Blender excursions in my absence

[Starwhip]

While I've been away, I've given Blender a fair shake. Check these renders and models out.

I'm sure I've done other works, but these were what I've felt were done enough to upload somewhere  

 

Procedural Earthlike with Rings

More angles at https://imgur.com/a/VreBjiU

 

Mechwarrior Locust cockpit

 

 

Procedural Marslike

 

PBR test - Rubik's Cube

[Green Baron]

Nice :-)

[RealKerbal3x]

Those are nice!

1 hour ago, Starwhip said:



I think playing a lot of KSP has got to you...those big icecaps remind me of Duna

Edited March 21, 2019 by RealKerbal3x
accidentally quoted whole OP :P

[Shpaget]

I remember the first time I downloaded Blender. It was only 4,3 MB or something like that. I remember thinking that something went wrong and that that file could not possibly be a full fledged 3D software. I was wrong.

Anyway, I quickly realized two things:

1) Blender is insanely powerful and can do whatever you can imagine.

2) No. 1 would be true if it wasn't for the fact that it's completely unusable due to its absolute reliance on keyboard shortcuts.

For me coming from college where I used, what I considered (and still do), the supremely intuitive interface of Solidworks, Blender was just another powerful, but unusable piece of open source software for anybody who doesn't use it extensively on daily basis in order to be able to remember all the "Right Shift + Left Ctrl + Numpad 5 + F8 = rotate left unless you're holding the Middle Mouse btn, then it's Right Alt + ~ + K" shortcuts.

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

2) No. 1 would be true if it wasn't for the fact that it's completely unusable due to its absolute reliance on keyboard shortcuts.

It's improved lately, but GIMP used to have / still has this exact problem. I think a big problem with most FOSS projects such as Blender are these clunky UIs, which were designed by those of us that aren't MMI/UI savy. And then, once they're there, nobody wants to change them, because it's what everybody is used to and so momentum just carries them along. 

(Not that professional software tools such as AutoCAD have any more intuitive designs either; but at least they'll retool every now and then or started from a good place.)

 

On 3/21/2019 at 11:56 AM, Starwhip said:

 

This one is very nice. 

[Shpaget]

It's been more than a decade since I last used AutoCAD, so my memory is fuzzy, but Solidworks is very easy to get back into, since pretty much all the major function have a little icon that perfectly illustrates the function. You don't really need the keyboard for anything other than numerical input of dimensions. Sure, I use Return and ESC to confirm/cancel an operation, but that's not really something you need to learn and open a manual to remember.

Also, in Solidworks, the workflow to make a part is intuitive. You start with a rough 2D drawing and then extrude it. You then extrude another feature out of it or cut into it. It mimics the production process very closely, which I like.

[Kerbart]

17 hours ago, Shpaget said:

(...)

For me coming from college where I used, what I considered (and still do), the supremely intuitive interface of Solidworks, Blender was just another powerful, but unusable piece of open source software for anybody who doesn't use it extensively on daily basis in order to be able to remember all the "Right Shift + Left Ctrl + Numpad 5 + F8 = rotate left unless you're holding the Middle Mouse btn, then it's Right Alt + ~ + K" shortcuts.

"The Big Three" of Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) are nearly impossible to use on a serious basis without knowing a lot of the keystrokes. Surely you could, but everything would take ten times as long. I have colleagues who work like that, and they measure their Photoshop work in hours, not minutes.

And I remember Autocad from college, where the struggle was mainly memorizing the command line interface. Although, again, it would fly once you mastered that.

"Powerful but it requires keystrokes" is really not limited to open source. A keystroke-driven interface does require a certain amount of commitment and a higher barrier of entrance. which is why a lot of commercial software tries to bypass that these days. But it's usually worth it; it increases productivity by an order of magnitude. My 30 minute Here's how to get much faster at Excel workshop at work (which I do with the caveat that people shouldn't be using Excel as often as they do, but that's another story) is pretty much Here's a list of 20-something keystrokes. Although there's a lot of disappointment with the audience that they actually have to learn something to get better at it. But I digress.

[Shpaget]

I don't mind the keyboard shortcuts, as long they are shortcuts and not the only way you can activate a function, which is pretty much the case in Blender.

Photoshop has the toolbox with a bunch icons for most often used actions. Blender doesn't (or at least didn't at the time of my struggles).

Photoshop will have a tool-tip pop up whenever you hover your mouse over an icon and tell you the keyboard shortcut, so you'll eventually learn it, but in the meantime, you can actually activate the action. In Blender, if you don't know the keyboard combo, you're stuck.