Ranting on the comparison between GIMP and Blender

eye776

TL;DR It's unfair to compare the UI of GIMP to that of Blender. Mostly because Blender's dev history was littered with financial and political issues. It's well known that talking trash about Blender's UI is controversial to say the least. But a really strange point I never quite understood was the comparisons between GIMP's and Blender's GUIs that keep popping up. It's true that GIMP's UI is also different from the standard (coughPhotoshop) but unlike Blender's, it never really struck me as broken or inconsistent. Disclaimer, neither GIMP nor Blender were my first: my first 2D software was an old copy of PaintShop Pro, as for 3D it was actually a trial of Cinema 4D :P. Now, I've tried Blender on and off since v1.80 and frankly I MUST admit it has come a long way towards usablility. But I've never seen so much conceit from any other FOSS community. I don't know how many people still remember Mr. Ton Roosendaal infamous declaration that "Blender is for Blender users". And that's really the point, UI woes aside, GIMP's founders have never really come across with smug statements like "GIMP is only for GIMP users". Another ugly tidbit: GIMP had a help file out of the box for free. Until Noob2Pro appeared you had to basically BUY the help file for Blender - as a physical book. Hopefully it won't take another 10 years for Blender's animation features to catch up to their modelling features. Because it sure looks like it...

BinaryOrange

So, I take it you're not a fan of Blender then?

Megalomaniak

[quote author=eye776 link=topic=15703.msg17129#msg17129 date=1468802827]Hopefully it won't take another 10 years for Blender's animation features to catch up to their modelling features. Because it sure looks like it...[/quote]Can't be bothered to debate with you over the rest of it mostly because its been done a plenty in the past but I will say this: I'd actually argue that blenders animation tools are at this point better/more developed in comparison to the modeling tools. I am however especially talking about the builtin tool-set without considering any addon's.

Ace_Dragon

Have you seen the online manual for Blender at all (it's fairly complete in most areas as of now and is actively being worked on)?https://www.blender.org/manual/In addition, Blender has [url=https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.78/Animation]some nice new features[/url] for animation coming in version 2.77, the devs. are also working on a new depsgraph for Blender (which should bring a significant leap in that functionality once it gets enabled by default, you can even make use of it now by typing a console command).

eye776

@Ace Dragon: Yes I've seen the new manual and it's pretty good.Hell even the interface is leaps and bounds better compared to 2.49.They've been improving on it since 2.50.But it's all a pretty recent development and Blender Cloud tells me to expect that the Blender Foundation might try a similar move in the future (feature is free but docs cost money).@Megalomaniak: I'm not saying Blender's animation features are lacking. Just that compared to the modelling side it still feels a lot more inconsistent, like a work in progress.As an example, doing a simple rig (single skeleton, all bones connected) & animation requires almost as many steps as a more complex one.Heck I'll admit that Blender's box modelling flow is close to beating Wings3D.What ticks me off isn't "Blender the Software" as much as it is "Blender the Community". Blender is the last FOSS 3D software left standing and they know it. And they never hesitate to rub it in your face and get smug about it.I mean OpenFX is on life support, K3D and Seamless3d never went anywhere, AoI is light years behind, MM3D is abandoned and Wings3D is a one-trick pony, a damn good trick, but still just one.Also, unless you count Metasequoia, the hobbyist 3D market (20 - 100 USD) is a wasteland. Which, again, leaves Blender as the only real alternative for indies.The next "cheapest" 3D packages are Houdini (200 USD/year), Maya LT(240 USD/year) and Lightwave (695 USD/full).

BinaryOrange

Ah, yes I see your points now and that does make sense. It is true that the Blender community does seem to have an air of smugness about them. It is really off-putting.The first version I used was 2.49, just before the massive interface overhaul. I remember being frustrated that the only viable documentation was through that book, and this was also the time before video tutorials took off (everyone's bandwidth was slow at uploading and downloading videos, so no one had the patience!).Honestly, this is why I have become more interested in 2D development, as opposed to 3D. Namely because I can't afford the bigger "easier" applications to model/animate with, and also because frankly, I cannot model very well at all! Also, I totally agree with the statement in your first post about GIMPs interface not being anywhere near as inconsistent as Blender's has been. GIMP has had a solid layout for their UI since about 2008, and have kept to that layout very well. Blender seems to like to change everything around a bit from version to version.Honestly, if I really was a decent modeler, and could afford it, I would go with Maya as there is a huge abundance of tutorials for it. Eventually, I hope to be able to purchase it and make great use of it.

Ace_Dragon

The idea of paying for docs. via the Blender cloud would only be your personal speculation at the moment, the primary purpose of that cloud is to act as a content delivery and service platform while acting as a fund source for the Open Movies (alongside Blender development). Considering how vested Ton is in keeping Blender itself completely free, I highly doubt that a proposal to lock the docs. behind a paywall would pass muster.[quote]Also, I totally agree with the statement in your first post about GIMPs interface not being anywhere near as inconsistent as Blender's has been. GIMP has had a solid layout for their UI since about 2008, and have kept to that layout very well. Blender seems to like to change everything around a bit from version to version.[/quote]It's easy to see why the interface wouldn't change much when you consider that the GIMP's development rate is extremely slow with releases taking years. It's actually not uncommon for constantly developed applications to see GUI changes and tweaks with each release (though some vendors like Autodesk also tend to be prone to making unpopular changes as well).

eye776

@Ace Dragon: I also highly doubt they'll put up a paywall for the [i][b]current[/b][/i] version of the docs. But yeah, it's my personal speculation that they [i][b]might[/b][/i] try to do that for some [b][i]future[/i][/b] form of documentation.EDIT: Also, I'm not really sympathetic towards Autodesk. They single-handedly destroyed most of the high-end commercial 3D software market. What they did with XSI is pretty much unforgivable.Anyway, back to GIMP's & Blender's UI. My point was simply that GIMP was considered to be as tough to learn as Blender was in the past, when that just wasn't the case. The differences between GIMP and say... Pixelmator are more cosmetic than functional.Personally I don't compare GIMP with Photoshop anymore because while they do have overlapping functionality, most of Photoshop's new features are for photography more than image editing.Also another thing I've heard said was that the new Blender UI was "just a trick", a different layout for the existing functions "to shut naysayers up". But that's the whole point. A well organized UI that encourages discovery is great for beginners and intermediate users. Pros can still hide most of the UI away and only work with shortcuts if they so choose.

Ace_Dragon

[quote author=eye776 link=topic=15703.msg17147#msg17147 date=1468907327]Also another thing I've heard said was that the new Blender UI was "just a trick", a different layout for the existing functions "to shut naysayers up". But that's the whole point. A well organized UI that encourages discovery is great for beginners and intermediate users. Pros can still hide most of the UI away and only work with shortcuts if they so choose.[/quote]A major reason for the new UI was due to the fact that the old UI was very difficult to expand (or even work with, adding a button for a new option or tool for instance was a difficult job). The new UI is more future-proof in this respect (spacebar search, the toolbar, vertical layout, hotkeys not being hardcoded, ect...), the UI architecture in general then is also more robust and more expandable (allowing for the seamless integration of plugins and new usability features).That said, I still think there's a lot of room where the UI can be improved further (such as the introduction of concepts like floating panels and a vastly improved toolbar).