Simple Ui wish

#21

Great Ideas!

I think I never ever used the dropdown item list for the last 5 or 6 years. For me, it could vanish completely - for involved scenes, I couldn’t imagine a more cumbersome way to access things :wink:

The Flat Item List is fantastic, Maybe a different way of showing hierarchies could be established that doesn’t take much space, like a kind of colorcoding in the background?
Or using the lines between the objects in different lengths to hint at their hierarchic depth?

The thing I like about the Sil3 design is, that you can keep your mouse in a similar area for all the keying. He has used the current layout basically and just moved it below the world view, but I’m sure one could create a much narrower layout while keeping the overview.
So with starting anew and concentrating on what is needed and less on what’s already there, I’m sure you could reduce the height by half.

  • The command line at the bottom could be optional?
  • The slider Area could be combined with the frame-ruler area - no need to have it twice.
  • The introduction of timeline markers would also go to that new Slider/Ruler/Marker area. :wink:
  • The In- and Out point fields could be integrated into that Ruler too (left and right)
  • The current frame field could vanish if you could double click the number on the Time Slider to enter a value. This could also be an alternative option for the In/Out sliders.
  • A better design for the transport buttons could integrate them better.
  • Make preview belongs in here too with an options button that brings up a flying preferences window. The play tab could vanish in the long run IMO.

It would be interesting to learn, which Buttons are never used by anyone…
For me, the whole Edit: Row of buttons could be replaced by shortcuts :wink:
Well I’m in spring cleaning mode :cool:

When my current jobs are done, I feel like photoshopping too :slight_smile:

Very interesting thread indeed!

Cheers,

Edit: Yes, Blender could take a huge market share off the commercial tools if the UI would be more standardized… 3D is complicated enough - learning a completely new interaction model is too cumbersome for most people…

#22

The flat item list looks great.

You could also use single character indents to offset the position in the hierarchy, rather than the current multi character indents. Maybe use something Like:

–

There likely wouldnt be THAT much screen real estate used up then, most lists look like they would only be a few characters deep. (currently, there like what? a couple of dozen characters deep with the current ui?)

Maybe a key + right mouse click combo could let you change a rows color. Or a block that has default indent color values, and lets you reset them (like - = a color, – = color number two, — = color number three, etc.)

#23

yes! but even just flat is enough. I imagine you only switch to this when you are animating and have already got a group filter activated… so - main thing is to see the items in F2.

Errr, meaning that my mini-dope keys disappear under my slider? Please, no. I use those things a lot. Fantastic feature.

I keep thinking the same every time I open zBrush :wink:

#24

You mean the dope master? That in fact is fantastic and definitely needs to remain, but the slider could sit on the ruler on top itself.
I just find it odd that we have this huge area just for the Slider Handle with neither a ruler nor anything else going on.

About the FlatList: Even single space indents can drive stuff off screen fast - so I’m with David in this.

Cheers,

#25

I’d rather see this slider space used by markers (ie set a group or scene marker, etc). Having those dope master keys up top and the slider bar at the bottom is (imo) visually like two parenthesis for my work.

Thomas - a brief OT:
I’ve tried to duplicate the dope master in XSI to no avail. You know how the curve editor and the dope sheet never line up? When I did finally get them to line up, it only functioned for one object, not multiple selections. (Freaky, eh.) Have you got this to work? Mail me private if this is too off for this thread.

#26

Sorry, I’m the wrong guy for this question - I never even tried that :wink:

#27

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