Blender 2.5 alpha major improvement!

[luthobu]

I can't believe it.. this is a major improvement.. now even I shall, will and must learn Blender. It's all in the UI..

http://alge.anart.no/projects/racer/screenshots//blender25a-64bit.jpg

 

[Stereo]

Hmm, I thought Blender already had too many buttons visible and it was encroaching on viewing the actual model. I might be a glutton for screen space though. But I really like having room for 2 ortho and a perspective view at the same time. Zmodeler had the 'F' hotkey to make the current window fullscreen and I used it a lot.

I had to scale this back to 1/4 size but I think it's still possible to see how I work.

 

[luthobu]

Heh. Nice. What caught my eye was apparently the layout change with the buttons on the sides, the improved support for mouse usage, the improved file requesters, and an UI that actually makes sense (to me)! The major drawback with the earlier (before 2.5a) versions was that the UI made me shudder and made it impossible for me to even /want/ to get to know it.. I am an esthetic person, ugly and confusing UI's are turn-offs (Zmod is not ugly, but beautiful in its simplicity and clearity). I am sorry, but that is a fact for many others too. It seems as if the Blender team finally has understood this, and that makes me really happy..

 

[FiftyOrange]

Heh. Nice. What caught my eye was apparently the layout change with the buttons on the sides, the improved support for mouse usage, the improved file requesters, and an UI that actually makes sense (to me)! The major drawback with the earlier (before 2.5a) versions was that the UI made me shudder and made it impossible for me to even /want/ to get to know it.. I am an esthetic person, ugly and confusing UI's are turn-offs (Zmod is not ugly, but beautiful in its simplicity and clearity). I am sorry, but that is a fact for many others too. It seems as if the Blender team finally has understood this, and that makes me really happy..

The Blender menu is what stopped me. It's an absolute horror.
I bet it broke thier hearts to make something that can be used by normal humans.

 

[luthobu]

I bet it broke thier hearts to make something that can be used by normal humans.

That is what I thought too.. but it seems like they have had a change-of-heart experience..

"The previous 'buttons window' had become disorganised after years of expansion, inconsistently mixing tools and settings, and needed major systematic revisions."

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-250/updated-gui/

 

[boomer541]

How does the .dof exporter work with Blender 2.5? I'll have to check it out as I still like Blender 2.45 which is easier for me to texture objects. Haven't gotten used to 2.49's method of texturing in edit mode.

 

[citronized]

@Boomer : don't know about 2.5, but I can tell you that the dof exporter was working great with 2.49b

@Luthobu : Thank you for reporting the news here, I have to d/l this !

 

[camsinny]

I'm happy with max.
Plus, the UI doesn't really effect me anymore, the easiest way to model is with shortcuts/hotkeys, not with buttons on a UI, for me at least

If you know your hotkeys UI doesn't matter, that being the case it's down to which program you prefer, that's personal taste/preference.

 

[luthobu]

@boomer: not tested yet. will do after work today.

@citronized: you are welcome

@camsinny: I liked MAX but I only had the demo. I also liked GMAX but it does not work with win7. The problem with Blender was that the UI was a mess and it looked like cr@p which in turn made me loose interest in it altogether, hotkeys or not. With Zmod I use hotkeys all the time, but then again, its UI is practically non-existent, it is just pure function. My point being, if you don't like the look of it, there is a pretty good chance that you will never learn or use it.

 

[KS95]

Oh good. Now that it's a lot more logical to humans I think I might have another go at it. Cheers for posting

Edit: Hmm. How the hell do you import images (like for a background? :S)

 

[boomer541]

I downloaded Blender 2.50 and tried the dof exporter. FORGET IT, IT DON'T WORK!!!!!

Previous versions of Blender relied on Python to use some 3rd party scripts and would find the Python installation. Version 2.50 only has a subset of the Python "lib" folder which excludes use of 3rd party scripts, there was one script I tried that caused the program to crash and removing the script didn't fix the problem. I had to reinstall! I tried to install Python 3.1.1 but that didn't work either. In the file section of "user preferences" there is NO ability to define a path to the Pyton installation. I also tried both the dof gui and text versions of Brent Burtons dof exporter, neither worked!

I would wait until Blender.org ges a better version as they state that version 2.50 doesn't have all the functionality of previous versions

I still recommend learning Blender, either version 2.45 (my favorite) or 2.49!

KS95,
You have to find the views menu and background image should be on it. Also to get a nice three view workspace click on the screens little up/down arrows and select one of the other choices to see the various predefined screens.

 

[luthobu]

I downloaded Blender 2.50 and tried the dof exporter. FORGET IT, IT DON'T WORK!!!!!

Please consider the fact that it is first and foremost an ALPHA version - and secondly that it is an almost TOTAL rewrite. It seems a bit early to make any hasty claims.. No matter what, I find the new approach most interesting and am looking forward to a /working/ version.

 

[boomer541]

Yes it is a TOTAL rewrite, ALMOST! Blender.org does state that there is a lack of complete functionality with previous versions.

KS95, I goofed, the background image is not available in the 2.50 version as far as I can determine, I spent an hour or so searching for it or a way to do it. No luck!

I tried to texture a cube in 2.50 but it was a horrendous job to get it to look as it should. Moving a vertex in the UV window is a real pitb!

I to will be looking forward to a good working version! In the meantime I'll stick with 2.45 and 2.49!

 

[KS95]

Thanks boomer! I knew I wasn't going mad, I must have spent about an hour myself trying to find it. I think I may try 2.49 then.

 

[GizmoPower]

Feck!! That was confusing! I´ll stay with 2.49 for now.....

 

[luthobu]

Oh well.. just to clear things up a bit.. I did write that is an alpha.. and also that the UI was improved.. other than that, the placebo effect hit in by the anticipation of a new Blender.. i guess..

 

[jabb]

2.50 Alpha is not really for use - it shows how the UI changed and allows people to get ready for proper 2.50.
There's no point in choosing 2.50a now. If you want to see how Blender will look then go ahead and check it. If on the other hand you want a fully working version then get 2.49b or something that suits your needs (for example I still use 2.472 build optimized for my CPU).

I can't wait for Blender 2.5 proper release with custom hotkeys functionality...

 

[luthobu]

*bump*

"The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.53 Beta. This release is the first official beta release of the Blender 2.5 series, representing the culmination of many years of redesign and development work.

This version is called a "Beta" because it's now for the most part feature complete. The main topic we still work on is the Python API. "

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-250/

 

[boomer541]

Try the dof exporter by Brent Burton to see if it works with the new beta version.

 

[jabb]

Blender 2.54 is out!
It should be final Beta version before a proper, stable 2.5x final is out.
I must admit that it's really fast compared to 2.4x versions. It's way faster than the best 2.472 optimized build I had. I'm really getting ready to remove old versions from my HDD.