[Bf-interface] Workflow workshop, agenda topics and preparations

Ton Roosendaal ton at blender.org
Sun Nov 20 14:24:26 CET 2016


Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. I think we should settle on the big picture as fast as possible. We shouldn't spend 3 days talking, but have enough periods of work in-between in small groups or alone - to tackle issues we found and then present later on.

The general structure for the first day should be as much as possible based on agreeing on the outcome of 3 days.

First day we should try to settle on the big picture:

- Short intro for everyone to speak up, make sure our three days will cover all topics well.
- Wrap up of 2.5 project; what's good and what's there to be improved
- Analysis of current issues in widest sense - and what would "Workflow" mean for people in general.
- Re-establish core values and design specs for Blender. (using 2.5 checklist). 
- Verify the practical considerations and focus - we have to accept we have limited resources. Match our ambitions with competences, so we get a feasible project.
- During the day we can maintain a list of discussion topics on which we don't easily settle, or which we want to spend more time on. That can help defining the agendas for days 2 and 3.
- But, clearly define what we want to achieve in days 2 and 3. That includes design proposals, layouts, mockups, APIs, etc. 

I want to emphasis that the "2.8 workflow" project is not about a complete Blender redesign, we can't drop or revise all paradigms and start over from scratch. For that we simply don't have the time or resources. I think everyone who attends the workshop knows that, but it's always good repeat it. :)

Best result for me would be if we can achieve:
- A very good understanding and agreement on Blender's limits and possibilities, which will keep design and projects focused.
- A number of simple and feasible design decisions that will help current projects, and/or that can be added easily
- A good procedure in place to validate future proposals and empower teams to make decisions.
- Let's do something with a result we can show within the course of 2017!

Laters,

-Ton-

--------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org   -   www.blender.org
Chairman Blender Foundation, Director Blender Institute
Entrepotdok 57A, 1018 AD, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

> On 18 Nov 2016, at 14:20, Paweł Łyczkowski <pawellyczkowski at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> My take on agenda could look like:
> 
> 1st day: Since UI in big part visual, and during discussions it's difficult to show how ideas work (one has to describe), I would make the first day talks with access to the projector. Topic of talks would be directions one wants to push. There's 9 participants, so there should be enough time for 1h per participants - 45 min talk, 15 min questions/clarification/quick opinions. That is - if everyone participating requests a talk (by mail, during next week).
> 
> That would be a warmup day, with time between it and the 2nd day to digest the ideas.
> 
> 2nd day: Discussion day. Since UI talk can go off the rails very quickly the discussion should go topic by topic, from a predefined list. So, something like Bastien proposed. That's my rough take:
> 
> - Paradigms and general direction
> - Blender 101
> - Discoverability and help (tuts/tooltips/documentation)
> - Screen layout and general GUI
>    - Layer Manager [2] and Outliner
>    - Modifier list [6]
>    - Brecht Bar [3]
>    - Screen Layouts, editing modes and tabs (including Topbar Tabs [5])
>    - Sidebars (customizing sidebars)
>    - General customization (hiding parts of GUI?)
>    - Display Settings - UI vs new viewport
> - Workflow
>    - Data handling (fake user and data loss, asset management)
>    - Multi-mesh editing/UV mapping
>    - Setting properties of multiple objects
>    - Container objects [4]
>    - UDIM
>    - Texture Painting (layers?)
>    - Snapping and Proportional Editing
>    - How operators work, how tools work [1] 
> - Interaction
>    - Keymap, especialy keymap core (mouse buttons, navigation, selection)
>    - Keymap editor and it's issues
>    - Widgets
>    - Pies
>    - Sticky Keys
> - Add-ons
> - Code related discussion
> 
> And, most important:
>  - Priority (It's probably inevitable that there will be more ideas than 2.8 can handle. We should decide on a couple of items that are top priority then)
> 
> 3rd day: Decisions announced by module owners and working on concrete solutions (or at least drafts). Here breaking into groups would be good I suppose, with at least one dev (that can mock up prototypes in realtime maybe?) per group.
> 
> Let me know what you guys think.
> 
> Cheers, 
> Paweł Łyczkowski
> 
> Additional reading:
> [1] - https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Tools_Workflow <https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Tools_Workflow> and https://developer.blender.org/T37554 <https://developer.blender.org/T37554> - Tools Workflow by William Reynish, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9hH-NLs5weQKLkjqmgpA/edit#heading=h.xira9p9pbv78 <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9hH-NLs5weQKLkjqmgpA/edit#heading=h.xira9p9pbv78> - Adding Tool Mode to Operators by me 
> [2] - https://developer.blender.org/T38384 <https://developer.blender.org/T38384>  - Layer Manager proposal by me. https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Julianeisel/GSoC-2016/UI_Design <https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Julianeisel/GSoC-2016/UI_Design> - Julian's Layer Manager doc 
> [3] - https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Top_Bar_Reshuffle <https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Proposals/UI/Top_Bar_Reshuffle> Brecht Bar by Brecht
> [4] - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9hH-NLs5weQKLkjqmgpA/edit#heading=h.k20w9k3djv7c <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9hH-NLs5weQKLkjqmgpA/edit#heading=h.k20w9k3djv7c> - A Container type object by me.
> [5] - https://developer.blender.org/T39835 <https://developer.blender.org/T39835> Topbar Tabs by Julian
> [6] - https://developer.blender.org/T38178 <https://developer.blender.org/T38178> Modifier List
> 
> 
> On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 11:58 AM Bastien Montagne <montagne29 at wanadoo.fr <mailto:montagne29 at wanadoo.fr>> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Disclaimer: I’m starting fresh from initial mail again, since I’ve seen
> mails going already in way to much details, imho (Sebastian… ;) ). My
> point being: topic is way to broad and complex to be discussed in a
> single thread, would make it impossible to follow. So I propose to keep
> this thread only for the topics definition, and planning/agenda (in
> other words, the schedule of the workshop). For further detailed
> discussion of a topic or another (like, keymap, various types of
> customizations, 101, etc.), please start new (or use existing) threads.
> 
> So, here is first draft of how I’d see things for the weekend:
> 
>    - Day I & II: Tackle each topic, from both sides:
>      -- "Usability" side: Reconfirm existing UI/UX paradigms, check if
> we need to make some of them evolve, and define new needed ones.
>      -- "Technical" side: Based on designs laid out by usability
> discussions, check what needs to be changed/extended/added to our UI/WM
> code (not thinking about tiny implementation details here of course).
>   - Day III: Would keep it 'empty', can think of several ways to use it:
>      -- Potentially extra time to finish discussion on some topics if we
> ran out of time in first two days.
>      -- Handle unforeseen topics, questions etc. that may have arose
> during workshop.
>      -- Maybe spread in smaller groups to refine work on some specific
> topics.
>      -- Write/review first draft of final reports (though most of this
> work should be done in days after workshop, of course)?
>      -- ...
> 
> Some more organizational notes/questions (we do not want to be too much
> formal, but think agreeing on that could be useful and save time):
> 
>    - Do we want to work in a single big group, or several smaller
> groups? (personally, I would say one single group for first two days,
> imho it’s important that everyone has minimal knowledge of all topics'
> discussion, even if not directly interested to actually work on it. Then
> more freedom for the last day… ;) )
>    -- If we go for several smaller groups, we could agree on the "at
> least one artist and one dev in each group" rule?
>    - Do we accept talk? If yes, how long should they be at most?
> (personally, would keep them short, maybe as introduction of some
> topics, think we mostly need lots of discussion to agree on designs)
>    - ...
> 
> And now, the topics (I put them in a hierarchy tree, that’s obviously
> somewhat subjective, also probably have forgotten many points… and it
> does not mean branches are not related to each other!):
> 
>    - UI/UX
>      -- Do we need new UI widgets? Extend/Rework some existing ones?
> (also thinking about proposed talk from Paweł, here)
>      -- Do we need to extend or modify some interactions with operators
> (modal ones? heavy computations ones?)?
>      -- Review recent new UI features (custom manipulators and pies
> mainly), how to use them in “default” Blender and not only as optional
> new things?
>      -- ...
>    - Customization
>      -- Do we agree on the need to have a place in UI where artists can
> dump random settings and operators?
>      --- If yes, how to do it (position? with tabs? with panels?
> floating or not? etc.)?
>      -- Make macro operators part of customization possibilities?
>      -- ...
>    - Workflows
>      -- What is part of/defines a workflow?
>        --- keymaps?
>        --- UI items (panels, menus, ...) - i.e., exposed/visible tools
> and data/settings?
>        --- Custom manipulators?
>        --- Screen layout?
>        --- Visualization settings (like different draw modes in viewport…)?
>      -- Do we replace (mostly viewport) modes (edit, sculpt, paint etc.)
> by workflows?
>      -- Do we reuse/extend existing workspaces (screens) feature as
> workflows, or do we keep them separated? Or do we keep workflows inside
> single space area?
>      -- ...
>    - Blender 101
>      -- I see it as a specific workflow, roughly, should we use it as a
> kind of guinea pig of workflow project?
>      -- ...
>    - Code-related questions
>      -- Is custom spaces part of/needed for this project (custom spaces
> would be definable from py, similar to how panels or UIList work currently)?
>      -- Do we need to rework the notifications system?
>      -- ...
> 
> Again, this is own first draft (based on previous mails and own
> knowledge), most likely forgot or overseen many things… You are more
> than welcome to add, move, remove, comment, suggest, whatever (even to
> say this is complete piece of trash ;) )… But please, let’s keep this
> thread onto agreeing on organization/agenda/topics points, and *not*
> about detailed topics' content discussion/proposal/etc., really think we
> should keep this into separated threads (like the one already started by
> Mike regarding Blender 101).
> 
> Also, we may end with too much for three days, we can always trim down
> later and focus on biggest/most important topics first, leaving smaller
> ones for online discussion, if needed.
> 
> Cheers,
> Bastien
> 
> Le 06/11/2016 à 18:02, Ton Roosendaal a écrit :
> > Hi all,
> >
> > The workshop will be here in Blender Institute, 25-27 November.
> > Confirmed participants are:
> >
> > - Jonathan Williamson
> > - Pablo Vazquez
> > - Julian Eisel
> > - Paweł Łyczkowski
> > - Daniel Lara
> > - Sebastian Koenig
> > - Bastien Montagne
> > - Brecht van Lommel
> > - Mike Pan
> >
> > I'm very happy to confirm that we'll get additional development support from Aleph Objects (Lulzbot 3D printer) to hire people for coding and designing work. Work would be on '2.8 workflow' in general, but result should lead to a release-compatible Blender version that's configured to be suitable for kids or occasional users to make 3d prints. That's the "101 project" Mike Pan will be working on.
> >
> > In the coming weeks we should check on the planning for the workshop days, the agenda, and do a lot of preparations. Hopefully we can discuss and review existing proposals as much as possible.
> >
> > Let's throw random ideas in this week, then I come with a more structured proposal by end of week.
> > OK?
> >
> > Laters,
> >
> > -Ton-
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------
> > Ton Roosendaal  -  ton at blender.org <mailto:ton at blender.org>   -   www.blender.org <http://www.blender.org/>
> > Chairman Blender Foundation, Director Blender Institute
> > Entrepotdok 57A, 1018 AD, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
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