12-23-2013, 03:30 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-23-2013, 03:31 AM by TulipVorlax.)
I'm a tad sorry i have to say that i think it's true that Wings dont really communicate very well with the user.
Wings only "speak" with the user using two area of the screen : 1) the information area at the top of the viewport, 2) the bottom line wich is easilly missed by new users.
Even more, that line at the bottom can't be more that one line (currently) and the text it show must be short. So when you have a lot of control possibilies to display, it could be truncated on smaller screen or in others languages than english, when like in french things need more space to display properly.
I dont know if the information line at bottom could be made taller, but about 3 row of text could be shown to the user : 1) current operation information and shortcuts, 2&3) advices and regular help line. Or, any other suggestion other users here can think of. I had some other ideas but lost them while typing. Also, letting people switch from regular (single line) or "verbose" information line by clicking a small button could be nice. Like a panel flipping up and down..
I dont know how much work this feature would imply, but it would probably require more text in wings lang file, so more text to translate.
And about Blender, many years before finding about Wings 3D, i learned some basis usage of Blender so i can show my friend artist how to use it. He never was able to even begin because of 1) the mouse usage in Blender is very different than in any other Windows software (or so), 2) all text part shown on wigets related to some abreviation of english 3d modelling technical terms that seems tedious to learn for an old french speaking artist just switching from real word art to digital art for it's own amusement, and the same goes for the shortcut wich were the first letter of english terms (and it was impossible or hard to change them back then).
It's not because more people use a product that it's a better product. Is Windows a better product than Linux ? It's just that because more people use it, often not by choice but because everyone use it or because it is preinstalled, most software developer dont bother making their product for Linux, and this produce a vicious cycle. My friend artist also use Daz 3D and Bryce, wich have no Linux version.
Bryce is english only but so visual that it was much easier to learn than Blender. Bryce material lab may be less powerfull than what Blender was already offering, back then it seemed that we needed to learn about physics of light going through glass, water, translucent plastic before even hoping to make something in Blender that just vaguely ressembled to what we were expecting, trying to get.
Beside, Wings 3D workflow ressemble more to what real life sculpture is, with some extra since it's not real life. Meaning, like in real life, you can cut part of model as if using a knife on a piece of wood, you can push, pinch, deform the mesh like you would do with argile or clay.
But i must admit one thing : The first time we installed Wings 3D, we though that the UI was ugly or unappealing. And the fact that back then the french translation was bad and missing all accentuated letter didn't help. But Wings french translation was still better than the one of Blender (wich nobody ever bothered changing the language anyway), and after playing just a few day with Wings, my friend artist was already doing great and surprising things with it more easilly than with any other sortware we bothered trying/testing.
All theses years, i've continuated to install the new version of Blender on our computers hoping that my friend could learn it some day, but to much knowledge they never altered much the basis of how it operate, with that weird target widget that is moved around instead of selecting element when you click the mouse button. Yes, we can invert the button, but it's impossible to just get rid of that weird little target since most if not all operation is done according to it's location.
But enough with that, i've downloaded Sculptris and need to try it because Zbrush was one of the others software that was the most appealing to my friend artist because it even more ressemble to real world sculpting.
Sorry for my bad english.
Wings only "speak" with the user using two area of the screen : 1) the information area at the top of the viewport, 2) the bottom line wich is easilly missed by new users.
Even more, that line at the bottom can't be more that one line (currently) and the text it show must be short. So when you have a lot of control possibilies to display, it could be truncated on smaller screen or in others languages than english, when like in french things need more space to display properly.
I dont know if the information line at bottom could be made taller, but about 3 row of text could be shown to the user : 1) current operation information and shortcuts, 2&3) advices and regular help line. Or, any other suggestion other users here can think of. I had some other ideas but lost them while typing. Also, letting people switch from regular (single line) or "verbose" information line by clicking a small button could be nice. Like a panel flipping up and down..
I dont know how much work this feature would imply, but it would probably require more text in wings lang file, so more text to translate.
And about Blender, many years before finding about Wings 3D, i learned some basis usage of Blender so i can show my friend artist how to use it. He never was able to even begin because of 1) the mouse usage in Blender is very different than in any other Windows software (or so), 2) all text part shown on wigets related to some abreviation of english 3d modelling technical terms that seems tedious to learn for an old french speaking artist just switching from real word art to digital art for it's own amusement, and the same goes for the shortcut wich were the first letter of english terms (and it was impossible or hard to change them back then).
It's not because more people use a product that it's a better product. Is Windows a better product than Linux ? It's just that because more people use it, often not by choice but because everyone use it or because it is preinstalled, most software developer dont bother making their product for Linux, and this produce a vicious cycle. My friend artist also use Daz 3D and Bryce, wich have no Linux version.
Bryce is english only but so visual that it was much easier to learn than Blender. Bryce material lab may be less powerfull than what Blender was already offering, back then it seemed that we needed to learn about physics of light going through glass, water, translucent plastic before even hoping to make something in Blender that just vaguely ressembled to what we were expecting, trying to get.
Beside, Wings 3D workflow ressemble more to what real life sculpture is, with some extra since it's not real life. Meaning, like in real life, you can cut part of model as if using a knife on a piece of wood, you can push, pinch, deform the mesh like you would do with argile or clay.
But i must admit one thing : The first time we installed Wings 3D, we though that the UI was ugly or unappealing. And the fact that back then the french translation was bad and missing all accentuated letter didn't help. But Wings french translation was still better than the one of Blender (wich nobody ever bothered changing the language anyway), and after playing just a few day with Wings, my friend artist was already doing great and surprising things with it more easilly than with any other sortware we bothered trying/testing.
All theses years, i've continuated to install the new version of Blender on our computers hoping that my friend could learn it some day, but to much knowledge they never altered much the basis of how it operate, with that weird target widget that is moved around instead of selecting element when you click the mouse button. Yes, we can invert the button, but it's impossible to just get rid of that weird little target since most if not all operation is done according to it's location.
But enough with that, i've downloaded Sculptris and need to try it because Zbrush was one of the others software that was the most appealing to my friend artist because it even more ressemble to real world sculpting.
Sorry for my bad english.
My websites (in french) :
Main • Blog • Shared gallery • 3D Wiki (WIP)
Main • Blog • Shared gallery • 3D Wiki (WIP)