[Bf-funboard] Mouse versus hot keys

Tony Mullen tony.mullen at gmail.com
Tue Feb 17 12:46:07 CET 2009


Hi,

>I use Blender on a laptop  and I have to hit 3 separate buttons to get into
>camera view (Fn>Ctrl>0), this alone could be trimmed down to a single mouse
>click. With a fast paced, dynamic program like Blender we should endeavour to
>make it faster and easier.

Entering camera view is done with a single keystroke, NUM0 (if you're
not in number pad mode on your laptop, then fn>NUM0). What Ctrl-NUM0
does is make the currently selected object into the active camera. You
can do this with any object, and that object will become the camera.

For laptop use, you might want to do keypad emulation with the
keyboard numbers. In the Preferences, on the "System and OpenGL" panel
there's an option to emulate the keypad on the keyboard numbers. I
don't know about you, but I *never* access layers using number keys,
so these keys are no loss if I map them to the keypad numbers. If you
do this, then simply pressing the ordinary 0 key will put you in
camera view.

>I am stuck, against my
>will, putting 3D Max on my CV.

I hope you decide to put both on your CV. I think this in itself will
help, over time, to establish Blender as a mainstream alternative.

>The one thing that will make Blender become the popular alternative is ease.

I'm not really convinced this is true. As Joe said, where there are
tradeoffs between ease of learning and speed of use for experienced
users, the philosophy that guides Blender is to opt for the latter.
And this makes sense also in terms of Blender's public image. If, as
you say, some people consider Blender to be a non-serious tool, then
slowing its workflow down to make it easier for non-skilled users to
get into it is not really going to counter that impression. Seems to
me that to get Blender taken seriously, it's much better to cater to
highly skilled users who create work that blows people away.

T


More information about the Bf-funboard mailing list