Cool things in Blender that aren't so obvious

[Loolarge]

When you hit the R key, you rotate an object on the view plane. But if you hit R again you can rotate your object freely in the “trackball” mode.

[Slider7]

Offtopic again but kinda on topic I guess

I have read these posts and they put me wonder the values and logic of software designers.

I think that "hidden" feature is a no feature at all. I feel that there is lots of work to in order to make software more easier to use. I mean is there any sense to use all your time and effort to think how to use software? There should be another kind of philosophy to design user interfaces as it now seems to be. If it takes too long time to understand from end users how to use the software it is failure of the software designers not the failure of the end users. 

The principles should be like the following ones:

1. If more you need to use the manual the less succesfull is the design of the product. The designers should think how to make the software as simple and intuitive as possible. The ideal situation is that there should be no manuals at all. UI should always guide the user to do what he wants. 

2. Always assume average IQ of the user. Actually average IQ is too high, maybe a little below it. Most of us have average IQ, you know.  If you need astronomical IQ in ordrer to use the software its bad design. Intelligent and creative  designers can create user interfaces which are easy to use. It is not impossible at all but perhaps not easy. 

3. We have very little time here to learn all things. Life is short. There is no too much time to learn manuals. Look at Apple's OS X or Ipod. Why they are good? Because they are made easy to use. They use lots of time to think how to make the thing as easy to use as possible. That is the key to success. People want to concentrate to content of the design not to manuals. 

People often blame themselves that they are stupid because they do not learn how to use some software or hardware. This is usually not true: most of us has at least average IQ. If this is not enough to learn the software it is a designers fault, not the users fault. 
 
Why Gimp is not the grafics people favorite? After all its free? Does it lack some features? Maybe few of them but I think its most flaw is simply its horrible user interface. I believe that  people want to pay $999 of Photoshop simply because it is really nice to use. I have used gimp and photoshop and if I had that extra money I would immidiately buy Photoshop. That is because Gimp is simply so horrible to use. I seldomly need something in Gimp which it does not have as a feature. But to do something in Gimp is simply pain - even the most simple tasks. Paint is much, much better in this respect and maybe it will someday be something useful. I hope so. 

It seems that people who are good to code software do not have training in actual ui design at all. It looks that these coders always assume that most of the users are Mensa people. They are not. Only 2% can be.  The only good thing here is that if you can use some complex software like Maya you may get a job because its so difficult that not everybody can handle it. I think this is not a good thing, you should get your job because you have good design ideas and the question how you can use some software should be rather irrelevant.  

I think that the next step should be how make such a 3D software that even a total moron can learn it rather quickly. You already can make lots of thing with existing features of the blender but the bigger problem is how to learn them quicky. Software should be made for people not otherwise.

I agree. Blender WILL be adopted in MUCH MUCH MUCH more places if they just re-did the UI. I am 100% sure of this.

The problem is who do you listen to?
Some people like Photoshop some like Painter.
Some people prefer Maya’s UI to Max’s and some like the way Lightwave does it.

Personally I think Blender should copy the UI of Cinema4D!!

[ornitorrincos]

Offtopic again but kinda on topic I guess

I agree. Blender WILL be adopted in MUCH MUCH MUCH more places if they just re-did the UI. I am 100% sure of this.

The problem is who do you listen to?
Some people like Photoshop some like Painter.
Some people prefer Maya’s UI to Max’s and some like the way Lightwave does it.

Personally I think Blender should copy the UI of Cinema4D!!

and some people just love blender UI

[Green67]

Is there a “Blender.py” file I’m missing?
I can do an “import Blender” from within Blender’s Python Shell panel;
but Blender is Slow on my machine and I’d like to code & run some python scripts from IDLE (much faster). However the “import Blender” doesnt work from any program outside of Blender.

Any help would be appreciated,
Green
greenlamar3020@yahoo.com
http://greenlamar.fortunecity.com/index.htm
Everybody wants to Rule the World

[RendoGog]

Personally I think Blender should copy the UI of Cinema4D!!

ooohh that makes me shudder, the idea of getting rid of blenders nice node based texture system and replacing it with c4Ds debacle :eek:

[Liquidape]

Here is a cool one that snuck into blender just recently (2.48 I think).

To “Snap” the view to the axis views without touching the numpad, start your rotation with the MMB and then press and hold CTRL. When you get near an axis view (front, side, top, bottom, back) the camera will snap into the orthogonal view looking down the axis. Very handy for Tablet users so you don’t have to one hand off the pen/mouse.

[danielHinton]

ooohh that makes me shudder, the idea of getting rid of blenders nice node based texture system and replacing it with c4Ds debacle :eek:

Blender’s UI doesn’t compare to C4D’s. It may be convenient for power users, but it ain’t for everyone. I have nothing against Blender, but as a former user I have to say that it has it’s faults - one of which is the inability to split the display over multiple monitors, the lack of an option to keyframe every property (including render settings!), the lack of an option to save render presets within projects etc etc etc.

have you ever used xpresso? it’s a node-based programming system native to cinema4d that works in exactly the same way as the blender material system…except it can be applied to most if not all of c4d.

[RendoGog]

Blender’s UI doesn’t compare to C4D’s. It may be convenient for power users, but it ain’t for everyone. I have nothing against Blender, but as a former user I have to say that it has it’s faults - one of which is the inability to split the display over multiple monitors, the lack of an option to keyframe every property (including render settings!), the lack of an option to save render presets within projects etc etc etc.

have you ever used xpresso? it’s a node-based programming system native to cinema4d that works in exactly the same way as the blender material system…except it can be applied to most if not all of c4d.

Must admit I haven’t I last tried c4d at version 6 so I don’t know if this has been added since, or whether I missed it but at that time the default mat system was horrid.

Don’t get me wrong I think blender is incredible for the price, but I won’t say it’s perfect.

[danielHinton]

Don’t get me wrong I think blender is incredible for the price, but I won’t say it’s perfect.

my sentiments exactly!

[iluvgfx]

Thank you for that tip Liquidape.

Here is a cool one that snuck into blender just recently (2.48 I think).

To “Snap” the view to the axis views without touching the numpad, start your rotation with the MMB and then press and hold CTRL. When you get near an axis view (front, side, top, bottom, back) the camera will snap into the orthogonal view looking down the axis. Very handy for Tablet users so you don’t have to one hand off the pen/mouse.

[iluvgfx]

to quickly step through animation frames, use ALT+MMB scroll… (to and fro)

[redbyte]

Hi all!
Given that this thread has reached 13 pages, I thought I’d compile all the best tricks from this thread into an easy to read list:

25 Useful Blender tricks that aren’t so obvious

It includes video and pictures demonstrations to help out.

If you enjoyed the post or think I’ve missed out something out, feel free to comment here or on my blog.

Enjoy!

[Bao2]

I like to model using not the viewport background image but a image in a plane. So I create a plane and then create a material with the image, unwrap the plane and so I can see the plane with the image in the viewport.

Well, select the plane with the image and: alt + v
and the plane adapts to the size of the image. Now scale the plane to the size you want.

Before knowing this I always was creating the plane with similar measures to the image.

[dac77]

When you choose to show in node editor backgroud viewer node, then you can Shift-MMB drag to move the backgroud around.
Maybe obvious but I found it just yesterday.

[sonouna]

I found this “discovery” useful:
if you scale in object mode their “scale” value will (obviously!) change, while doing the same in edit mode (i.e. select all faces/edges/vertices and then scale) will leave the object scale to “1”
bye :wavey:

[NateMcGraw]

if you select one vertex and press/hold ctrl and + then your selection area will grow till you have selected the entire connected mesh i hope that was explained well enough and make sure you don’t have anything you want to undo first this can take up a lot of your undo slots

[danielHinton]

I can’t help myself:

1. wrong forum.

2. you’ve quoted yourself in your own signature. Not a good way to attract clients.

3. Neither is asking for donations. Most of the people on this board got where they are by insane amounts of hard work, personal sacrifice and talent - not handouts from strangers.

4. Well done for putting a reel together and getting it online, now you really have to work hard to add (much) more content and really polish it up.

5. following on from that, AFAIK a vfx house might want to show more skills than modelling and animation, typically you’ll need to add simulations, compositing, camerawork (including tracking), lighting, on-set supervision…

6. Finally, who do you want to work with? what’s your ideal client? My guess is that not everyone is going to want to work the same hours as you. For example corporate clients are likely to work 9-5, and anything with a larger budget will often work 14-hour days for weeks and even months at a time. The point is, you’re putting off potential clients by limiting the hours you work to your own “unique” times.

Sorry for the essay…

EDIT: just realised you’ve spammed other cgtalk forums with this exact same post. good luck with the ban…

[system]

Is there a way to toggle the OB: boxes like in 2.5 but in 2.49?

or any other box, I mean, toggle it to watch and select all the objects…

Here is mine:

1.When you are going to charge a texture or image you can CTRL+click the “load” button and then you will see thumbnails.

2.“I” key over any button and you can animate it values, par example, you can animate the lamp energy values.

[MortenE]

Is it an idea to make a new thread, same subject, but solely for 2.5?

[iceycooly]

I don’t know if you guys know this already. When weight painting, you don’t have to exit the mode. Just right-click on another object and start painting.