5 ms·

I love blender, but as a person with a startup in the 3d printing field (shameless plug: bld3r.com) my one regret is that the learning curve for modeling is so

by scoofy 13y ago

I love blender, but as a person with a startup in the 3d printing field (shameless plug: bld3r.com) my one regret is that the learning curve for modeling is so steep. Is there a forked version that is a standalone for 3d modeling? If there isn't, there should be. Blender is the only program i know of that is open enough and powerful enough to spend a long time learning, but for noobs in 3d printing, it's absurdly disheartening. I'd hope we could develop a version easy as solidworks, even if it were uglier. If i'm totally out of the loop on open cad software, do please tell me what i'm missing.

iKlsR 13y ago
Why would you need a standalone version for modeling? That would be like having a car sans everything except the engine. The 3d viewport works closely with almost all the other views, if you don't need a feature, just hide it. Once you grasp the basics of how to manipulate/transform vertices the curve is flattened immensely. The only tip I could give is to learn the keyboard shortcuts. If you still insist, you could build your own version of Blender and omit many of the other things it comes with now by default, the game engine, cycles etc.
- scoofy 13y ago
  In a word, clarity. I realize it would be redundant, that's not the point. I'm hoping for 3d modeling software that is free, and easy to start with. Maybe blender isn't the solution to that problem, but i've spent well over two years using blender, and i honestly have no idea what half of it does. There are some helpful "blender for beginners" video tutorials, but not many, and i've looked. In trying to advance open 3d printing, this is a huge barrier. Modeling software is the future, and if we want any independence from stratasys we'll need a powerful, easy to learn, modeling program. Otherwise we'll be overwelmed by proprietary software that only works with proprietary printers, e.g. makerware slicing program.
  - iKlsR 13y ago
    2 years and no progress? I think you are doing something wrong. I have been using Blender for a long while now and there are parts of it that I see every day and don't use or even know what it does. It's a generalist's package, it can be overwhelming but just focus on what you want and don't try to grasp every bit of it. A beginner's series I would recommend is http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/blender-basics-introduction-for-beginners/ http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/blender-basics-intro... and some useful resources can be found here http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/43/12 http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/43/12. I have a friend on fb that makes amazing 3d prints using Blender and a couple years ago he was fairly new to it, here's his blog, http://generativemodelingproject.blogspot.com/ http://generativemodelingproject.blogspot.com/
    - scoofy 13y ago
      I'm familiar with this course, the amount of time dedicated to modeling is not very large, but the overview of the controls is pretty decent. The reason i'm not good at using blender is that when i hit a wall... it's a pretty insurmountable wall. It's much easier to just switch programs. If i need precision, openSCAD, if not, sketchup, both of which are obviously inferior. The stack exchange post seems very useful, i'll look into that, thanks.
  - dtf 13y ago
    If you already understand the process of modelling, it's really nothing more than learning some keyboard shortcuts. I'd say that the modelling process itself - learning how a modeller thinks about the mesh and approaches various problems - took me far longer to learn than any particular quirks that Blender has. There was a discussion recently about making Blender's UI "more friendly", which seemed to revolve mainly about coming up with a pretty icon for each operation and making left-click the select button. Pretty superficial stuff really.
- nightski 13y ago
  Actually one of the premier packages for 3D does exactly this, Lightwave 3D. It has a separate exe for modeling. At least it did back in the day.
  - iKlsR 13y ago
    Lightwave is commercial and as someone who has used it in the past, you will be falling into the same learning curve pit.
terhechte 13y ago
There's Wings3D
- scoofy 13y ago
  I'll look into this, thank you.
chestnut-tree 13y ago
"...the learning curve for modeling is so steep" I agree Blender has an intimidating UI (most 3D apps do). There's been a recent campaign to improve the Blender UI that has (not surprisingly) met with mixed views from the Blender community. In my view, Blender has the same problems with UX as many open source projects: you can't design by committee, but everyone feels they should have a say in the UX. As soon as you create a dedicated team to shape the UX, it creates so much resentment. (Ubuntu is another example of this). Here is a Youtube video of a presentation at this years Blender Conference (Oct 2013) on improving the Blender UI. The Q&A at the end of the session is a bit depressing: the audience seem resistant to change and feel that making Blender easier to use would mean "dumbing down" the app. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aIA2LaB2Iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aIA2LaB2Iw

by scoofy 13y ago

iKlsR 13y ago

Why would you need a standalone version for modeling? That would be like having a car sans everything except the engine. The 3d viewport works closely with almost all the other views, if you don't need a feature, just hide it. Once you grasp the basics of how to manipulate/transform vertices the curve is flattened immensely. The only tip I could give is to learn the keyboard shortcuts. If you still insist, you could build your own version of Blender and omit many of the other things it comes with now by default, the game engine, cycles etc.

scoofy 13y ago
In a word, clarity. I realize it would be redundant, that's not the point. I'm hoping for 3d modeling software that is free, and easy to start with. Maybe blender isn't the solution to that problem, but i've spent well over two years using blender, and i honestly have no idea what half of it does. There are some helpful "blender for beginners" video tutorials, but not many, and i've looked. In trying to advance open 3d printing, this is a huge barrier. Modeling software is the future, and if we want any independence from stratasys we'll need a powerful, easy to learn, modeling program. Otherwise we'll be overwelmed by proprietary software that only works with proprietary printers, e.g. makerware slicing program.
- iKlsR 13y ago
  2 years and no progress? I think you are doing something wrong. I have been using Blender for a long while now and there are parts of it that I see every day and don't use or even know what it does. It's a generalist's package, it can be overwhelming but just focus on what you want and don't try to grasp every bit of it. A beginner's series I would recommend is http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/blender-basics-introduction-for-beginners/ http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/blender-basics-intro... and some useful resources can be found here http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/43/12 http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/43/12. I have a friend on fb that makes amazing 3d prints using Blender and a couple years ago he was fairly new to it, here's his blog, http://generativemodelingproject.blogspot.com/ http://generativemodelingproject.blogspot.com/
  - scoofy 13y ago
    I'm familiar with this course, the amount of time dedicated to modeling is not very large, but the overview of the controls is pretty decent. The reason i'm not good at using blender is that when i hit a wall... it's a pretty insurmountable wall. It's much easier to just switch programs. If i need precision, openSCAD, if not, sketchup, both of which are obviously inferior. The stack exchange post seems very useful, i'll look into that, thanks.
- dtf 13y ago
  If you already understand the process of modelling, it's really nothing more than learning some keyboard shortcuts. I'd say that the modelling process itself - learning how a modeller thinks about the mesh and approaches various problems - took me far longer to learn than any particular quirks that Blender has. There was a discussion recently about making Blender's UI "more friendly", which seemed to revolve mainly about coming up with a pretty icon for each operation and making left-click the select button. Pretty superficial stuff really.
nightski 13y ago
Actually one of the premier packages for 3D does exactly this, Lightwave 3D. It has a separate exe for modeling. At least it did back in the day.
- iKlsR 13y ago
  Lightwave is commercial and as someone who has used it in the past, you will be falling into the same learning curve pit.

terhechte 13y ago

There's Wings3D

scoofy 13y ago
I'll look into this, thank you.

chestnut-tree 13y ago

"...the learning curve for modeling is so steep" I agree Blender has an intimidating UI (most 3D apps do). There's been a recent campaign to improve the Blender UI that has (not surprisingly) met with mixed views from the Blender community. In my view, Blender has the same problems with UX as many open source projects: you can't design by committee, but everyone feels they should have a say in the UX. As soon as you create a dedicated team to shape the UX, it creates so much resentment. (Ubuntu is another example of this). Here is a Youtube video of a presentation at this years Blender Conference (Oct 2013) on improving the Blender UI. The Q&A at the end of the session is a bit depressing: the audience seem resistant to change and feel that making Blender easier to use would mean "dumbing down" the app. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aIA2LaB2Iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aIA2LaB2Iw