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Blender’s interface can be improved. This video covers some ideas to make it more user-friendly and easier to use for everyone. View the post: http://www.blenderguru.com/fixing-blender-part-1-why-its-broken/
UPDATE: See my final UI presentation at the Blender Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aIA2LaB2Iw
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46 responses to “Improving Blender – Part 1: Where It’s Broken”
Right mouse button to select = accidental cursor placed on an object every single day.
Left mouse button to select = not a single accidental cursor placing since I activated it one month ago. So thank you for that!
I believe in blender 3d.
Many of this issues actually in blender 2.79 was fixed or have had some attention, but the layout still getting some anger because we need some organization in our minds to make some project and handle the tools. In my opinion use the microsoft softwares layout organization is some solution to blender. I believe blender 2.8 will be more friendly to the beginners like me (even I'm just a hobbist). We love blender!
I still come back here and rewatch this because it's amazing. I learned a lot watching it 😀
I'm so used to right-click select I don't think I'll change it. Once you start using 3D cursor a lot of makes more sense
It's a shame that someone must recommend to the designers of blender™ that they should include standard warning/error/exception messages that provide a solid mistake mitigation and alert system. These well thought out and most basic of basics in interface/usability design suggestions, as presented herein, went and will always go – clearly heard, yet totally unheeded. Why?
I think that it's because at this point, the training/educational system and the for-a-fee-extension/plugin institutions that have cozied up to and built themselves around software that started out with a really bungled GUI. So now, not a single one of them has even the SLIGHTEST incentive towards making it even one quantum easier to use. I think "they" see it as a "you must be this tall to ride" chaff puller that weeds out pretty much everyone not willing to seriously put in some time & learning effort. Although, it has occurred to me one reason why the LB/RB mouse select is switched in that whole bizarre, up is left and down is in front of you, scheme of things: I think it has to do with the centeredness of blender™ around the MMB and how each individual person holds their mouse and which finger they use to press the MMB when trying to perform one of their highly coveted and ninja-like 'three-keypress, two-mouse-button, click-drag-release-click' maneuvers. I guess…
When i see blender first time in 2013 its UI is much same as 2017 nothing is change except its splash screen.
OMG. You look so different
Basics of 3D videos
Please make a video of 3D rebder in blender
I learned 3D with Maya, but since it's very expansive, I'm pretty much forced to switch to Blender after my Student trial ended. But every single time I try to do something for the first time in Blender, it's always a pain, takes me hours of googling, and I'm especially frustrated that everyone talks of doing things using SHORTCUTS and never mention where I can navigate on the UI to find said tool.
If I knew of a more affordable alternative, I would not hesitate on moment to jump off the Blender wagon. Because yeah, exactly as you said, I am confused, frustrated and angry right now.
Good idea,may be it's the time for Blender to change as well,I know many of you guys don't like this video but I think what Andrew said is true,Blender should not be that much hard to use and it's quite pointless to struggle for trying so hard to get an easy task be done.
One of the great pitfalls of software design is the desire to be original. Nobody cares that it is different, they just want it to work as expected. The greatest advantage of Blender is that it is free, but free means nothing if nobody can figure out how to use it. I have learned several different 3d programs without too much difficulty and frustration, and while Blender is the last, it is also the most confusing and frustrating of all.
…I think if we ended up changing Blender it would have ended up like something of an Autodesk product where it would be bloated and crashy, where as Blender is rigid in the interface but doesn't really change and in return we get a tremendous performance boost and getting to learn the specific workflow of it for awesome productivity. I actually don't know how much Blender changed since these videos where published since I wasn't with Blender at the time.
Back in 2005 I wanted to get into CGI, I had a student copy of 3ds max and spent a week learning to make simple shapes. A friend was using blender at the time and convinced me to try it out. I think I spent about 2 hours trying to figure it out and was just plainly frustrated by the UI when I clicked something and had no idea what the red and white circle was I assumed for about 20 min that that was blenders way of selecting an object. The way the camera orbited things all over the place and trying to find out how to move vertices made me quit. Now I'm a very proficient 3d modeller in multiple packages and now I've disabled the red-white circle thing changed things to left click and turned on orbit around selection, I'm finally willing to give it another shot. If left click was enabled by default It could have been a very different story.
i only use blender cause its free. i dont know about the others things like maya or 3ds max
Leafy with a chin
hell that the fuck i call a hair cut!
I can't believe you have to justify these critics with researches. Also I don't know why you have to calm down people in the intro of the vid. All the points you made makes sense without much thinking about it. Blender is being wasted because of these issues.
One of the main reasons why i find blender difficult is its organisation. I never know where and what most buttons do
i noticed it after a year without practicing or using blender made me forget literally everything from the program
You are actually right. I have been using it on and off (ten years also). I came from Anime Studio/Microsoft Office Visual Basic to Blender. However, with a software engineering background, it is hard to keep up with the development effort by "part-time blender users" who move on. This is also looking at past development. The problem also is training of the support people such as your self to meet the demand of customer and work for free. This includes the front end and the back end of Blender. Compling blender is not easy much less for the 3 major OS plus android.
I keep pressing "A" to deselect everything all the time while doing data backups at work.
It's 2017 and blender UI design still hasn't learned the universal lesson: left clicking is expected to select the thing.
The user interface can be switched from blender to 3ds max & maya in later versions of blender, when you open up blender near interaction.
Ya change the UI, and what the buttons do so ALL of old Blender users have to relearn EVERYTHING .
Making all training video I paid for useless , and I have to buy all new video's .
This will also make all free youtube video's useless just like the last time they switched the UI…
Confusing tons of people that were already using Blender.
You are trully a Blender Guru now.
OH man thats Right Click Thing make me Late a lot of Time when i know Blender on early of 2016 i did not how to select so after 5 minutes of trying i close until thats day when i know Blender guru on 2017 thats beginner series from blender guru awesome .
Thank You andrew Price for Helping The community
I thought the same in the intro of the video STANDARDIZATION …¡¡¡¡¡¡ THATS THE KEY OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ¡¡¡
Man, I agree with you 100%!!!!
I worked hard to retrain myself to use R-Click select (because of everyone claiming how great it was), but I hated how useless my primary mouse button became in the viewport. I switched to L-Click select and now I R-Click by mistake very often. Blender created a confusing convention to be different and only the most dedicated users defend this choice because they've already retained themselves and don't understand the problem for new users. Defending a poor choice primarily because of product loyalty is unproductive behavior. It's most typified in users of Apple products and I believe the term for this is "fanboy".
Blender is the least intuitive piece of software that I can think of. The initial splash screen is an indication – no x button to get rid of it. It just disappears. Not a good decision! Half the basic hotkeys do something completely different that you expect. Even selecting a single object among multiple objects is a trial in frustration. Duplicate an object and then try to delete one of them. Blender will treat them as one object for some completely arbitrary reason. All sorts of basic functionality is something you have to Google. Why? Nobody knows, There's a reason why there are standardised basic in interface and UX design. What the absolute fuck where the Blender developers thinking!?
UI sucks. Same complaints, year after year. Blender is a scattered groups of programmers w/o any project management.
When I first started Blender I got confused when the space bar brought up search instead of playing the animation. YouTube and QuickTime have conditioned me to think of the space bar as "play/pause" and Blender threw me off guard.
it would be nice if when you donate you can vote on where your money goes, such as adding new features , or making the thing more user friendly.
I SEE "TADOA ANDO" BOOKS ON YOUR SHELF ….. ARE YOU AN ARCHITECT?……
Andrew,
is blender compatible with revit?
purple shelf looks fine XD
Thank you! I realize this is a somewhat old video, but it is nice to have someone insisting that common sense remain common. *Note added due to YT's new no credit unless commented on policy. 🙂 Subbed.
I am new into blender, and thanks to it, I've gotten more friends. If you can take over/take part in an idea I have about a group called Node .3, and basically what it is it's a Node revolution, or a way the devs will hopefully take NODEice of nodes and improve it further.
I dearly hope you read this sir. I am blown away. No; Really! I DO NOT use blender, nor have I used ANY modeling software (outside of "Google Sketchup" for a little taste of what it's like). No. What I do is light graphic design purely for personal interest, and the occasional Youtube video. Your video on the use of color and how it works on the brain was amazing, and even this series has provided so much useful info that extends FAR outside the realm of just Blender! And that downright impresses me. I have little interest in the programs you detail tutorials on, but yet I watch. Because in between the lines of your script (is it scripted usually? this seems it but your tutorials appear free-form) you share good info for things outside the realm of this application. Your tutorials are engaging, interesting, extremely professional, high-quality, everything! Even in the cases where you make a mistake (albeit rare so far in my watching) it comes across as fun, and as someone who made tutorials for other software, know that those little "hiccups" actually help a ton because they're usually pitfalls the average end user would fall into. Amazing work here. I love it!
It sucks after 3 years still seeing that right click to select is default. It must be they think blender is very very special software which can afford awkward UI choices and horrible usability. It seems they dont care but if blender was commercial software they would know they cant have such luxuries.
Yes, usability, this is why I only use blender for FX, I didn't even listen to teacher in class before but I know how to use basic Maya functions X'D
Thanks for making the video- it has been hard to put what bothered me about Blender to words until now:
They still haven't fixed #3.
I work 10 hr shifts, and when I get home my brain is too fried to remember 50 shortcuts that I don't even have the option to get buttons for. So now, I'm currently weighing Maya vs Modo because Blender is just that difficult to get comfortable with, even though I'm poor and only doing 3d as a hobby.
Also the search function could have a spell checker, and also have related words to functions. (because I suck at spelling and know some of the functions by different names.) I'm nitpicking BUT this would have helped me very much.
space and type in what you want 😀 and you see the shortcut