[Bf-funboard] Re: ShadowBuf name

[Matt Ebb]

On 02/12/2006, at 07:18 AM, GSR wrote:

> OTOH, those new names hide any option of looking for paper that
> explain how and why things happen. It reminds me of those chemical /
> car / software companies that hide generic things (cyano glue,
> variable injection, sorting algorithm...) behind cryptic trade names
> and acronyms (SuperDuperGlue, VITXplus, FooIntelliSystem), to create a
> brand, confuse the buyer or negate the information to competitors

Ah, but that's a false dichotomy - that's not what we're proposing at  
all. No-one's saying to make some lame brand out of it like  
'HyperShadow Pro X' or something, and nobody is saying that all  
technical information should be removed completely.

To continue your glue analogy, currently it's like walking through  
the supermarket and seeing boxes on the shelf called "Cyanoacrylate  
compound". I'm proposing to call it "Strong fast-setting glue" with  
the exact ingredients still there, on the back of the pack. Perhaps  
all the glue engineers are horrified at that thought, and speak in  
hushed tones about how the supermarket's all dumbed down, but I'm  
glad they're not the ones deciding on what I have to choose from in  
the aisle.

There's plenty of room for technicalities in the tooltip and in a  
reference manual. The point is to provide the appropriate kind of  
information where it's most relevant. In the interface where things  
are tweaked for a visual result, it should be something simple and  
understandable that describes the practical effects that it has.

There is going to be text in the interface, something in a tooltip,  
something in a manual, in any case. The trick is to weigh up which  
information is most useful in which situation, and how useful it is  
*at that time* compared to other information. What information is  
more relevant and useful to an artist, who is in the middle of the  
task of trying to get their shadows to look a certain way? The name  
of the algorithm that is used, or a description of what it looks like?

The names 'irregular' or 'classical' or whatever algorithm names on  
their own do not carry any inherent meaning. Calling them  
"flurblebrop shadows" would communicate just about the same amount of  
meaning to the average artist. It's just a name that's representative  
of something else, that then has to go though one extra step of  
translation in the minds of artists, from programmer language  
(irregular) -> plain English (causes sharp shadows) -> visual result,  
and going through this thought process is completely irrelevant and  
extra mental overhead to the visual task of deciding how you want  
your shadows to look.

Artists don't and shouldn't need to understand the technical process  
to understand the result. Often one can learn through experience that  
one thing produces some kind of result and something else produces  
some other result. It wasn't so long ago that I didn't know how  
raytracing worked, but I knew that it was slow to process, and it  
enabled reflections and refractions, and that was good enough for me  
to get stuff done.

> OTOH, those new names hide any option of looking for paper that
> explain how and why things happen.

Not at all, if you *do* want to know the technical details of how it  
works or what name programmers like to give to that process, you  
should be able to of course! Nobody's trying to censor that  
information. But that's not the job of main button label in the  
interface, it's the job of a manual or tooltip or something, and  
artists shouldn't be *forced* to go reading computer science papers  
to learn about the technicalities of the process just to get stuff  
done. You're not going to learn anything by the word 'irregular' on  
it's own anyway, which makes it much more relevant in a reference  
text which can explain the process rather than just give a single  
word. It's also much easier to do a web search for more information  
from there when you're in an explorational train of thought, than it  
is when you're in the middle of doing test renders with a deadline  
coming!

Matt



------------------------------------------
Matt Ebb . matt at mke3.net . http://mke3.net



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