[Bf-funboard] Initial Splash Screen

[mond at email.cz]

@ Ludvik: In general I agree - over sized icons doesn’t keep UI concistecy 
and fullscreen art where the most important part of composition is hidden ..
. its not effectively used space. 

Sidenote: You want to see UI look proffesional (me too). Funny thing here 
is, that proffesionality does not come from feeling how UI looks like, but 
from functionality itself - tools :) 




But what catch my attention?

You noted to don't promote VSE or COMP – I can say opposite. Time changed 
like you said. Proffesional apps are available - yes, but you could also 
notice how these apps changed too. They highly tend to include many other 
areas of work. Like Nuke implemented video editing in Studio version. Two 
years back After Effect’s “evangelists” were glorifying plugin to easily 
switch to C4D and back. 




These are scenarios that blender handles from its beginning. From this 
decision (concept) could blender benefits very well, but downside of this 
concept is - its hard do develop all these parts in that deep level as 
separately developing apps.




But anyway ... possibility to switch between modeling, texturing, rigging, 
tracking, compositing, video editing etc. in one UI concept is a big benefit
for me, instead of learning all the avilable “proffesional” apps.

Each app has the “small things” that you have to search for, look for 
workarround, extensions, tuts, helps, shortcuts ...




That’s why I don’t want to hide these less used parts of blender, rather 
promote them. Attract people = develop these areas deeper to be fully used. 




I don’t expect blender become combined Max, Zbrush, Substance, Nuke and 
DaVinci (or what ever) together to get app that deeply handle all the 
specific area of work, but you can still greatly handle all these specific 
profesions in some level, that you are able to start and finish project in 
one app, because UI keep you on a board :)
---------- Původní e-mail ----------
Od: Ludvík Koutný <rawalanche at gmail.com>
Komu: bf-funboard at blender.org
Datum: 26. 3. 2018 16:43:23
Předmět: Re: [Bf-funboard] Initial Splash Screen 
"I am a bit biased against Blender 101 project, so my response will be
probably biased as well:

Blender is mainly a 3D package, and it should always be primarily presented
as such. It's competes very well as a versatile 3D package, but it
completes very poorly on a field of video editors or compositors. Times has
changed, and these days, it's a bit naive to think that anyone would choose
Blender as a primary tool for compositing or video editing when we have top
notch free software like Blackmagic Fusion and Blackmagic Resolve available.

While this splash screen revision may decrease some of the confusion of the
user minority, which opens a piece of software widely known mainly for its
3D modeling, animation and rendering capabilities with expectations to use
it primarily for things like compositing or video editing, it may also
worsen already quite significant confusion Blender imposes on users, who
seek to use it primarily as a 3D software.

Furthermore, you can see that even a still frame from Agent 327, which is
one of the top artworks produced with Blender does not hold up very well as
a full screen image. High quality artworks done with Blender, which hold up
even at full screen resolutions are scarce. First impression matters a lot,
and full screen display demands extreme quality standards for the artworks
used as a splash screens. In case these artworks were not picked carefully,
the very first contact of a user with Blender could result in an impression
of not very professional piece of software.

The main problems Blender currently has with the implications it makes with
its default UI state are:
1, Out of the box, users are presented with Properties panel open at render
settings tab. One of the most technically challenging property tabs in the
editor. Furthermore, rendering is rarely the very first step done after a
starting a fresh scene. Content creation usually precedes rendering, so
this doesn't make much sense and adds to the first impression of complexity.

2, Viewport by default is already populated with scene elements, all 3 of
very different characteristics. This breaks the impression of a "clean
sheet of paper that's ready to be drawn on", but rather, makes it feel as
if you downloaded Blender with someone else's, already pre-customized
startup configuration.

Full screen splash image isn't going to fix these issues.

My subjective feeling is that my first encounter with a software package,
which would present me with full screen display of average artwork and a
box of a few giant, touch screen interface like icons would strike me with
an impression that I am about to interact with a hobbyist, not professional
piece of software.

If the main intention is to draw the focus away from UI to the splash
screen, then more reasonable solution would be to simply darken the rest of
the UI with some overlay, so that the attention is drawn towards the splash
screen box, such as:
https://i.imgur.com/tApyHVV.png

Alternatively, the entire UI area could be replaced with something useful,
like what Adobe did with recent Photoshop versions:
https://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/help/en/photoshop/using/workspace-
basics/_jcr_content/main-pars/image_7/v3_Start_experience.png
There, we could present users with smaller iconic pictures of the UI
layouts they are about to choose as well as perhaps a list of recent files
with visual thumbnails of their contents. If we are to occupy the entire
space, it could be occupied with some more useful data than oversized icons
and giant artwork.

To conclude, I am all up for a splash screen redesign, I just do not
believe a full screen artwork is a good idea, and I am also not confident
that layouts such as Video Editing or Compositing should be presented as
equals to 3D modeling and Animation.

Ludvik

-- 
Ludvík Koutný
https://www.artstation.com/artist/rawalanche
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