a wall pretty quick past a certain size. no idea how clara.io handles that
- bayesian_horse 8y ago
  You can get around that by having much of it in the cloud or avoiding things like huge textures and the likes. Then again, browser processes with hundreds of megs of RAM aren't exactly unknown. Blender can actually be quite efficient in terms of memory. I have been using it as a command line application at times, because it starts up really fast.
bayesian_horse 8y ago
I would consider that a very hard and pointless port. Blender is extremely complex and has a ton of dependencies.
- ddtaylor 8y ago
  Do you think users want to download and execute binaries versus using web apps?
  - bildung 8y ago
    Just as an anecdote: If the problem is anything non-trivial or anything with graphics, a web app would be a clear pass for me.
    - solarkraft 8y ago
      Gravit designer (designer.io) is a graphics app (photo, illustration, vector stuff) running performantly in The browser. It's a great example of how good a web app can be. Many web apps I find terrible and I'm sure it uses a bunch more resources than it would need to, but it runs on my FOSS operating system of choice and really works quite well.
  - bayesian_horse 8y ago
    I'd prefer to download a 100+Mb binary once versus downloading the 100+Mb web app a couple of times. Blender is one of those applications which is meant for people spending countless hours in it. Installation convenience just doesn't count.
    - ddtaylor 8y ago
      Do you think it's possible for a web app to utilize caching? We may be in a position right now where WebGL is new-ish but this is changing and 5-10 years from now the difference between a native and webapp likely won't be much. It seems silly to argue that users should go through an extra step / give large amounts of trust to an application if they don't need to.
      - wtetzner 8y ago
        > users should go through an extra step / give large amounts of trust If it's a webapp, then you have to trust that the application won't disappear overnight, or be changed it ways you don't like. If you have downloaded the software, you can continue to use it. There are trade-offs in both directions.
        ddtaylor 8y ago
        Good point.
      - bayesian_horse 8y ago
        Caching is imperfect, and software does change from time to time. WebGL is great, and can be used to great effect. Blender, at least since 2.8, is definitely exceeding whatever WebGL could provide.
  - rootlocus 8y ago
    What a useless question. Just in the segment of 3D art you have: 3DS Max, Maya, MODO, ZBrush, 3D Coat, Houdini and many many others, some of which are gigabyte large and nobody ever thought they should be served as web apps. People still use offline software without problems. Even developers use large IDEs or even code editors offline. It's not like you have to download it every time you use it. Loading and linking binaries is also orders of magnitude faster than fetching resources over HTTP and executing JS in the browser.
  - rebuilder 8y ago
    Yes a thousand times. I use Blender in a professional setting, and the way it works is you set your software up and you do not touch it in the middle of a production if you can help it at all. No upgrades to newer versions, and certainly you don't use webapps. The risk of something breaking to new bugs, backward incompatiblity or hosting unavailability is unacceptable.
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    Do you think I want to download and execute binaries every time I start the program?

lostgame 8y ago

Blender: The invaluable, indespensable FOSS application with the worst UI/UX to ever disgrace a computer monitor.

bayesian_horse 8y ago
Blender's UI is quite efficient. Unfortunately it is very strange, both for the user and for the addon developer. When I inquired about certain things (like callbacks for buttons, or custom panels/windows) a core developer gave me the rather annoyed reply (paraphrasing): "Blender isn't an application framework and Python is meant to enhance functionality, not create it." Which is unfortunate, because Blender has become a de facto application framework, even if the developers don't want to admit it.
- Doxin 8y ago
  I'm more than sure that python plugins are allowed to add panels and buttons and whatnot to the interface. I suppose you just ran into the wrong person to ask questions. OTOH I'm afraid I don't know specifics either so I guess I'm the wrong person to ask as well.
  - bayesian_horse 8y ago
    Oh, it does allow you to add buttons to panels. It doesn't allow you to add area types, dialogs and tabs in the properties area. Also there is no such thing as a button callback in Blender UI. The only thing you can do is insert a button which calls an "operator". You can define your own operators of course, but this only works as long as you don't want to generate the buttons dynamically. Then you'd have to generate operators dynamically, and things only go downhill from there...
thedaemon 8y ago
That's just, like your opinion man. I personally find Blender to have the best out of all of the 3dcc applications out there. Just because you haven't taken the time to learn how to use it, doesn't make it the worst UI ever...