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BTW, the one feature I was thought was good enough to consider purchasing ZBrush for was the re-topology. Absolutely amazing the job it does. And I almost bought it just for that. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, when you consider the other apps out there (free) that do almost as good.
Great idea.
... Because I am less likely to desect stuff, or select something else.
Two words: Got it.
And that's what I do in Blender, using python. It's wonderful. But there is a point at which it's just not worth the hassle. And ZBrush is that point. If you can't even wrap your head around the basic way it does things, and the workflow, and what stuff means, spending more time trying to customize just isn't worth it to me. I'm sure others feel differently.
And there's a point at which user customization becomes an excuse for poor UI design. It should be 10% customization, because the remaining 90% is well done, not the other way around.
Not sure if you're serious or kidding. No other software app on the planet uses RMB to select stuff. But in Blender's case it's okay with you?
Using a scripting language to customise Blender UI is ok but dragging out some buttons in ZBrush isn't? Here's a slightly extreme example:
I think that interface is a great example of an incomprehesible mess that looks like nothing I've ever used before.
...I quit writing code many years ago due to severe burnout and really have little to no interest in going back to it again. This seems to be the route to go to really get Blender to work the way you want it to.
Anyway, I suspect that a lot of ZBrush UI complaints are actually just a result of the extensive functionality. It's insane what they packed into that thing over the years. Naturally it's bursting at the seams but I almost feel like no amount of UI is going to make that more managable, at the end of the day it's just a complex tool that you have to learn slowly. Still miles ahead of Blender UI if you ask me, which is fragmented and ugly to boot. 2.8 will address this though.
That's probably because you've never used anything like it before?
...
Yeah, but a well designed UI needs to consider what its users are used to, don't you think? It needs to consider the other apps they've been using, and try to maintain a similar flow. Of course there are features that aren't found elsewhere, but still you can use a consistent philosphy in the design. And similar to Blender, which has tons of features, you need to take into consideration that most of your users won't use 90% of those features, so you don't need to put them front and center. You put the most used ones up front, and allow the other users who used the more complicated or professional stuff to do the customization. That's one of Blender's problems, though it's getting better.
Honestly, you can justify ANY user interface. If it's poorly designed, then it's okay because it's customizable to fix the poor design. Or maybe it has tons of features, so that covers for the fact that there's all of those features you have to to sift thru even though few people actually use all of them.
Anyway, discussing UI's will never result in agreement. It's 98% personal preference, so there's always a justification no matter what the design.
That's a legit complaint. The UI wasn't designed for what people tend to use ZBrush for now. It was designed for "2.5D painting," essentially painting on a 2D canvas with 3D depth information. Now that nobody uses ZBrush for that purpose anymore, the UI is completely wrong.
Apparently they did as they made it for traditional sculpters. That's what I heard at least. And it did become the industry standard sclupting application, so I don't know. Was it just the amazing functionality that made people ignore the UI or did the UI maybe actually work at that level? In any case I struggled as well but overcame and realised that most of my troubles has nothing to do with UI but just the insanity of all the functionality.
During the sculpting process, I have everything minimized, just the the sculpt is on the screen. Everything needed, changing brush, changing brush size, navigations, is done with KB shortcuts. B for brush to see them all, narrow it down further by selecting the first letter of the brush you are needing. Space bar brings up the widget that lets you resize brush, change brush strenght etc. Shift to change over to smooth brush, and alt for all navigation. That screenshot above is by a person that likes to clicky more than use KB shortcuts it seems.
Ah maybe. I use a wacom too now, but I started with mouse, so still used to having one hand on the KB, and one on the pen lol.
For an $800 app (I think that's how much ZBrush costs...) the head of software should say this to one of their developers:
"Hey, Fred, I want you to sit in a corner for the next month and design a few custom interfaces. Make one of them for new users who first try the ZBrush trial so we don't scare them to death and make them run screaming into the night. Just hide all that ridiculous 2.5D stuff they won't need, and all the detail stuff they won't need for 3 years when they become professionals. And make the polygonal modeller front and center and easy to understand. Real simple. Got it?"
That's all. Maybe ask the user what apps he's familiar with, and design some interfaces that are kinda similar. They can select a Blender-style interface, or Maya, or whatever. If it's so easy for users to do, it should be super easy for the developers. Especially if they're gonna charge $800.
Have you tried Sculptris, ebergerly? It is in a lot of ways more intuitive and focused on just sculpting/painting.
indeed, because it is the only app, it's a deliberate action. When I first learnt Blender it was a curious thing, but 3D software were perculiar beasts... And still are.
Hexagon is much easier to use and functions more or less like every other vertex modeler. Blender is a beast unto itself. It's an old in-house DOS based vertex modeler from the days when mice had one button that has been kluged together over years but never developed a proper GUI. I've tried Blender and it's the only 3D software I've ever used that failed the 15 minute UI test. Even moving the camera is completely different from the way every other program moves the camera. Plus when all I need is a vertex modeler Blender is a bit of a hog since the modeling part of it can't be separated from the rest of the software that I don't need.
And if the rumors of a modernized Hexagon coming down the pipe turn out to be true then that's all the more reason to learn the software. Plus like I said, Hexagon is functionally similar to most other 3D software in how it works so learning another program after learning Hexagon won't be that difficult. One of the big complaints I've often heard from Blender users particularly students who self taught on Blender as amateurs but now have to learn Maya for school is since their UI is so completely different from the rest of the industry when you've learned to do things the Blender way it makes it very difficult to learn other 3D programs.
...good points.
Would love to try Hexagon, but alas am using an iMac Pro now with macOS 10.13. I've been recently evaluating quite a number of packages. For modeling, I still use Strata Design Studio 3D. UI not the best, but along with modeling, you have nice render options. Can also output various "pieces" (e.g. specular highlights only) to separate Photoshop layers.
Recently, tried demos of ZBrush, Lightwave3D and Cinema4D. Tempted to try Modo, but that, along with Cinema4D are way beyond my budget. While you can buy it outright, you're ultimately penalized if you don't then sign up for their yearly maintenance plans (i.e. the cost of upgrades increase over time).
Also tried Blender for a second time, but just hated it. e.g. I made a cube and saw the familiar three handles for positining. Great! Then clicked 'Rotate', and no handles. But as I moved the mouse around, rotation occurred. Same for scale. Only positioning seems to give you the familiar three handles. These types of inconsitencies personally drive me nuts.
Ultimately, whatever I move to will need to run on 64-bit. Many of the above do. But Strata does not. And support not getting back to me, so not a good sign.
The handles are there, but just like in DAZ and other software, you get to choose which combination of handles will appear. Here are the handles:
And here is the UI element you click on to select which ones appear:
Also you can shift select to get all 3 types of handles at the same time....You really do just need to try different programs yourself - enough to get used to how they work, and see if you like it.
I was forced to use 3DS Max in school, then at various companies I worked at - despite all my hours put into it, I could never get used to it. I tried Blender for fun and something about it just clicked with me - I have never looked back.
If you try and try and it's just not working, try something else! It's more important to make things, have fun, and gain experience any way you can.
...yeah for me it turned out to be Hexagon, though the one downside was the terrible instability. Modo was next that i really liked, but that began to become too expensive an option, particularly as it gravitated from primarily being modelling software to a full feature programme like 3DS.
I just couldn't get into modo. I could get past the UI, but it has horrible bugs. One was that I clearly had a single object selected, subdivided it, and it subdivided a different object. When painting one object, it automatically applied that texture to most of the objects in the scene. I couldn't figure out what it was doing.
As with most software trials, I put them away for a bit and come back in a few days. In all cases though, I continued to have bad experiences in not only modo, but Blender. They could be bugs, or they could be that their workflows are just not for me. Complete opposite experiences have been Cinema4D. Alas, the most expensive option though if I pursue it.
Back to modo... I was really hoping it would have worked out. While expensive (up-front and yearly maintenance), it is 55% the cost of Cinema4D Studio. While there are cheaper versions (e.g. C4D Broadcast), they don't have key features. But, one also has to look at productivity (and ultimately throughput) of the software. So even at a higher cost, if C4D allows me to crank out output at double-the-rate over modo, then it would pay for itself.