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Blender: Beyond Mouse and Keyboard

262 points by dagmx 1y ago

WorldPeas 1y ago
I know this is the classic eye-roll question, but is support planned for linux/desktop devices? I imagine the future android app could be used via waydroid but seeing how VLC could bridge the gap, perhaps?
- dagmx 1y ago
  I’m not sure I understand your question. Blender is already available on Desktop Linux. Are you looking to use Blender on a small touch screen backed by desktop Linux?
  - WorldPeas 1y ago
    I have a small touchscreen linux device I use to view HN via 4g, it is a umpc laptop from donki called the nanote next, using the giant blender interface would be greatly enriched on that tiny device if I were to use an android experience.
    - dagmx 1y ago
      In theory yes, you should be able to use this new simplified interface. It may require compiling blender yourself perhaps
      - WorldPeas 1y ago
        I'll see what I can cook up... let's hope it could be enabled with a flag and doesn't require some inaccessible system apis
  - WillAdams 1y ago
    I will note that a Wacom One gen 1 screen/graphics tablet worked perfectly on a Raspberry Pi 4 when I tested it ages ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/16215v6/wacom_one_gen_1_works_perfectly_on_raspberry_pi_4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/16215v6/wacom_one_ge... Looking into using the new gen 2 w/ touch on an rPi 5.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      The Wacom kernel drivers are so nice, especially with the neat little interface GNOME has in the settings. I got a secondhand Wacom tablet from 2002 at a garage sale that serves it's duty signing PDFs and sculpting in Blender on those rare occasions where it's needed. Makes me wonder if anyone's playing osu! on their Steam Decks...
mathnode 1y ago
This is excellent news. So many artists are now using procreate on iPad Pros as their primary platform. I do not miss the days of using puppet to juggle the configs of various overly expensive and user hostile dcc software. The barrier to entry used to be so high for designers.
- Daub 1y ago
  I teach digital painting, and Procreate is slowly becoming my enemy. I fully appreciate its ease of use, its fantastic union with Apple Pen and certainly my students love it. But doing design/creative work on a small screen is not healthy, especially for complex images. neither is it easy to maintain a complex workflow, such as that required by matt painting and multi-layer compositing. Also, any presence of tablets in a design teaching lab is never pretty... I can't easily review their files or integrate their output into a pro desktop app.
  - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
    Cost is likely another big reason it’s popular with students. A $13 one time purchase is hard to beat… even with edu pricing Adobe CC quickly gets more expensive. Clip Studio Paint falls somewhere in the middle.
  - dagmx 1y ago
    The other advantage to procreate+ipad is that it’s easy to take with you. It’s effectively the new sketchbook. It’s just nice to be able to draw on the go or not be tied to a Cintiq. You can connect the iPad to a larger screen and use it like a Cintiq though. It’s definitely not fully featured enough for more complex art but the appeal is more than just the accessibility. Almost all my professional concept artist friends have switched over, but I agree it’s not a great fit for matte paintings.
qntmfred 1y ago
was expecting this to be voice control. guess vibe blending will have to wait.
- password4321 1y ago
  Show HN: MCP server for Blender that builds 3D scenes via natural language https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374 (2025-07-20; 62 comments) Probably a useless submission but the discussion linked to the real thing at https://github.com/ahujasid/blender-mcp https://github.com/ahujasid/blender-mcp
- orbital-decay 1y ago
  Given that it's Blender, I was expecting it to be about 6DoF controllers.
  - yehoshuapw 1y ago
    I think they already work in blender (there even is https://www.printables.com/model/908684-spacemouse-mini-slim-profile-with-easier-assembly https://www.printables.com/model/908684-spacemouse-mini-slim... - which I know works in freecad)
  - LeifCarrotson 1y ago
    Blender already has "NDOF" settings for use with space mouse and similar tools. I'm no Blender expert, but those are indispensable as a user coming from a CAD background.
arjonagelhout 1y ago
I'm building my own polygon modeling app for iOS as a side-project [0], so I feel a bit conflicted. Getting fully featured Blender on the iPad will be amazing for things like Grease Pencil (drawing in 3D) or texture painting, but on the other hand my side-project just became a little bit less relevant. I'll have to take a look at whether I can make some contributions to Blender. [0] https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/shapereality-3d-modeling/id6746662557 https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/shapereality-3d-modeling/id674...
- Fwirt 1y ago
  There’s also the excellent Nomad Sculpt, which while not a mesh editor, is an incredibly performant digital sculpting app. Compared to Blender’s sculpt workflow it maintains a higher frame rate and smaller memory footprint with a higher vertex count. Of course it’s much more limited than Blender but its sculpting workflow is much better and then you can export to Blender. There is room for more than one modeling app on iOS as long as you can offer something that Blender doesn’t, even if it’s just better performance.
  - knolan 1y ago
    How does it compare to blender 4.5 with Vulcan enabled?
    - knolan 1y ago
      Just for reference I’m running 4.5 with the Vulcan backend and sculpting a 6.3 million vertex object completely smoothly and Blender is using 4 GB of RAM and 2.5 GB of video RAM. Granted my system has a 9800 x3D and a 5070ti.
- Daub 1y ago
  One thing Blender lacks is easy 3D texture painting. As far as I know, neither is there a decent 3D texture painting iPad app. Definitely a gap in the market.
  - 1y ago
martin_henk 1y ago
The concept of a pen tablet friendly 3d modelling app was pioneered by an indie dev many years ago: https://moi3d.com/ https://moi3d.com/
henriquegodoy 1y ago
Speaking of interfaces, when will we have one that works just by thinking—something less intrusive than Neuralink—that lets us control not just Blender, but the entire computer? I think my productivity would increase a lot...
- yoz-y 1y ago
  I worked in non invasive BCIs for a couple of years (this was about 7 years ago). My current horizon estimation for a “put a helmet and gave usable brain computer interface” is never. With implants, we are probably decades away. What currently works best is monitoring the motor cortex with implants as those signals are relatively simple to decode (and from what I recall we start to be able to get pretty fine control). Anything tied to higher level thought is far away. As for thought itself, I wonder how would we go about it (assuming we manage to decode it). It’s akin to making a voice controller interface, except you have to tell aloud everything you are thinking.
  - mkaic 1y ago
    Have you kept up with recent ML papers like MindEye, which have managed to reconstruct seen images using image generator models conditioned on fMRI signals? Ever since that paper came out, I (someone who works in ML but have no neuroimaging expertise) have been really excited for the future of noninvasive BCU. Would also be curious to know if you have any thoughts on the several start-ups working in parallel on optimally pumped magnetometers for portable MEG helmets.
    - yoz-y 1y ago
      > Have you kept up with recent ML papers like MindEye, which have managed to reconstruct seen images using image generator models conditioned on fMRI signals? Not really. I left the field mostly because I felt bitter. I find that most papers in the field are more engineering than research. I skimmed through the MindEye paper and don’t find it very interesting. It’s more of mapping of “people looking at images in a fMRI” to identifying the shown image. They make the leap of saying that this is usable to detect actual mind’s eye (they cite a paper where they requires 40 hours of per-subject training, on the specific dataset) which I quite doubt. Also we’re nowhere near having a portable fMRI. As for portable MEG, assuming they can do it: it would be indeed interesting. Since it still relies on synchronized regions I don’t think high level thinking detection is possible but it could be better for detecting motor activity and some mental states.
makeitdouble 1y ago
> The initial platform where this idea will be tested is the Apple iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, followed by Android and other graphic tablets in the future. Asus has been releasing year after year two performance beast, with a very portable form factor, multi-touch support and top of the line mobile CPUs and GPUs: the X13 and Z13 https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow-series/?items=20392 https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow-series/?items=20392 Considering the Surface Pro line also gets the newest Rizen AI chips with up to 32Gb of RAM, having them as second class citizen is kinda sad. PS: blender already runs fine as-is on these machines. But getting a new touch paradigm would be extremely nice, and would be a better test best than a new platform IMHO.
- chamsom 1y ago
  Agree here, they already have a good test bed of devices and the X13 is a bold attempt. (only limitation is the Snapdragon version). I got a Lenovo Yoga precisely because it has a good drawing experience and the Lunar Lake Intel SoCs that have GPU acceleration in Blender.
  - makeitdouble 1y ago
    Yes. And I fumbled the CPU attribution for the Surface devices, they are of course Intel processors (Intel Core Ultra Series 2) for business. The customer line stays on Snapdragon.
miunau 1y ago
For anyone who misses the Second Life-style camera controls in Blender, I made this during the weekend: https://github.com/miunau/blender-secondlife-camera-addon https://github.com/miunau/blender-secondlife-camera-addon It makes navigating 3D spaces so much easier with keyboard and mouse.
pfoof 1y ago
I used some build of blender on windows mobile, crazy how efficiently it worked on 400Mhz HTC Niki, just the screen size, so the performance part seems to be done since forever :D
zkmon 1y ago
I haven't done much designing. Starting with a cube and sculpting, transforming seems the Blender's approach. Are there any other approaches for designing 3-D shapes and assembling them? Basically, Blender says "start with a cube". I want to ask why and what are the other options.
- knolan 1y ago
  Open a new blender file and select Sculpt and you start with a high poly sphere. The default cube is not suitable for sculpting unless you subdivide it several times. You can create whatever start up file you want. Other approaches include subsurface workflows, metaballs, signed distance functions, procedural (geometry nodes) and grease pencil.
- mikepurvis 1y ago
  I'm curious about this too. On the engineering side, tools like Solidworks and Fusion start from extruding a planar sketch— which is a model that maps well to conventional manufacturing techniques, but isn't very artistic.
  - an_aparallel 1y ago
    You want Rhino3d for creative + manufacture
  - the__alchemist 1y ago
    Of note, there is an interesting parallel between this sketch/extrude/cut approach that Solidworks uses, and the Brush approach you used to use to make Half-Life and Source engine maps. (I don't know what the current tools, e.g. for Unreal use).
- MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago
  Blender doesn't say "start with a cube". Its default "General" scene has a cube. You can add whatever mesh, text, curves, metaballs, grease pencil, volumes, etc you want. As far as workflows go, there are far too many to list, and most artists use multiple, but common ones are: * Sculpt from a base mesh, increasing resolution as you go with remeshing, subdivision, dyntopo, etc. * Constructively model with primitives and boolean modifiers. * Constructively model with metaballs. * Do everything via extrusion and joining, as well as other basic face and edge-oriented operators. * Use geometry nodes and/or shaders to programmatically end up with the result you want.
zuInnp 1y ago
Blender is one of my favorite open source tool. Having a UI/UX for tablets is awesome, especially for sculpting (zBrush launched their iPad version last year - but since Maxon bought it, all is subscription only). I joined the Blender development fund last year, they do pretty awesome stuff.
disambiguation 1y ago
Replying mainly to the title - but I'm surprised VR based 3D modeling never took off. I've only dabbled with blender, I know it's a powerful tool, but the learning curve just to navigate the interface is steep - compared to some creativity VR programs which felt instantly intuitive for 3D modeling. I guess for a professional digital artist, having fine technical control of your program is more important.
- dagmx 1y ago
  Modelling is fairly laborious. Almost all VR devices require lots of motion, have limited interaction affordances and have poor screens. So you’re going to be more tired with a worse experience and will be working slower. What XR is good for in the standard creative workflow is review at scale. Blender does have an OpenXR plugin already but usability is hit or miss.
- TOMDM 1y ago
  The biggest holdup for VR sculpting is you have nowhere to rest your hands or tools. In a physical medium you can rest your weight and tools against the clay, glass etc. that you're working with. This is part of the reason why high end 3d cursors have resistive feedback, especially since fine motor control is much easier when you have something to push against and don't have to support the full weight of your arm.
- cmdr2 1y ago
  People do use VR for modeling/animation in Blender - https://freebirdxr.com https://freebirdxr.com (disclaimer: I'm the author of this plugin) Freebird is still quite basic, but it's under active development and more modeling and posing features are being added. So a core set of people definitely use VR in Blender for creation/editing, but I agree the number is quite small.
Fr0styMatt88 1y ago
Blender and FreeCAD are about the only two tools I use that are keeping me from selling my laptop.
pjmlp 1y ago
Not only apps like Blender. I really want to be able to pencil write on the coding apps on the go, now that handwritting reckognition has gotten good enough, but so far most of them provide a very lame experience. It is like people don't really think out of the box on how to take advantage of new mediums. Same applies to all those AI chat boxes, I don't want to type even more, I want to plain talk with my computer, or have AI based workflows integrated into tooling that feel like natural interactions.
- falcor84 1y ago
  I think it just depends on preferences. For me typing is significantly more "natural" than writing with a pen/pencil, which I've probably resorted to less than once a month over the last few years.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Regardless of the preference, the tools should provide both workflows optimally, unfortunately this is yet another example where iOS/iPadOS world is leading, where on Android I can hardly recommend something really usable.
socalgal2 1y ago
Maybe the problem is just impossible or maybe AI assistance will solve it but it's crazy to me how complex 3d software like Blender/Maya/3DSMax/Houdini etc still are. There are 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of settings, Deep hierarchies of complexity. And mostly to build things that people built without computers and only a couple a few tools in the past. I had hoped VR (or AR) might some how magically make this all more approachable but no, it's not much easier in VR/AR. The only tool I've seen in the last 30 years that was semi easy was the Spore Creature creator though of course it had super limits. I guess my hope now is that rather than select all the individual tools I just want AI to help me. At one level it might be it trying to recognize jestures as shapes. You draw a near circle, it makes it a perfect circle. Lots of apps have tried this. unfortunately they are so finicky and then you still need options to turn it off when you actually don't want a perfect circle. Add more features like that and you're back to an impenetrable app. That said, maybe if I could speak it. I draw a circle like sketch and say "make it a circle"? But it's not just that, trying to model almost anything just takes soooooooooo long. You've got learn face selection, vertex selection, edge selection, extrusion options, chamfer options, bevel options, mirroring options, and on and on, and that's just the geometry for geometric based things (furniture, vehicles, buildings, appliances). Then you have to setup UVs, etc..... And it gets worse for characters and organic things. The process hasn't changed significantly since the mid-90s AFAICT. I leared 3ds in 95. I learned Maya in 2000. They're still basically the same apps 25-30 years later. And Blender fits right in in being just as giant and complex. Certain things have changed, sculpting like z-brush. Node geometry like Houdini. And lots of generators for buildings, furniture, plants, trees. But the basics are still the same, still tedious, still need 1000s of options. It's begging for disruption to something easier.
- robenkleene 1y ago
  Couldn't this be said for any creative software, e.g., After Effects, IDEs, DAWs, NLEs, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc... and even a few non-creative applications like Word and Excel? (To your point, I do think 3D modeling software is the most complicated of all of these, but I think as a general rule, the complexity is more similar between these software categories versus other categories like Mail, Notes, etc...) For my part, I think this is because to do good creative work you need minute control, and minute control essentially just means adding lots of controls to software. Sure you can mediate this with AI, the learning curve especially, but that only really helps unskilled workers and hinders skilled workers (e.g., a slider is a more efficient way for a skilled user to get an exact exposure, rather than trying to communicate that with an AI). And I don't really think there's a need for software where unskilled users have a high-degree of control (i.e., skill and control are practically synonyms).
ptsd_dalmatian 1y ago
Anyone else having issues with the videos playback? They don’t play at all on iPhone. Interaction design part is the most interesting for me, I’m curious to see what the team has come up with.
nicman23 1y ago
is there anything like blender for the quest / pcvr?
- Lichtso 1y ago
  I think Blender supports VR natively, though I never tested it myself. And there are also add-ons around that: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/3d_view/vr_scene_inspection.html https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/3d_view/vr_...
  - nicman23 1y ago
    huh i know what iam doing next saturday
  - nicman23 1y ago
    > The feature set is limited to scene inspection use cases. More advanced use cases may be enabled through :c
- rabf 1y ago
  Not quite like Blender, but Openbrush is worth trying. https://openbrush.app/ https://openbrush.app/
bentt 1y ago
This is a little bit folly IMO. A mouse and keyboard provide a less fatiguing and more precise mechanism for the type of 3D that Blender can do. What I imagine they will find is that the act of "tabletizing" Blender will force it to simplify its workflows. You can already see it in the screens. This will downgrade the power that Blender has, confuse the existing users, and generally serve nobody best. If they insist on doing it, it would be a good idea to rebrand it so expectations are in line with what a tablet interface enables/prevents. It's like saying "People with their mouths full of food couldn't perform Shakespeare so we translated Hamlet to a maximum of 2 syllable words. Now everyone can perform Shakespeare."
- FredPret 1y ago
  Off topic, but linguist John McWhorter has an interesting idea about actually translating Shakespeare into modern English: https://www.americantheatre.org/2010/01/01/its-time-to-translate-shakespeare-into-contemporary-english/ https://www.americantheatre.org/2010/01/01/its-time-to-trans...
- jbd0 1y ago
  The blog post says they'll be using Application Templates to implement this: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/app_templates.html https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/app_templ... So touchscreen support will be like a mode you can switch on. I don't think desktop users will be affected.
  - shortrounddev2 1y ago
    Until they find it too tiresome to support two different interfaces and deprecate one or the other
    - diggan 1y ago
      Removing/degrading the UX for keyboard and mouse users would be (professional) suicide for Blender, I'm 99% confident Ton would never do something like that, unless most of the user base suddenly find themselves using tablets exclusively. And even then I'd doubt he'd leave us desktop users behind.
KeplerBoy 1y ago
I hope the idea of blender apps is still alive. https://code.blender.org/2022/11/blender-apps/ https://code.blender.org/2022/11/blender-apps/ could be really powerful in conjunction with blender being supported on iPad (and possibly iphone).
bflesch 1y ago
Based on the title I expected Blender to present their own programming language, something like OpenSCAD. But then they started talking about multi-touch interfaces..

262 points by dagmx 1y ago

I know this is the classic eye-roll question, but is support planned for linux/desktop devices? I imagine the future android app could be used via waydroid but seeing how VLC could bridge the gap, perhaps?

dagmx 1y ago
I’m not sure I understand your question. Blender is already available on Desktop Linux. Are you looking to use Blender on a small touch screen backed by desktop Linux?
- WorldPeas 1y ago
  I have a small touchscreen linux device I use to view HN via 4g, it is a umpc laptop from donki called the nanote next, using the giant blender interface would be greatly enriched on that tiny device if I were to use an android experience.
  - dagmx 1y ago
    In theory yes, you should be able to use this new simplified interface. It may require compiling blender yourself perhaps
    - WorldPeas 1y ago
      I'll see what I can cook up... let's hope it could be enabled with a flag and doesn't require some inaccessible system apis
- WillAdams 1y ago
  I will note that a Wacom One gen 1 screen/graphics tablet worked perfectly on a Raspberry Pi 4 when I tested it ages ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/16215v6/wacom_one_gen_1_works_perfectly_on_raspberry_pi_4/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wacom/comments/16215v6/wacom_one_ge... Looking into using the new gen 2 w/ touch on an rPi 5.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    The Wacom kernel drivers are so nice, especially with the neat little interface GNOME has in the settings. I got a secondhand Wacom tablet from 2002 at a garage sale that serves it's duty signing PDFs and sculpting in Blender on those rare occasions where it's needed. Makes me wonder if anyone's playing osu! on their Steam Decks...

mathnode 1y ago

This is excellent news. So many artists are now using procreate on iPad Pros as their primary platform. I do not miss the days of using puppet to juggle the configs of various overly expensive and user hostile dcc software. The barrier to entry used to be so high for designers.

Daub 1y ago
I teach digital painting, and Procreate is slowly becoming my enemy. I fully appreciate its ease of use, its fantastic union with Apple Pen and certainly my students love it. But doing design/creative work on a small screen is not healthy, especially for complex images. neither is it easy to maintain a complex workflow, such as that required by matt painting and multi-layer compositing. Also, any presence of tablets in a design teaching lab is never pretty... I can't easily review their files or integrate their output into a pro desktop app.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  Cost is likely another big reason it’s popular with students. A $13 one time purchase is hard to beat… even with edu pricing Adobe CC quickly gets more expensive. Clip Studio Paint falls somewhere in the middle.
- dagmx 1y ago
  The other advantage to procreate+ipad is that it’s easy to take with you. It’s effectively the new sketchbook. It’s just nice to be able to draw on the go or not be tied to a Cintiq. You can connect the iPad to a larger screen and use it like a Cintiq though. It’s definitely not fully featured enough for more complex art but the appeal is more than just the accessibility. Almost all my professional concept artist friends have switched over, but I agree it’s not a great fit for matte paintings.

qntmfred 1y ago

was expecting this to be voice control. guess vibe blending will have to wait.

password4321 1y ago
Show HN: MCP server for Blender that builds 3D scenes via natural language https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374 (2025-07-20; 62 comments) Probably a useless submission but the discussion linked to the real thing at https://github.com/ahujasid/blender-mcp https://github.com/ahujasid/blender-mcp
orbital-decay 1y ago
Given that it's Blender, I was expecting it to be about 6DoF controllers.
- yehoshuapw 1y ago
  I think they already work in blender (there even is https://www.printables.com/model/908684-spacemouse-mini-slim-profile-with-easier-assembly https://www.printables.com/model/908684-spacemouse-mini-slim... - which I know works in freecad)
- LeifCarrotson 1y ago
  Blender already has "NDOF" settings for use with space mouse and similar tools. I'm no Blender expert, but those are indispensable as a user coming from a CAD background.

arjonagelhout 1y ago

I'm building my own polygon modeling app for iOS as a side-project [0], so I feel a bit conflicted. Getting fully featured Blender on the iPad will be amazing for things like Grease Pencil (drawing in 3D) or texture painting, but on the other hand my side-project just became a little bit less relevant. I'll have to take a look at whether I can make some contributions to Blender. [0] https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/shapereality-3d-modeling/id6746662557 https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/shapereality-3d-modeling/id674...

Fwirt 1y ago
There’s also the excellent Nomad Sculpt, which while not a mesh editor, is an incredibly performant digital sculpting app. Compared to Blender’s sculpt workflow it maintains a higher frame rate and smaller memory footprint with a higher vertex count. Of course it’s much more limited than Blender but its sculpting workflow is much better and then you can export to Blender. There is room for more than one modeling app on iOS as long as you can offer something that Blender doesn’t, even if it’s just better performance.
- knolan 1y ago
  How does it compare to blender 4.5 with Vulcan enabled?
  - knolan 1y ago
    Just for reference I’m running 4.5 with the Vulcan backend and sculpting a 6.3 million vertex object completely smoothly and Blender is using 4 GB of RAM and 2.5 GB of video RAM. Granted my system has a 9800 x3D and a 5070ti.
Daub 1y ago
One thing Blender lacks is easy 3D texture painting. As far as I know, neither is there a decent 3D texture painting iPad app. Definitely a gap in the market.
- 1y ago

martin_henk 1y ago

The concept of a pen tablet friendly 3d modelling app was pioneered by an indie dev many years ago: https://moi3d.com/ https://moi3d.com/

henriquegodoy 1y ago

Speaking of interfaces, when will we have one that works just by thinking—something less intrusive than Neuralink—that lets us control not just Blender, but the entire computer? I think my productivity would increase a lot...

yoz-y 1y ago
I worked in non invasive BCIs for a couple of years (this was about 7 years ago). My current horizon estimation for a “put a helmet and gave usable brain computer interface” is never. With implants, we are probably decades away. What currently works best is monitoring the motor cortex with implants as those signals are relatively simple to decode (and from what I recall we start to be able to get pretty fine control). Anything tied to higher level thought is far away. As for thought itself, I wonder how would we go about it (assuming we manage to decode it). It’s akin to making a voice controller interface, except you have to tell aloud everything you are thinking.
- mkaic 1y ago
  Have you kept up with recent ML papers like MindEye, which have managed to reconstruct seen images using image generator models conditioned on fMRI signals? Ever since that paper came out, I (someone who works in ML but have no neuroimaging expertise) have been really excited for the future of noninvasive BCU. Would also be curious to know if you have any thoughts on the several start-ups working in parallel on optimally pumped magnetometers for portable MEG helmets.
  - yoz-y 1y ago
    > Have you kept up with recent ML papers like MindEye, which have managed to reconstruct seen images using image generator models conditioned on fMRI signals? Not really. I left the field mostly because I felt bitter. I find that most papers in the field are more engineering than research. I skimmed through the MindEye paper and don’t find it very interesting. It’s more of mapping of “people looking at images in a fMRI” to identifying the shown image. They make the leap of saying that this is usable to detect actual mind’s eye (they cite a paper where they requires 40 hours of per-subject training, on the specific dataset) which I quite doubt. Also we’re nowhere near having a portable fMRI. As for portable MEG, assuming they can do it: it would be indeed interesting. Since it still relies on synchronized regions I don’t think high level thinking detection is possible but it could be better for detecting motor activity and some mental states.

makeitdouble 1y ago

> The initial platform where this idea will be tested is the Apple iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, followed by Android and other graphic tablets in the future. Asus has been releasing year after year two performance beast, with a very portable form factor, multi-touch support and top of the line mobile CPUs and GPUs: the X13 and Z13 https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow-series/?items=20392 https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-flow-series/?items=20392 Considering the Surface Pro line also gets the newest Rizen AI chips with up to 32Gb of RAM, having them as second class citizen is kinda sad. PS: blender already runs fine as-is on these machines. But getting a new touch paradigm would be extremely nice, and would be a better test best than a new platform IMHO.

chamsom 1y ago
Agree here, they already have a good test bed of devices and the X13 is a bold attempt. (only limitation is the Snapdragon version). I got a Lenovo Yoga precisely because it has a good drawing experience and the Lunar Lake Intel SoCs that have GPU acceleration in Blender.
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  Yes. And I fumbled the CPU attribution for the Surface devices, they are of course Intel processors (Intel Core Ultra Series 2) for business. The customer line stays on Snapdragon.

miunau 1y ago

For anyone who misses the Second Life-style camera controls in Blender, I made this during the weekend: https://github.com/miunau/blender-secondlife-camera-addon https://github.com/miunau/blender-secondlife-camera-addon It makes navigating 3D spaces so much easier with keyboard and mouse.

pfoof 1y ago

I used some build of blender on windows mobile, crazy how efficiently it worked on 400Mhz HTC Niki, just the screen size, so the performance part seems to be done since forever :D

zkmon 1y ago

I haven't done much designing. Starting with a cube and sculpting, transforming seems the Blender's approach. Are there any other approaches for designing 3-D shapes and assembling them? Basically, Blender says "start with a cube". I want to ask why and what are the other options.

knolan 1y ago
Open a new blender file and select Sculpt and you start with a high poly sphere. The default cube is not suitable for sculpting unless you subdivide it several times. You can create whatever start up file you want. Other approaches include subsurface workflows, metaballs, signed distance functions, procedural (geometry nodes) and grease pencil.
mikepurvis 1y ago
I'm curious about this too. On the engineering side, tools like Solidworks and Fusion start from extruding a planar sketch— which is a model that maps well to conventional manufacturing techniques, but isn't very artistic.
- an_aparallel 1y ago
  You want Rhino3d for creative + manufacture
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  Of note, there is an interesting parallel between this sketch/extrude/cut approach that Solidworks uses, and the Brush approach you used to use to make Half-Life and Source engine maps. (I don't know what the current tools, e.g. for Unreal use).
MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago
Blender doesn't say "start with a cube". Its default "General" scene has a cube. You can add whatever mesh, text, curves, metaballs, grease pencil, volumes, etc you want. As far as workflows go, there are far too many to list, and most artists use multiple, but common ones are: * Sculpt from a base mesh, increasing resolution as you go with remeshing, subdivision, dyntopo, etc. * Constructively model with primitives and boolean modifiers. * Constructively model with metaballs. * Do everything via extrusion and joining, as well as other basic face and edge-oriented operators. * Use geometry nodes and/or shaders to programmatically end up with the result you want.

zuInnp 1y ago

Blender is one of my favorite open source tool. Having a UI/UX for tablets is awesome, especially for sculpting (zBrush launched their iPad version last year - but since Maxon bought it, all is subscription only). I joined the Blender development fund last year, they do pretty awesome stuff.

disambiguation 1y ago

Replying mainly to the title - but I'm surprised VR based 3D modeling never took off. I've only dabbled with blender, I know it's a powerful tool, but the learning curve just to navigate the interface is steep - compared to some creativity VR programs which felt instantly intuitive for 3D modeling. I guess for a professional digital artist, having fine technical control of your program is more important.

dagmx 1y ago
Modelling is fairly laborious. Almost all VR devices require lots of motion, have limited interaction affordances and have poor screens. So you’re going to be more tired with a worse experience and will be working slower. What XR is good for in the standard creative workflow is review at scale. Blender does have an OpenXR plugin already but usability is hit or miss.
TOMDM 1y ago
The biggest holdup for VR sculpting is you have nowhere to rest your hands or tools. In a physical medium you can rest your weight and tools against the clay, glass etc. that you're working with. This is part of the reason why high end 3d cursors have resistive feedback, especially since fine motor control is much easier when you have something to push against and don't have to support the full weight of your arm.
cmdr2 1y ago
People do use VR for modeling/animation in Blender - https://freebirdxr.com https://freebirdxr.com (disclaimer: I'm the author of this plugin) Freebird is still quite basic, but it's under active development and more modeling and posing features are being added. So a core set of people definitely use VR in Blender for creation/editing, but I agree the number is quite small.

Fr0styMatt88 1y ago

Blender and FreeCAD are about the only two tools I use that are keeping me from selling my laptop.

pjmlp 1y ago

Not only apps like Blender. I really want to be able to pencil write on the coding apps on the go, now that handwritting reckognition has gotten good enough, but so far most of them provide a very lame experience. It is like people don't really think out of the box on how to take advantage of new mediums. Same applies to all those AI chat boxes, I don't want to type even more, I want to plain talk with my computer, or have AI based workflows integrated into tooling that feel like natural interactions.

falcor84 1y ago
I think it just depends on preferences. For me typing is significantly more "natural" than writing with a pen/pencil, which I've probably resorted to less than once a month over the last few years.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Regardless of the preference, the tools should provide both workflows optimally, unfortunately this is yet another example where iOS/iPadOS world is leading, where on Android I can hardly recommend something really usable.

socalgal2 1y ago

Maybe the problem is just impossible or maybe AI assistance will solve it but it's crazy to me how complex 3d software like Blender/Maya/3DSMax/Houdini etc still are. There are 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of settings, Deep hierarchies of complexity. And mostly to build things that people built without computers and only a couple a few tools in the past. I had hoped VR (or AR) might some how magically make this all more approachable but no, it's not much easier in VR/AR. The only tool I've seen in the last 30 years that was semi easy was the Spore Creature creator though of course it had super limits. I guess my hope now is that rather than select all the individual tools I just want AI to help me. At one level it might be it trying to recognize jestures as shapes. You draw a near circle, it makes it a perfect circle. Lots of apps have tried this. unfortunately they are so finicky and then you still need options to turn it off when you actually don't want a perfect circle. Add more features like that and you're back to an impenetrable app. That said, maybe if I could speak it. I draw a circle like sketch and say "make it a circle"? But it's not just that, trying to model almost anything just takes soooooooooo long. You've got learn face selection, vertex selection, edge selection, extrusion options, chamfer options, bevel options, mirroring options, and on and on, and that's just the geometry for geometric based things (furniture, vehicles, buildings, appliances). Then you have to setup UVs, etc..... And it gets worse for characters and organic things. The process hasn't changed significantly since the mid-90s AFAICT. I leared 3ds in 95. I learned Maya in 2000. They're still basically the same apps 25-30 years later. And Blender fits right in in being just as giant and complex. Certain things have changed, sculpting like z-brush. Node geometry like Houdini. And lots of generators for buildings, furniture, plants, trees. But the basics are still the same, still tedious, still need 1000s of options. It's begging for disruption to something easier.

robenkleene 1y ago
Couldn't this be said for any creative software, e.g., After Effects, IDEs, DAWs, NLEs, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc... and even a few non-creative applications like Word and Excel? (To your point, I do think 3D modeling software is the most complicated of all of these, but I think as a general rule, the complexity is more similar between these software categories versus other categories like Mail, Notes, etc...) For my part, I think this is because to do good creative work you need minute control, and minute control essentially just means adding lots of controls to software. Sure you can mediate this with AI, the learning curve especially, but that only really helps unskilled workers and hinders skilled workers (e.g., a slider is a more efficient way for a skilled user to get an exact exposure, rather than trying to communicate that with an AI). And I don't really think there's a need for software where unskilled users have a high-degree of control (i.e., skill and control are practically synonyms).

ptsd_dalmatian 1y ago

Anyone else having issues with the videos playback? They don’t play at all on iPhone. Interaction design part is the most interesting for me, I’m curious to see what the team has come up with.

nicman23 1y ago

is there anything like blender for the quest / pcvr?

Lichtso 1y ago
I think Blender supports VR natively, though I never tested it myself. And there are also add-ons around that: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/3d_view/vr_scene_inspection.html https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/3d_view/vr_...
- nicman23 1y ago
  huh i know what iam doing next saturday
- nicman23 1y ago
  > The feature set is limited to scene inspection use cases. More advanced use cases may be enabled through :c
rabf 1y ago
Not quite like Blender, but Openbrush is worth trying. https://openbrush.app/ https://openbrush.app/

bentt 1y ago

This is a little bit folly IMO. A mouse and keyboard provide a less fatiguing and more precise mechanism for the type of 3D that Blender can do. What I imagine they will find is that the act of "tabletizing" Blender will force it to simplify its workflows. You can already see it in the screens. This will downgrade the power that Blender has, confuse the existing users, and generally serve nobody best. If they insist on doing it, it would be a good idea to rebrand it so expectations are in line with what a tablet interface enables/prevents. It's like saying "People with their mouths full of food couldn't perform Shakespeare so we translated Hamlet to a maximum of 2 syllable words. Now everyone can perform Shakespeare."

FredPret 1y ago
Off topic, but linguist John McWhorter has an interesting idea about actually translating Shakespeare into modern English: https://www.americantheatre.org/2010/01/01/its-time-to-translate-shakespeare-into-contemporary-english/ https://www.americantheatre.org/2010/01/01/its-time-to-trans...
jbd0 1y ago
The blog post says they'll be using Application Templates to implement this: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/app_templates.html https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/advanced/app_templ... So touchscreen support will be like a mode you can switch on. I don't think desktop users will be affected.
- shortrounddev2 1y ago
  Until they find it too tiresome to support two different interfaces and deprecate one or the other
  - diggan 1y ago
    Removing/degrading the UX for keyboard and mouse users would be (professional) suicide for Blender, I'm 99% confident Ton would never do something like that, unless most of the user base suddenly find themselves using tablets exclusively. And even then I'd doubt he'd leave us desktop users behind.

KeplerBoy 1y ago

I hope the idea of blender apps is still alive. https://code.blender.org/2022/11/blender-apps/ https://code.blender.org/2022/11/blender-apps/ could be really powerful in conjunction with blender being supported on iPad (and possibly iphone).

bflesch 1y ago

Based on the title I expected Blender to present their own programming language, something like OpenSCAD. But then they started talking about multi-touch interfaces..