[Bf-committers] Texture assignment workflow is confusing

[Lukas Tönne]

Getting very offtopic now, but this discussion made me think of a few
similar problems i'd  like to mention anyway:

* Nathan's rig animation controls: having intuitive manipulators on
the mesh object instead of abstract sliders and buttons in ui panels.
* Softbody, SPH fluid sim: lots of "spring forces", "epsilons", etc.
which don't translate to the animation result directly. Presets with
reduced interfaces can help a lot.
* Node trees: huge compositor layouts are unusable by others - not
because they don't work, but because nobody else but the creator knows
what values to tweak!

As the flexibility of scripting and configuration tools increases and
the line between coders and artists fades away, it becomes important
to provide an easy way of creating simplified UIs for these tasks.
Blender has made a big step in that direction with RNA and unified
python scriptable ui, this "just" needs to be extended to incorporate
other areas such as nodes and custom 3D control elements. This would
allow the more "technical" artists to create new interface layers for
their content to make it easily accessible for others. My 2 cents :)


On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 3:14 AM, Roger Wickes <rogerwickes at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> A few years ago I put forth suggestions for an artists' user interface
>> to such sfx. Unfortunately, what an artist wants to specify is
>> vastly different from the parameters that the simulator needs.
>> Thus, my thought is to wait until volumetric is stable (I have been
>> playing with them since before my book was published :) and then
>> we can design a kick-ass UI for it that translates appropriately,
>> kinda like drivers, and probably through a pyPanel that then goes out
>> and tweaks all the little knobs for you. I think the knobs are in the
>> particle system, additional force fields, material, textures, and animation tools.
>>
>> I am talking about the artist specifying things, like for fire,
>> "Combustible Material", "Pressure", "Prevailing Wind", "Ambient Air Temp"
>> and "Smoke Thickness".
>> --Roger
>>
>>
>> Check out my website at www.rogerwickes.com for a good deal on my book and
>> training course, as well as information about my latest activities. Use coupon
>> Papasmurf for $15 off!
>
> I could really see that. I also saw a thread here the other day
> talking about the camera settings and how there were all these
> settings that any pro camera man would know but Blender has
> programmer/math geek names on all of it. I had not idea what those
> controls did. Doing just what you are saying for them would be great
> also and really help the newbie artist turn blender into their
> favorite power tool.
>
> --
> Douglas E Knapp AKA human bean
>
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