3 ms·

I find it hard to see who this tool is for? 3d artists seem to prefer more graphical ways of interaction as opposed to scripting/entering commands. Perhaps dev

by jmickey 13y ago

I find it hard to see who this tool is for? 3d artists seem to prefer more graphical ways of interaction as opposed to scripting/entering commands. Perhaps developers/statisticians/scientists looking to visualise their data?

Bradenski 13y ago
I'm thinking storyboard artists for 3D animated movies would love this.
- JabavuAdams 13y ago
  I doubt it. Think of the difference between someone who's unfamiliar with vim, versus an expert. I'm the former, so it ends up feeling too meta. I.e. I'm thinking about how to enter commands to do my work, instead of just having the work flow with no perception of tooling between me and the work. Consider that artists have already become experts at sketching, at visual design, etc. For them, a pen or stylus or 3d program doesn't feel like tooling, but give them an unfamiliar tool and it will totally get in the way of creative expression.
  - dasil003 13y ago
    On the other hand, even designers who are adamantly non-technical and refuse to get into any code ala HTML/CSS often still learn keyboard shortcuts very deeply in programs like Photoshop / Illustrator / InDesign. The question to me is whether Vim3D is actually bringing significant improvement over whatever shortcuts exist in current 3d modeling software.
pyramation 13y ago
I built vim3d for myself to use. I used to work for Side Effects Software as a 3D artist using Houdini (sidefx.com), which I then got deeper into programming, and vim was my text editor of choice. I wanted to create something to enable me to build 3D content using a shell, but also having access to a graphical interface. When you use commands, you store the procedures or instructions for how to build something, so your work is more re-usable and stored as a scene file (plain text), vs. something like maya where you're graphically building and history gets deleted (in fact there is a delete history option in maya) and completely stored in binary or some very hard to read scene description language. vim3d provides a simplified, very human-readable approach to its scene files that somewhat remind me of bash or assembly. And, as a programmer, you get the keyboard as your weapon of choice, with command history, undo/redo stack, and ability to save 3D scenes as programs that you can read back into the system to read or write later. Oh, here's another analogy: if vim3d is like vim, blender is like sublime text :) Admittedly, much of vim3d's functionality (although not UI) was deeply inspired by sidefx.com's houdini if you are curious. Houdini is for the "engineers" of 3D designers in some perspective, whereas Maya is for the "non-technical" 3D designers.

by jmickey 13y ago

Bradenski 13y ago

I'm thinking storyboard artists for 3D animated movies would love this.

JabavuAdams 13y ago
I doubt it. Think of the difference between someone who's unfamiliar with vim, versus an expert. I'm the former, so it ends up feeling too meta. I.e. I'm thinking about how to enter commands to do my work, instead of just having the work flow with no perception of tooling between me and the work. Consider that artists have already become experts at sketching, at visual design, etc. For them, a pen or stylus or 3d program doesn't feel like tooling, but give them an unfamiliar tool and it will totally get in the way of creative expression.
- dasil003 13y ago
  On the other hand, even designers who are adamantly non-technical and refuse to get into any code ala HTML/CSS often still learn keyboard shortcuts very deeply in programs like Photoshop / Illustrator / InDesign. The question to me is whether Vim3D is actually bringing significant improvement over whatever shortcuts exist in current 3d modeling software.

pyramation 13y ago

I built vim3d for myself to use. I used to work for Side Effects Software as a 3D artist using Houdini (sidefx.com), which I then got deeper into programming, and vim was my text editor of choice. I wanted to create something to enable me to build 3D content using a shell, but also having access to a graphical interface. When you use commands, you store the procedures or instructions for how to build something, so your work is more re-usable and stored as a scene file (plain text), vs. something like maya where you're graphically building and history gets deleted (in fact there is a delete history option in maya) and completely stored in binary or some very hard to read scene description language. vim3d provides a simplified, very human-readable approach to its scene files that somewhat remind me of bash or assembly. And, as a programmer, you get the keyboard as your weapon of choice, with command history, undo/redo stack, and ability to save 3D scenes as programs that you can read back into the system to read or write later. Oh, here's another analogy: if vim3d is like vim, blender is like sublime text :) Admittedly, much of vim3d's functionality (although not UI) was deeply inspired by sidefx.com's houdini if you are curious. Houdini is for the "engineers" of 3D designers in some perspective, whereas Maya is for the "non-technical" 3D designers.