4 ms·

Have they improved the UI/UX since 2.8x? They said it would be much better and it was still driving me up a wall compared to 3DS Max. It still felt like going f

Have they improved the UI/UX since 2.8x? They said it would be much better and it was still driving me up a wall compared to 3DS Max. It still felt like going from Photoshop to GIMP. That's the only thing holding me back from really adopting blender.

marcodiego 5y ago
Not an user, but judging from comments, you're part of a small set that still repeats comments like this after 2.8.
- archerx 5y ago
  What has changed since 2.8 in the UI? When I used 2.8 there were still a lot of pain points with the interface that kept me doing the heavy lifting in 3DS max. It was a cloth sim project and I was using blender to export the files into GLTF and even that was a bit frustrating.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    Again, what has changed since 1998 in 3D Studio Max's UI?
  - bogwog 5y ago
    It sounds like you need to spend some more time reading the manuals and less time complaining online.
valine 5y ago
I disagree. The 2.8+ UI is well designed and way snappier than 3DS Max.
- archerx 5y ago
  It is subjective but 3D max interface is much more intuitive. Like when navigating the 3D view ports. UE4 also has a nice interface that is similar to blender but feels better.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I think it's a wasteful debate nowadays. Blender used to be too peculiar if not crippled but they reduced the gap a lot. It's bearable now.. and, they could probably get close to most 3D apps UX (i'm speculating but i'd bet a few dollars).
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > It is subjective but 3D max interface is much more intuitive. The most intuitive interface is the one you're used to.
    - archerx 5y ago
      I've used many many different 3D programs from 3DS max, milkshape, XSI, Maya, Unreal 2, Unreal 3/UDK, Unreal 4, Hammer, Source, Three.js web editor, Zbrush, Houdini, etc and none of them have made me as frustrated as using blender. So I don't know?
      - DonHopkins 5y ago
        Hello again. Can you name ONE way 3D Studio Max's user interface has tangibly improved since Monica Lewinsky brought Bill Clinton a pizza and blew him in the White House? Not ONE? If you can't, then I rest my case: Max has an ANCIENT outdated user interface, and it's been stagnating for decades. So what if you're used to it? I'm used to Windows 95 and Microsoft Visual Studio 6 too, but that doesn't mean they have good user interfaces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYt0khR_ej0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYt0khR_ej0 >"Jim, let me tell you something: there's gonna to be a WHOLE BUNCH of things we don't tell Mrs. Clinton. Fast food is the least of our worries, ok buddy?"
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        It depends what you're using it for. I like Sketchup and Hammer; Blender doesn't remotely resemble those. But then, Blender can do things that those most certainly can't; they're for different jobs.
  - cycomanic 5y ago
DonHopkins 5y ago
Well has 3D Studio Max improved its UI/UX interface since 1998, when I asked Kinetix if they would support pie menus, and they replied that while their users had demanded pie menus (aka marking menus), they wouldn't implement them because of Alias's patent? I even offered to help Kinetix implement pie menus for Max, since I was already writing Max and MaxScript plugins, and wanted their help integrating my open source ActiveX/OLE pie menus with Max. But Kinetix wasn't interested then, and Autodesk still isn't interested in listening to their users or improving Max's user interface decades later, apparently. https://donhopkins.medium.com/automating-the-sims-character-animation-pipeline-with-maxscript-bc490787d7a2 https://donhopkins.medium.com/automating-the-sims-character-... After 25 years since it was created, 3D Studio Max STILL doesn't have pie menus (while Blender has really great built-in pie menus). Kinetix's 3D Studio Max and Alias's Maya used to be competitive and innovative when they were owned by different companies. But now they are both owned by Autodesk, so they have both stagnated and failed to innovate, listen to the demands of their users, and improve their user interfaces, the way Blender rapidly and continuously does today, and always has. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26917124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26917124 Alias used to spread FUD about pie menus, and now Autodesk and their minions spread FUD about Blender, like falsely claiming Blender's GPL license means that you can't use it to make copyrighted artwork. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26918150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26918150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26923816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26923816 https://www.blender.org/about/license/ https://www.blender.org/about/license/ As if stagnating and ignoring the demands of your users while spreading FUD and innuendo about Blender wasn't bad enough, it's rumored that Autodesk even went as far as to mercilessly attack Ton Roosendaal with a ceiling tile ;) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk Pie Menu FUD and Misconceptions: Dispelling the fear, uncertainty, doubt and misconceptions about pie menus. https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menu-fud-and-misconceptions-be8afc49d870 https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menu-fud-and-misconception... >Huge Problem: Software Patents and FUD >There is a sad history of people using software patents to make misleading claims about obvious techniques that they didn’t originate, and constructing flawed straw man definitions of ersatz pie menus to contrast with their own inventions, to mislead the patent examiners into granting patents. >There is a financial and institutional incentive to be lazy about researching and less than honest in reporting and describing prior art, in the hopes that it will slip by the patent examiners, which it very often does. >Patent Abuse Example: US Patent US5689667A: Methods and system of controlling menus with radial and linear portions >Unfortunately a bad patent that covered an obvious technique, and also made some incorrect misleading claims, was abused by Alias marketing in Bill Buxton’s name to baselessly threaten and discouraged others from using pie or marking menus, by exaggerating its scope and obfuscating its specificity. It’s my strong opinion that the particular technique that it covered (overflow items) was quit obvious. >Gordon Kurtenbach and I discussed pie and marking menus in 1990 before he wrote his paper and filed the patent, and at that time he made it clear that he understood pie menus supported mouse ahead display suppression, and that pie menus enjoyed the same benefits as marking menus have in easing the transition from novice to expert user: >“The the cool thing is that expert can mouse ahead like you’ve talked about but they get an ink trail so they have a better idea what they’ve selected without even bothering to wait for the menu to come up.” >However that contradicts what the paper and the patent implies, and it’s misled other people into incorrectly believing that pie menus don’t support what I call “mouse ahead display preemption” (or “suppression”, a harsher word), and that the patent covers much more than it actually does. >When Gordon applied for the patent on in 1995, which his employment contract with SGI required him to do, the patent had at least two misleading statements, and the “overflow” technique claim was obvious, which should have prevented it from being granted or invalidated it. >Another piece of mistaken but published misinformation about the differences of “typical pie menus” and marking menus is that “typical pie menus” pop up submenus after the cursor has moved a certain distance from the menu center, without clicking the mouse button. However, I have never seen nor implemented such badly designed pie menus in the real world. >“Typical pie menus” (such as those in The Sims, played by hundreds of millions of people) have always selected leaf and submenu items by triggering on a button press or release (or pen or finger tap or release). They also typically support mouse-ahead. Pie menus can seamlessly support both quick press-drag-release gestures, as well as the more leisurely click-move-click gestures. >The patent US5689667A “Methods and system of controlling menus with radial and linear portions” also makes the mistake of claiming that that pie menu selection is based on pointing at the items like linear menus (or PIXIE), instead of the direction of cursor motion, which Kurtenbach and Buxton know very well is simply not the case with “typical pie menus”. Flight of the PIXIE: This video is derived from a film that demonstrates an early graphical user interface in use. The film was made in 1969 to accompany a paper entitled “PIXIE: a new approach to graphical man-machine communication” presented at the 1969 CAD Conference held in Southampton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDrqR9XssJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDrqR9XssJI >“Radial menus include two types: pie menus and marking menus. Pie menus are typically used in item selection using the location principles of linear menus as discussed above. Marking menus operate on the principle of the direction of cursor or pointer motion as being the basis for item selection.” -US Patent US5689667A >Unfortunately they were able to successfully deceive the patent reviewers, even though the patent references the Dr. Dobb’s Journal article which clearly describes how pie menu selection and mouse ahead work, contradicting the incorrect claims in the patent. It’s sad that this kind of deception and patent trolling is all too common in the industry, and it causes so many problems. >Even today, long after the patent has expired, Autodesk marketing brochures continue to spread FUD to scare other people away from using marking menus, by bragging that “Patented marking menus let you use context-sensitive gestures to select commands.” >The Long Tail Consequences of Bad Patents and FUD >I attended the computer game developer’s conference in the late 90’s, while I was working at Maxis on The Sims. Since we were using 3D Studio Max, I stopped by the Kinetix booth on the trade show floor, and asked them for some advice integrating my existing ActiveX pie menus into their 3D editing tool. ActiveX Pie Menus: Demo of the free ActiveX Pie Menu Control, developed and demonstrated by Don Hopkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnC8x9x3Xag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnC8x9x3Xag >They told me that Alias had “marking menus” which were like pie menus, and that Kinetix’s customers had been requesting that feature, but since Alias had patented marking menus, they were afraid to use pie menus or anything resembling them for fear of being sued for patent infringement. >I told them that sounded like bullshit since there was plenty of prior art, so Alias couldn’t get a legitimate patent on “marking menus”. >The guy from Kinetix told me that if I didn’t believe him, I should walk across the aisle and ask the people at the Alias booth. So I did. >When I asked one of the Alias sales people if their “marking menus” were patented, he immediately blurted out “of course they are!” So I showed him the ActiveX pie menus on my laptop, and told him that I needed to get in touch with their legal department because they had patented something that I had been working on for many years, and had used in several published products, including The Sims, and I didn’t want them to sue me or EA for patent infringement. The Sims, Pie Menus, Edith Editing, and SimAntics Visual Programming Demo. This is a demonstration of the pie menus, architectural editing tools, and Edith visual programming tools that I developed for The Sims with Will Wright at Maxis and Electronic Arts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exdu4ETscs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exdu4ETscs >When I tried to pin down the Alias marketing representative about what exactly it was that Alias had patented, he started weaseling and changing his story several times. He finally told me that Bill Buxton was the one who invented marking menus, that he was the one behind the patent, that he was the senior user interface researcher at SGI/Alias, and that I should talk to him. He never mentioned Gordon Kurtenbach, only Bill Buxton. >So I called Bill Buxton at Alias, who stonewalled and claimed that there was no patent on marking menus (which turned out to be false, because he was just being coy for legal reasons). He said he felt insulted that I would think he would patent something that we both knew very well was covered by prior art. >I told him that companies try to get bad patents all the time, and that I did not mean to insult him by simply repeating to him the misinformation that his marketing people were spreading around the computer industry, in his name. I told him that should not shoot the messenger, and he should reel in his marketing department and tell them to stop spreading FUD in his name, which he refused. >I tried to explain how Alias’s FUD had adversely affected the user interface design of 3D Studio Max, who refused to implement pie menus in spite of user requests for them. But he did not care about 3D Studio Max, since Kinetix was his competition. I asked him whose side he was on, the user’s or the patent lawyer’s? >He claimed to be on the side of the users, since he is such a well known user interface researcher, but I believe he has sold out to big corporations like Alias, SGI, Microsoft and Autodesk by abusing the patent system for profit, and is in the thrall of corporate lawyers, so he wasn’t being honest. Users beware!

marcodiego 5y ago

Not an user, but judging from comments, you're part of a small set that still repeats comments like this after 2.8.

archerx 5y ago
What has changed since 2.8 in the UI? When I used 2.8 there were still a lot of pain points with the interface that kept me doing the heavy lifting in 3DS max. It was a cloth sim project and I was using blender to export the files into GLTF and even that was a bit frustrating.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Again, what has changed since 1998 in 3D Studio Max's UI?
- bogwog 5y ago
  It sounds like you need to spend some more time reading the manuals and less time complaining online.

valine 5y ago

I disagree. The 2.8+ UI is well designed and way snappier than 3DS Max.

archerx 5y ago
It is subjective but 3D max interface is much more intuitive. Like when navigating the 3D view ports. UE4 also has a nice interface that is similar to blender but feels better.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I think it's a wasteful debate nowadays. Blender used to be too peculiar if not crippled but they reduced the gap a lot. It's bearable now.. and, they could probably get close to most 3D apps UX (i'm speculating but i'd bet a few dollars).
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > It is subjective but 3D max interface is much more intuitive. The most intuitive interface is the one you're used to.
  - archerx 5y ago
    I've used many many different 3D programs from 3DS max, milkshape, XSI, Maya, Unreal 2, Unreal 3/UDK, Unreal 4, Hammer, Source, Three.js web editor, Zbrush, Houdini, etc and none of them have made me as frustrated as using blender. So I don't know?
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      Hello again. Can you name ONE way 3D Studio Max's user interface has tangibly improved since Monica Lewinsky brought Bill Clinton a pizza and blew him in the White House? Not ONE? If you can't, then I rest my case: Max has an ANCIENT outdated user interface, and it's been stagnating for decades. So what if you're used to it? I'm used to Windows 95 and Microsoft Visual Studio 6 too, but that doesn't mean they have good user interfaces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYt0khR_ej0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYt0khR_ej0 >"Jim, let me tell you something: there's gonna to be a WHOLE BUNCH of things we don't tell Mrs. Clinton. Fast food is the least of our worries, ok buddy?"
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      It depends what you're using it for. I like Sketchup and Hammer; Blender doesn't remotely resemble those. But then, Blender can do things that those most certainly can't; they're for different jobs.
- cycomanic 5y ago

DonHopkins 5y ago

Well has 3D Studio Max improved its UI/UX interface since 1998, when I asked Kinetix if they would support pie menus, and they replied that while their users had demanded pie menus (aka marking menus), they wouldn't implement them because of Alias's patent? I even offered to help Kinetix implement pie menus for Max, since I was already writing Max and MaxScript plugins, and wanted their help integrating my open source ActiveX/OLE pie menus with Max. But Kinetix wasn't interested then, and Autodesk still isn't interested in listening to their users or improving Max's user interface decades later, apparently. https://donhopkins.medium.com/automating-the-sims-character-animation-pipeline-with-maxscript-bc490787d7a2 https://donhopkins.medium.com/automating-the-sims-character-... After 25 years since it was created, 3D Studio Max STILL doesn't have pie menus (while Blender has really great built-in pie menus). Kinetix's 3D Studio Max and Alias's Maya used to be competitive and innovative when they were owned by different companies. But now they are both owned by Autodesk, so they have both stagnated and failed to innovate, listen to the demands of their users, and improve their user interfaces, the way Blender rapidly and continuously does today, and always has. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26917124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26917124 Alias used to spread FUD about pie menus, and now Autodesk and their minions spread FUD about Blender, like falsely claiming Blender's GPL license means that you can't use it to make copyrighted artwork. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26918150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26918150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26923816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26923816 https://www.blender.org/about/license/ https://www.blender.org/about/license/ As if stagnating and ignoring the demands of your users while spreading FUD and innuendo about Blender wasn't bad enough, it's rumored that Autodesk even went as far as to mercilessly attack Ton Roosendaal with a ceiling tile ;) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk Pie Menu FUD and Misconceptions: Dispelling the fear, uncertainty, doubt and misconceptions about pie menus. https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menu-fud-and-misconceptions-be8afc49d870 https://donhopkins.medium.com/pie-menu-fud-and-misconception... >Huge Problem: Software Patents and FUD >There is a sad history of people using software patents to make misleading claims about obvious techniques that they didn’t originate, and constructing flawed straw man definitions of ersatz pie menus to contrast with their own inventions, to mislead the patent examiners into granting patents. >There is a financial and institutional incentive to be lazy about researching and less than honest in reporting and describing prior art, in the hopes that it will slip by the patent examiners, which it very often does. >Patent Abuse Example: US Patent US5689667A: Methods and system of controlling menus with radial and linear portions >Unfortunately a bad patent that covered an obvious technique, and also made some incorrect misleading claims, was abused by Alias marketing in Bill Buxton’s name to baselessly threaten and discouraged others from using pie or marking menus, by exaggerating its scope and obfuscating its specificity. It’s my strong opinion that the particular technique that it covered (overflow items) was quit obvious. >Gordon Kurtenbach and I discussed pie and marking menus in 1990 before he wrote his paper and filed the patent, and at that time he made it clear that he understood pie menus supported mouse ahead display suppression, and that pie menus enjoyed the same benefits as marking menus have in easing the transition from novice to expert user: >“The the cool thing is that expert can mouse ahead like you’ve talked about but they get an ink trail so they have a better idea what they’ve selected without even bothering to wait for the menu to come up.” >However that contradicts what the paper and the patent implies, and it’s misled other people into incorrectly believing that pie menus don’t support what I call “mouse ahead display preemption” (or “suppression”, a harsher word), and that the patent covers much more than it actually does. >When Gordon applied for the patent on in 1995, which his employment contract with SGI required him to do, the patent had at least two misleading statements, and the “overflow” technique claim was obvious, which should have prevented it from being granted or invalidated it. >Another piece of mistaken but published misinformation about the differences of “typical pie menus” and marking menus is that “typical pie menus” pop up submenus after the cursor has moved a certain distance from the menu center, without clicking the mouse button. However, I have never seen nor implemented such badly designed pie menus in the real world. >“Typical pie menus” (such as those in The Sims, played by hundreds of millions of people) have always selected leaf and submenu items by triggering on a button press or release (or pen or finger tap or release). They also typically support mouse-ahead. Pie menus can seamlessly support both quick press-drag-release gestures, as well as the more leisurely click-move-click gestures. >The patent US5689667A “Methods and system of controlling menus with radial and linear portions” also makes the mistake of claiming that that pie menu selection is based on pointing at the items like linear menus (or PIXIE), instead of the direction of cursor motion, which Kurtenbach and Buxton know very well is simply not the case with “typical pie menus”. Flight of the PIXIE: This video is derived from a film that demonstrates an early graphical user interface in use. The film was made in 1969 to accompany a paper entitled “PIXIE: a new approach to graphical man-machine communication” presented at the 1969 CAD Conference held in Southampton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDrqR9XssJI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDrqR9XssJI >“Radial menus include two types: pie menus and marking menus. Pie menus are typically used in item selection using the location principles of linear menus as discussed above. Marking menus operate on the principle of the direction of cursor or pointer motion as being the basis for item selection.” -US Patent US5689667A >Unfortunately they were able to successfully deceive the patent reviewers, even though the patent references the Dr. Dobb’s Journal article which clearly describes how pie menu selection and mouse ahead work, contradicting the incorrect claims in the patent. It’s sad that this kind of deception and patent trolling is all too common in the industry, and it causes so many problems. >Even today, long after the patent has expired, Autodesk marketing brochures continue to spread FUD to scare other people away from using marking menus, by bragging that “Patented marking menus let you use context-sensitive gestures to select commands.” >The Long Tail Consequences of Bad Patents and FUD >I attended the computer game developer’s conference in the late 90’s, while I was working at Maxis on The Sims. Since we were using 3D Studio Max, I stopped by the Kinetix booth on the trade show floor, and asked them for some advice integrating my existing ActiveX pie menus into their 3D editing tool. ActiveX Pie Menus: Demo of the free ActiveX Pie Menu Control, developed and demonstrated by Don Hopkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnC8x9x3Xag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnC8x9x3Xag >They told me that Alias had “marking menus” which were like pie menus, and that Kinetix’s customers had been requesting that feature, but since Alias had patented marking menus, they were afraid to use pie menus or anything resembling them for fear of being sued for patent infringement. >I told them that sounded like bullshit since there was plenty of prior art, so Alias couldn’t get a legitimate patent on “marking menus”. >The guy from Kinetix told me that if I didn’t believe him, I should walk across the aisle and ask the people at the Alias booth. So I did. >When I asked one of the Alias sales people if their “marking menus” were patented, he immediately blurted out “of course they are!” So I showed him the ActiveX pie menus on my laptop, and told him that I needed to get in touch with their legal department because they had patented something that I had been working on for many years, and had used in several published products, including The Sims, and I didn’t want them to sue me or EA for patent infringement. The Sims, Pie Menus, Edith Editing, and SimAntics Visual Programming Demo. This is a demonstration of the pie menus, architectural editing tools, and Edith visual programming tools that I developed for The Sims with Will Wright at Maxis and Electronic Arts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exdu4ETscs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-exdu4ETscs >When I tried to pin down the Alias marketing representative about what exactly it was that Alias had patented, he started weaseling and changing his story several times. He finally told me that Bill Buxton was the one who invented marking menus, that he was the one behind the patent, that he was the senior user interface researcher at SGI/Alias, and that I should talk to him. He never mentioned Gordon Kurtenbach, only Bill Buxton. >So I called Bill Buxton at Alias, who stonewalled and claimed that there was no patent on marking menus (which turned out to be false, because he was just being coy for legal reasons). He said he felt insulted that I would think he would patent something that we both knew very well was covered by prior art. >I told him that companies try to get bad patents all the time, and that I did not mean to insult him by simply repeating to him the misinformation that his marketing people were spreading around the computer industry, in his name. I told him that should not shoot the messenger, and he should reel in his marketing department and tell them to stop spreading FUD in his name, which he refused. >I tried to explain how Alias’s FUD had adversely affected the user interface design of 3D Studio Max, who refused to implement pie menus in spite of user requests for them. But he did not care about 3D Studio Max, since Kinetix was his competition. I asked him whose side he was on, the user’s or the patent lawyer’s? >He claimed to be on the side of the users, since he is such a well known user interface researcher, but I believe he has sold out to big corporations like Alias, SGI, Microsoft and Autodesk by abusing the patent system for profit, and is in the thrall of corporate lawyers, so he wasn’t being honest. Users beware!