[Bf-committers] General purpose icons for Blender Addons?

Sat May 9 05:50:55 CEST 2015

This *is* worth discussing, but is this a bit off topic here? I think this
list is mainly supposed to be for developers working on current blender
projects (if I'm not mistaken) and this UI topic tends to inflame some
people, either way we should be careful here. :)

To address a point or two... Blender can be used to make any icons that the
imagination can imagine,  and also with unique lighting/style.

Here's a representation of how this might work.
http://static.wixstatic.com/media/d5cf41_2594607a5488494b8cfe41fdb311a4ef.png_srz_p_600_607_75_22_0.50_1.20_0.00_png_srz

I think a decent way to handle this would be a contest that is a
collaboration of all the main Blender related educational sites which hold
contests like CG Cookie, CG Masters, Blender Guru, Blender Nation, etc...
where people could submit collections of icons they have built using
Blender.  There is substantial interest from many artists and this
*mostly *does
not require any programming ability.  Making a hundred or more icons that
look nice will likely require a large effort from many people.

To address the point of a consistent style:  it does look nice, however,
the brain can scan through a diverse color scheme faster than anything else
and without any conscious thought being necessary.   Our unconscious
ability to isolate and lock onto color differences could make icon
selection virtually instantaneous if they are all unique.

That's just something to consider, a consistent theme is nice too and tends
to look more professional.

Well, I'm out of this unless one of the big-key-holders expresses further
interest :)

On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 7:45 PM, Jacob Merrill <blueprintrandom1 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> *my silly phone auto corrected liberary into literary....
> On May 8, 2015 7:44 PM, "Jacob Merrill" <blueprintrandom1 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > In a game called armored core, you made icons using a set of generic
> shapes and a number of layers and adjustments like scale, color, invert
> pattern, etc. this way a small literary can make almost any icon.....
> >
> > maybe have a little icon builder?
> >
> > On May 8, 2015 3:43 PM, "Jambay" <Jambay at cox.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> I don't have an answer, but do have a suggestion. First, and foremost, I
> >> agree that this needs work/discussion. I would propose a "master set" of
> >> icons for core Blender features, that others may use as well.
> Additionally,
> >> a general set, still common to Blender operations, but commonly accepted
> for
> >> UI purposes. After that it's custom and you have to explain to users why
> it
> >> isn't there (if they actually care) - the "label" shoul suffice.
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Gaia" <gaia.clary at machinimatrix.org>
> >> To: "bf-blender developers" <bf-committers at blender.org>
> >> Sent: Friday, May 08, 2015 2:59 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] General purpose icons for Blender Addons?
> >>
> >>
> >> Honestly after trying to invent some custom icons
> >> for our website i finally gave up on this because its really not
> >> an easy task to create a good (meaningful) icon and keep
> >> compatible with the common style of the rest of the application.
> >>
> >> Also, think of 2 Addons which use different icons for the
> >> same logical task... Wouldn't that become "Big Buck Messy" at
> >> the end? And furthermore, what if the creator of one Addon
> >> would  like to reuse the icons from another Addon, exactly to
> >> avoid reinventing the wheel?
> >>
> >> So after carefully thinking for some time about this topic i
> >> clearly favorize the creation of a set of generic icons over
> >> getting the ability to create own custom icons.
> >>
> >> Honestly it would take a burden from me to "also" think
> >> about awesome custom icons on top of creating an awesome
> >> plugin :-\ And no, i think incorporating font awesome is
> >> probably not the answer (because of its very different style) .
> >>
> >> -gaia-
> >>
> >> On 08.05.2015 22:59, patrick boelens wrote:
> >> > I agree custom icons would be more versatile and fill a need, but I
> also
> >> > think a good set of default icons can ease the lives of a lot of devs.
> >> > It's just cumbersome to have to worry about icons, especially if you
> want
> >> > to match the existing ones' style somewhat.
> >> >
> >> > Icons like weld/ connect, up- and download, reset, warning and driven
> >> > (great catch on that one btw!) are incredibly generic. Weld/ connect
> could
> >> > be useful for anything from springs and joints to Armature tools;
> upload
> >> > could likely be repurposed for things like "export".
> >> >
> >> > I would personally give "custom icons" higher priority, but I
> definitely
> >> > agree more default icons would be nice. +1 from me.
> >> >
> >> >> Date: Fri, 8 May 2015 22:25:03 +0200
> >> >> From: matmenu at live.fr
> >> >> To: bf-committers at blender.org
> >> >> Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] General purpose icons for Blender
> Addons?
> >> >>
> >> >> Good Idea, but better would be custom icons. As you said, every addon
> >> >> has it's own need. Using one icon for different purpose is really
> >> >> disturbing for the user. I can't believe we have volumetrics and SSS
> and
> >> >> can't load an external png file for custom icons in 2015.
> >> >>
> >> >> Le 08/05/2015 17:00, Ines Almeida a écrit :
> >> >>> I believe this is totally worth discussion too :)
> >> >>>
> >> >>> My comments:
> >> >>> - WARN (in addition to INFO and ERROR)  - seems good, though I would
> >> >>> associate the yellow triangle we already have with 'WARN' and
> something
> >> >>> more red with 'ERROR'
> >> >>> - RESET (Reset to defaults)  - is FILE_REFRESH not good for this?
> >> >>> - DOCUMENT (manual/wiki/online doc...) - what about URL ? there are
> also
> >> >>> multiple icons for file types (eg text)
> >> >>> - DOWNLOAD and UPLOAD seem important to me as well
> >> >>> - all the others I don't have a strong opinion pro or against
> >> >>>
> >> >>> ---
> >> >>> Inês Almeida / brita_
> >> >>> _______________________________________________
> >> >>> Bf-committers mailing list
> >> >>> Bf-committers at blender.org
> >> >>> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> Bf-committers mailing list
> >> >> Bf-committers at blender.org
> >> >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Bf-committers mailing list
> >> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> >> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Bf-committers mailing list
> >> Bf-committers at blender.org
> >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Bf-committers mailing list
> >> Bf-committers at blender.org
> >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>