[Bf-funboard] Maya experience, anyone?

Michal Cilek bf-funboard@blender.org
Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:38:22 +0200


Hello George,
let me just comment shortly. I used to use and sell Alias Research Software
in the early 90-ties, here in the Czech Republic.

What are you seeing now in Maya is the result of many years of hard work and
cooperation of Alias with some Xerox people. I remember that (probably) for
the first time, I saw the embryonic stage of this GUI at Siggraph 1994... I
know tens of 3D Software titles - animation, modeling and even RealTime
(which I sell right now), but Alias Maya has quite an edge over them in the
GUI.

At that time - at Siggraph, they were showing a custom made preview of Alias
Animator, which could be controlled with a tablet using a pen and "gestures"
with the pen, a Magellan SpaceMouse and the keyboard. It was rather like a
Magician show than a software demo. Things you would tediously search for or
key-inn were done in fractions of a second. The SpaceMouse was used not only
to have 6D control over the 3D modeling space, rotation, zoom, etc., but in
the animation part it was used also as a Jog-Dial gadget, allowing for quick
playback-stop-review-play kind of operation. Incredible.

Now, many years in a commercial environment later - I bet May has the most
advanced GUI available in 3D Modeling and animation software. You can work
many ways, real quick and mainly - straightforward. Nothing comes even close
to that.

The thing is, this takes a hell lot of money and time to concept (sketch),
develop and implement - 6-9 years in a fully commercial environment.

I like Blender as a tool for real quick conversion of concepts into
real-time or animation or realtime-game-like results, the graphical
programming is also quite nice. But for me and many others the GUI is very
difficult to get used to - it does not have anything in common with most
other "standard" user interfaces. So most time, I spend searching for "how
to do that and that", searching for the right button or procedure. I know
the argument is that once you get used to it, it should be quicker and more
straightforward than the top bar having File, Edit and other standard menus,
but many do not reach that stage ever - they escape to other, more
"conventional" choices in terms of software platform. Not mentioning
modeling.


Sincerely

Michal


----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregor Mückl" <GregorMueckl@gmx.de>
To: <bf-funboard@blender.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 8:46 PM
Subject: [Bf-funboard] Maya experience, anyone?


> Hi!
>
> I've spent a weekend toying with Maya and I am really impressed by its
> incredible interface.
>
> I expected it to be very very cumbersome to use because of the myriads of
> features it has and me always searching for the right one. But it wasn't
> quite like that.
>
> OK, the menu bar is stuffed with entries over and over again (up to 7
> different menu bars for the main window - you have to select the right one
> first :-). But I never thought that this could actually be a good thing.
The
> menus have a very well thought-out structure which makes finding things
> relatively easy, although there are about 40+ entries in one single
pulldown
> (many commands can work immediately and can show a parameter dialog first,
> when you select the box icon next to the actual menu entry)
>
> The complete contents of all menu bars is also available through a
star-shaped
> menu which pops up when the user presses the space key. With that menu
there
> is no need to select a menu bar first via the dropdown in the lop left
corner
> of the main window.
>
> And even if I had to search for a certain feature I used the (quite good,
but
> not complete) online help, which provides tutorials, reference manuals for
> the individual modules and "How do I?" and "What went wrong?" sections
(which
> sometimes were unfortunately empty). The reference manual is in some way
> comparable to unix man pages: it gives a short, sharp and complete
> descriptions of the individual features.
>
> Searching is a breeze in the apparently homegrown search engine. The top
of
> the browser window (in which the online help is displayed) always contains
an
> entry field awaiting your keywords.
>
> To me using Maya seemed to be so easy because it does not try to hide
anything
> from the user. It shows everything and as a user you pick out the things
you
> want. It's the exact opposite of what blender does.
>
> And this is the reason why I writie all this: "borrow" from them. In
> particular:
>
> - create well-structured pull-down menus (already worked on, I think)
> - provide bigger and more meaningful icons for certain tools; try to
create
> icons that the user can immediately associate with the task at hand
> - include a searchable online help; start out with a clean reference and a
> search feature; other contents can be added lateron, possible in
> topic-speicific FAQ sections
> - replace the current button window with something more straight-forward:
keep
> the bits and pieces of settings and information related to a single object
> closer together and seperate them more cleanly from global, scene-wide
> settings (a possible start would be a huge gap in the button bar that
> seperates the two topics).
>
> I hope this oppinion helps. Maya really has a couple of nice ideas in its
UI.
>
> Regards,
> Gregor
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-funboard mailing list
> Bf-funboard@blender.org
> http://www.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funboard


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.515 / Virus Database: 313 - Release Date: 9/3/2003