Blender Conference 2008

October 25th, 2008 . 8 comments

As much as I’d love to be at the 2008 Blender Conference in Amsterdam, as I have in some years past, it’s quite prohibitive and difficult, especially with work. Luckily, there is a live feed to watch the presentations online. One presentation that I’ve watched in its entirety so far is by William Reynish: The evolution of Blenders User Interface. I’ve met William a few times, and we’ve chatted about these issues a long time ago, and his presentation brilliantly elucidates so many things that I’ve been thinking about, ranting about and very patiently waiting to start working on, for several years. Do yourself a favour and watch it now!

These issues are not theoretical niceties, they’re serious problems that I (and the other people I work with) run up against day by day in our production work. They’re hurdles in Blender’s workflow that not only make Blender slower and clumsier to work in than it could potentially be, but also harder for professional users of other software to come up to speed in Blender quickly, which is important for us too. I’m sure William has come to the same conclusions after his experience working on Big Buck Bunny. Anyway, I want to offer my full support behind William’s presentation, and during the work on Blender 2.5 I’d like to do whatever I can to help make that happen. I hope you all can give these ideas the same support too.


§ 8 Responses to Blender Conference 2008"

  • Gianmichele says:

    Had to agree with everything. William’s presentation was such an incredible way to present concept that are from other paradigms and “blend” them into the blender thinking. I think it touched the hearth of even the more conservative users.

    Looking forward to what you’ll come up with guys!

    -Gian

  • Glenn Melenhorst says:

    He’s on the money. That all looks great, especially the multiple object stuff which is pretty much one of my biggest gripes (rememebr how much I banged on about it at the belgium beer bar :))

    Glenn

  • Virgilio says:

    That presentation was brilliant.

    It is very good to know that such talking is taking place on the Conference. I like a lot the concept of Blender’s UI, but it has some important glitches that need to be fixed. As William made very clear, this is the time to do this.

    I’d love to help on it too. 🙂

  • Pepeland says:

    William read my mind 🙂 I completely agree.

    Daniel

  • Nice presentation.

    And while it’s certainly not what the core of the message, I do like the way the proposed widgets look too 🙂 (apart form the checkbox).

  • matt says:

    Agreed, i’m still hovering on the edges of jumping into blender, his presentation cleared up a lot of confusion for me; I was never sure where the tools were vs attributes vs actions, now I understand that they’re all jumbled together at the moment. Will be great to see that all cleared up.

  • hello matt! the presentation was brillant! William has a nice and stylish style for the design, …also like you! you both think that minimal things are better and the interface doesnt have to take our attention.

    Well, I want to show you my own mockup (yes!, the presentation inspired me!) Tell me your thoughts and critics please!

    Regards

  • William says:

    Hi,

    Thanks a lot for the mention. If anyone is interested I’ve written a paper based on the presentation with some more information, available here:

    http://www.blender.org/community/blender-conference/proceedings/

    Comments are welcome.

    -W

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