[Bf-committers] Current state of Blender's user experience (Ton Roosendaal)

Tue Apr 26 11:17:51 CEST 2016

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing, I just addressed the Blender haters out there, not users of other 3d tools. 

It is great that there are so many people involved with our projects who used (or still use) commercial 3d software as well. We can learn from them, especially because they were curious enough to invest time to figure out how to use Blender, or what makes Blender good (enough to use) as well. 

So please feel welcome to hangout, help developers with their work or contribute code.

I often get mails from professionals who say "nice job on Blender, but..." and then come with a list of favourite Maya or Max features. This might be an acceptable consumer attitude towards commercial software, but it's very not helpful for a public open source project. Dynamics here work differently, it's not based on market shares or consumer satisfaction, it's based one time and energy - contributions.

It's also a misconception to think we didn't code awesome feature X or Y because we didn't know it existed, or didn't know it was so important. There's just not enough developers to contribute.

So: how do we get studios or professionals organise Blender projects to handle their favourite topics? I always tell them they're welcome, with limited success. I learned that getting involved with FLOSS is not in their DNA really. First of all it takes (a lot of) time, which is expensive for pros. Second we cannot give a hard guarantee in advance that things will work as planned or get accepted in releases. And third: corporate practices is still based on secrecy and non-disclosure, participating in a public project is regarded as a loss of competitive advantage. That is changing (ILM, Pixar, etc), but hardly in small/medium sized companies.

Because it could be so easy. If just 20 Maya/Max subscribers would decide to invest in Blender what they'd give to Autodesk, they could hire a developer to work for them full time - to fix mouse/keyboard input mapping and configurability for example, snapping tools, and other very useful projects.

My expectation was that we could use the dynamics of the 2.8 project to include that target. But I'm still not convinced we are ready for it now. The project is too complicated, with too many inactive stakeholders and not enough active contributors. But we make progress here...

-Ton-

--------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
Chairman Blender Foundation, Producer Blender Institute/Studio
Entrepotdok 57A  -  1018AD Amsterdam  -  The Netherlands

> On 25 Apr 2016, at 21:10, David Ballesteros <dballesg at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm one of those unemployed semi-profesional(worked for more than 6 years
> on a studio) that used other 3D Apps. LightWave and Modo in my case.
> 
> I couldn't believe I saw this written by you Tom:
> 
>> The most avid haters are typically the unemployed freeloaders, self
> proclaimed professionals
>> (the "I used every 3d program out there in the past 20 years" people) and
> other people who
>> never paid a dime for Maya or Max."
> 
> I own my licenses of LW (4.0 to 2015) and Modo (601 to 901), paid with my
> work or my savings, and I found that comment slightly offensive.
> 
> Don't you think that users coming from other applications can't add some
> value and insight to Blender? Really?
> 
> The last two weeks I've been learning Blender (not modified, not even the
> shortcuts) and there are things I like, others not so much.
> 
> The famous Right Click Select debate is one, if you're working
> simultaneously with other 3D app and Blender, it really reduces
> productivity by a high margin (and I know it can be changed on preferences
> but doesn't works on all the cases).
> 
> I'm trying Blender for character rigging and animation. I know is superior
> in that aspect than Modo. And guess what I found, Blender doesn't have Soft
> IK on it's IK Solver (on a branch that I've found mentioned in youtube:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmjUjm4FPak. Not sure if that has gone into
> Master at some point, but I couldn't find anything sure about it.
> 
> LightWave has a powerful IK Solver since LW 9.0, with SoftIK and Stretch IK
> supported. If I'm not wrong Blender neither has one. Modo for sure doesn't
> have it.
> 
> I had a look to that document you added.I liked some things I read and saw,
> but other I was like What? Three icon  near the Translation, Rotation,
> Coordinates? That for example for me is only prettify something that right
> now is really clean and intuitive in blender. I will read on total detail
> the document, and make my suggestions if I found any.
> 
> With the help of people from IRC I even managed to compile Blender with VS
> 2015 Community.
> At some point I will like to contribute with code.But I hope it will not be
> rejected simply because I'm one of those "other" users.
> 
>> There's also still a fair bit of contempt for anything free/open source
> software in many (also > professional) circles.
> 
> Curiusly Linux doesn't suffer from that I wonder why.
> 
> Funny you mentioned the nimblecollective. There is a video I'm sure you
> know from Jason Schleifer modifying Blender shortcuts to put them in synch
> on a very logical way. On 2.77a I've looked on the Preferences Input, and
> looks has been sorted out. So a pro somehow influenced Blender? ;)
> 
> I hope in the same way you ask to everyone to have an open mind about
> Blender, you will have an open mind about the "aliens" from other 3D Apps
> landing on Blender land.
> 
> And for the record I don't hate Blender. But ther eis a lot of space for
> improvement.
> 
> Cheers,
> David
> 
> 
>> Message: 4
>> Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2016 10:50:02 +0200
>> From: Ton Roosendaal <ton at blender.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Bf-committers] Current state of Blender's user
>>        experience
>> To: bf-blender developers <bf-committers at blender.org>
>> Message-ID: <4B893B01-FEAF-479D-BDB3-83CCE09635E6 at blender.org>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>> 
>> Hi Daniel,
>> 
>> Blender always had a share of haters and negative feedback since the early
>> days.
>> 
>> The most avid haters are typically the unemployed freeloaders, self
>> proclaimed professionals (the "I used every 3d program out there in the
>> past 20 years" people) and other people who never paid a dime for Maya or
>> Max. There's also still a fair bit of contempt for anything free/open
>> source software in many (also professional) circles.
>> 
>> The positive side is very impressive too. For example, you can find
>> Blender recommended on the Pixar website, and Nimble Collective (former
>> Dreamworks animators) invests heavily in promoting and supporting Blender:
>> http://www.nimblecollective.com/
>> 
>> Given the fact we make Blender in an open project for less than 1% of the
>> budget Autodesk spends on Maya or Max alone is something we can only be
>> incredibly proud of. We can always do better (as Piotr points out) but I
>> would suggest to keep a relaxed and healthy mind - not waste time to please
>> the haters, but to keep supporting our existing and growing user base and
>> to closely work with the top talents out there who want to be positively
>> involved.
>> 
>> -Ton-
>> 
>> --------------------------------------------------------
>> Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
>> Chairman Blender Foundation, Producer Blender Institute/Studio
>> Entrepotdok 57A  -  1018AD Amsterdam  -  The Netherlands
>> 
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