[Bf-funboard] Reset Rotation ( ALT and R ), the most used keys in Blender

[Matt Ebb]

On 04/07/2006, at 20:43 PM, Mal wrote:

> Hi all bf-funboarders!
>
> I've been noticing that a lot of the tutorials ( including the one  
> I'm putting together ) require that new users almost always ( well,  
> always so far! ) require that, after they add a new object, they  
> have to now clear the rotation on the object.

For me it's about 75%-25%-0% but yes, in object mode the view  
alignment is for me far more trouble than it is useful. When adding  
data in edit mode I sometimes find it useful to have it aligned to  
screen, but that's a different kettle of fish - you're already  
working within a specified co-ordinate space.

One thing you touched on is the automatic entering of edit mode. I  
rarely make use of that 'feature', but also during the Orange  
project, in our semi-monthly Blender training sessions we did with  
film institute students and design students (many of whom had used  
Maya before), it was the number one problem that they came up  
against, trying to understand how Blender worked. The main problem as  
I can gather is that it does something that the user hasn't actually  
explicitly told it to do, or can predict happening.

When a user clicks Add->Mesh->Cube, the task at hand is to add a  
cube. That's what they are telling Blender to do. But then Blender  
goes off and does some other thing that's unrelated but fundamentally  
important to a user's operation of the software (changing mode). The  
students had a hard enough time getting the hand of object mode and  
edit mode without it going and changing underneath them when they  
didn't expect it, this made it even worse. Changing this would be a  
simple procedure, and would drastically lessen the amount of  
frustration and confusion of someone trying to get to understand  
Blender.

I think it should really be default behaviour when adding new objects  
in Object Mode to add them at the cursor, axes aligned to world  
space, and NOT enter Edit Mode. And this should come with a user pref  
to switch back to the view aligned+edit style, for existing users who  
might prefer the old behaviour or don't want to adapt.

Matt