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I'm not a fan of the Hex GUI at all. Never liked it. Too many damn buttons. I don't care how pretty they look, each one of those means more distractions that pull you away from what you are working on. UI means much more to me than pretty gfx or cramming more stuff in it to imply that you'll be more productive or take the app more seriously. Silo has the best UI in my opinion, basically because you can skin the buttons and general appearance to look however you want (everyone wins this way). But you can also turn all of that off and drive the program completely just with your mouse/tablet and a couple of keybinds. This makes it more valuable to me than any of the bloated beasts like Maya, or XSI or Max that I own and use at work. Hexagon can't do that either - which actually does put it in the realm of 'children's toy' for me. Contextual behaviour is a must also and customizing user input down to the mouse and tablet are also a must.

If someone doesn't like the navigation they should be able to change it to whatever they want. That means not just the way maya or lw or modo work, but even creating a unique nav scheme of their own if they want. Again I can do this in silo. Button clicking is a horrible user experience when sculpting or painting and seeing that Hexagon GUI all the time would just annoy me, knowing that at any given moment, more than half of what is there is not needed.

I agree with the idea of 'rooms' or modules as they are nice and contextual and cut down immensely on the amount of GUI you have to deal with at any given time. This aspect of XSI actually makes it the least bloated of the studio apps I've used - though the key and mouse inputs are something else entirely. =\

In 3dcoat I don't want to see retopo or paint tools when I'm sculpting, etc. So long as I can quickly toggle between the different modes I'm quite happy. For me, even stacking the key and mouse assignments so that they can have unique assignments 'per room' would be even sweeter, as it would cut down on excessive binding and allow you to reuse the most valuable binds for the most important tasks in any given room.

This is a big reason why I divide my polygon modeling between the likes of Silo and UVLayout and Zbrush. They all are dedicated programs that put input priorities on the tools you use the most for their specific purpose. I look at all three as basically being separate, fully contextual rooms for the task of working with polygons. This way I get the best tools with the most focused workflows for each. It's actually easier for me to work this way despite having to send obj files flying around my hard drive than it is to do everything in Max, or XSI or Maya. 3dcoat should be no different. It is not a bloated studio app. It has a narrow focus (sculpting and painting) and so should favor a focused toolset and user experience and avoid dumping everything in your face.

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Ok, so it's my turn about GUI ;)

in my opinion the GUI of 3D-Coat is really good in terms of efficency, yes it's not cool and clean as modo or other software, but in my opinion it's only a restyling matter. Because you can import every type of object i suggest to add constraint to rotation to 45/90° like carrara (pressing shift) and a numeric input for both rotation and resize (maybe directly on the gizmo or in a little pop up window). As discussed many times before i agree using only one gizmo for all the different situations (primitives, etc). Sometimes when i try new softwares i'm a bit frustrated spend time to learn how to move an object and how to use tools, with 3d coat i'm happy since the firts time because it's very similar to photoshop, illustrator etc.

-TOXE

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I'm not a fan of the Hex GUI at all. Never liked it. Too many damn buttons. I don't care how pretty they look, each one of those means more distractions that pull you away from what you are working on. UI means much more to me than pretty gfx or cramming more stuff in it to imply that you'll be more productive or take the app more seriously. Silo has the best UI in my opinion, basically because you can skin the buttons and general appearance to look however you want (everyone wins this way). But you can also turn all of that off and drive the program completely just with your mouse/tablet and a couple of keybinds. This makes it more valuable to me than any of the bloated beasts like Maya, or XSI or Max that I own and use at work. Hexagon can't do that either - which actually does put it in the realm of 'children's toy' for me. Contextual behaviour is a must also and customizing user input down to the mouse and tablet are also a must.

If someone doesn't like the navigation they should be able to change it to whatever they want. That means not just the way maya or lw or modo work, but even creating a unique nav scheme of their own if they want. Again I can do this in silo. Button clicking is a horrible user experience when sculpting or painting and seeing that Hexagon GUI all the time would just annoy me, knowing that at any given moment, more than half of what is there is not needed.

I agree with the idea of 'rooms' or modules as they are nice and contextual and cut down immensely on the amount of GUI you have to deal with at any given time. This aspect of XSI actually makes it the least bloated of the studio apps I've used - though the key and mouse inputs are something else entirely. =\

In 3dcoat I don't want to see retopo or paint tools when I'm sculpting, etc. So long as I can quickly toggle between the different modes I'm quite happy. For me, even stacking the key and mouse assignments so that they can have unique assignments 'per room' would be even sweeter, as it would cut down on excessive binding and allow you to reuse the most valuable binds for the most important tasks in any given room.

This is a big reason why I divide my polygon modeling between the likes of Silo and UVLayout and Zbrush. They all are dedicated programs that put input priorities on the tools you use the most for their specific purpose. I look at all three as basically being separate, fully contextual rooms for the task of working with polygons. This way I get the best tools with the most focused workflows for each. It's actually easier for me to work this way despite having to send obj files flying around my hard drive than it is to do everything in Max, or XSI or Maya. 3dcoat should be no different. It is not a bloated studio app. It has a narrow focus (sculpting and painting) and so should favor a focused toolset and user experience and avoid dumping everything in your face.

You sound to me like someone who's never used Hexagon for more than a few moments.

Hexagon has fully customizable hotkeys. And tons of lil shortcuts that means that in all honesty you don't need most of the buttons much of the time but you can have them there if you want to because of the fact that Hexagon has so many awesome "special" functions that sometimes it's simpler to click on a button inside of your completely customized and therefore unmodular user pallette. Yes, that means you could theoretically mix voxel buttons with sculpting or painting buttons if you wanted to inside of 3dCoat. Not that I'm some Hexagon zealot but it just sounds to me like you've not spent much time inside of Hexagon.

Also Hexagon has several view modes including a fullscreen mode where no buttons show at all except for your custom pallette which is only a slender strip that you can toggle on and off with a hotkey.

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You sound to me like someone who's never used Hexagon for more than a few moments.

Hexagon has fully customizable hotkeys. And tons of lil shortcuts that means that in all honesty you don't need most of the buttons much of the time but you can have them there if you want to because of the fact that Hexagon has so many awesome "special" functions that sometimes it's simpler to click on a button inside of your completely customized and therefore unmodular user pallette. Yes, that means you could theoretically mix voxel buttons with sculpting or painting buttons if you wanted to inside of 3dCoat. Not that I'm some Hexagon zealot but it just sounds to me like you've not spent much time inside of Hexagon.

Also Hexagon has several view modes including a fullscreen mode where no buttons show at all except for your custom pallette which is only a slender strip that you can toggle on and off with a hotkey.

Hi Kay_Eva,

regarding me i can say that i've used all products from Eovia, i was in the beta team of Hexagon, Amapi, Carrara (also i've made the cover art for Carrara4). For Hexagon they have used the code of Amapi regarding the guy, that is terrible in my opinion. The GUI is very good and intuitive, but it's a very buggy software, so i understand people don't like to use it. All this things that i've said regarding my experience with OSX platform BTW...

-TOXE

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Hi All,

a public discussion about the visual appearance of a GUI is pretty much pointless in my opinion:

There will always be people who prefer buttons over hotkeys.

Those who do so split up in groups which prefer Icons over Text.

Some also find the combination of images and text very compelling.

Fractions of each group tend to stick with the default toolbar arrangement or find nothing sexier than loads

of toolbars piled around the screen.

There could be long debates over the look of Icons alone! The palette ranges from sober Autocad 98-look

and stops at Kay Power Tools or Bryce at the other end...

There's people who just hate toolbars and want to see nothing else but viewports.

They don't complain when the program forces them to hold 4 keys at a time for as long as they can sychronize

hotkeys for all applications they use...

Some of these guys accept toolbars to an extend: As long as they are invisible by default and only pop up at mousepoint

when - of course - a hotkey is pressed. Others only accept some docked editor windows for controls which make no sense

to get driven with any input device alone.

So will there always be people who prefer Hexagon over Modo but Xsi over Blender.

Regardless of the workflow preferences can each of these users be a great artist.

I believe that 3DC should be flexible enough to adapt visual preferences and different

existing software/os backgrounds.

Concerning the visual represention of the UI just some thoughts:

I believe that it makes sense to respect some basic standards of the operating system.

Standards which allow proper rescaling (also of fonts) of the application regardless of the sceen-resolution.

This to my knowlege is less consequently established with complete new develpments like Hexagon...

Standards should also be respected with real basic things like file handling:

I still stumble each time when I want to close the 3DC-session or the current file because of ambiguous and non-standard dialogs

(continue - with what... Closing or Working?

Why aren't the windows-hotkeys hooked up for such modal dialogs [examples: alt+Y for yes, alt+N for No, cycling with Tab]

But these are details.

More neccessary would be a complete restructuring:

What is visible and available at any given moment? I would strongly disagree with Toxe's statement that everything basically needs some

graphical makeup here and there... While I'd say that the optical impression of this program still could be greatly improved it is still the

least important component of work on the UI.

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  • Advanced Member
I'm not a fan of the Hex GUI at all. Never liked it. Too many damn buttons. I don't care how pretty they look, each one of those means more distractions that pull you away from what you are working on. UI means much more to me than pretty gfx or cramming more stuff in it to imply that you'll be more productive or take the app more seriously. Silo has the best UI in my opinion, basically because you can skin the buttons and general appearance to look however you want (everyone wins this way). But you can also turn all of that off and drive the program completely just with your mouse/tablet and a couple of keybinds. This makes it more valuable to me than any of the bloated beasts like Maya, or XSI or Max that I own and use at work. Hexagon can't do that either - which actually does put it in the realm of 'children's toy' for me. Contextual behaviour is a must also and customizing user input down to the mouse and tablet are also a must.

If someone doesn't like the navigation they should be able to change it to whatever they want. That means not just the way maya or lw or modo work, but even creating a unique nav scheme of their own if they want. Again I can do this in silo. Button clicking is a horrible user experience when sculpting or painting and seeing that Hexagon GUI all the time would just annoy me, knowing that at any given moment, more than half of what is there is not needed.

I agree with the idea of 'rooms' or modules as they are nice and contextual and cut down immensely on the amount of GUI you have to deal with at any given time. This aspect of XSI actually makes it the least bloated of the studio apps I've used - though the key and mouse inputs are something else entirely. =\

In 3dcoat I don't want to see retopo or paint tools when I'm sculpting, etc. So long as I can quickly toggle between the different modes I'm quite happy. For me, even stacking the key and mouse assignments so that they can have unique assignments 'per room' would be even sweeter, as it would cut down on excessive binding and allow you to reuse the most valuable binds for the most important tasks in any given room.

This is a big reason why I divide my polygon modeling between the likes of Silo and UVLayout and Zbrush. They all are dedicated programs that put input priorities on the tools you use the most for their specific purpose. I look at all three as basically being separate, fully contextual rooms for the task of working with polygons. This way I get the best tools with the most focused workflows for each. It's actually easier for me to work this way despite having to send obj files flying around my hard drive than it is to do everything in Max, or XSI or Maya. 3dcoat should be no different. It is not a bloated studio app. It has a narrow focus (sculpting and painting) and so should favor a focused toolset and user experience and avoid dumping everything in your face.

Are you sure you OWN and use maya,max,xsi???? Richie rich

I use max and maya in the office and lightwave at home. They all have expert mode where the ui is clean. They all have some form of tabs which you can customize with your own preference. drag and drop no problem. I highly doubt that xsi doesn't have that, too, since its the most modern of the top 4 packagees. No idea on hexagon.

One thing I will agree but its a given that 3dc will need a shelf, tab, etc, that you can put your fav junk in regardless of mode. And everything can be mapped on the kb.

Three modes ala maya. Doesn't mean UI has to change completely. Just remove irrelevant panels in each mode.

Painting and detail

Retopo

Voxel

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So will there always be people who prefer Hexagon over Modo but Xsi over Blender.

Regardless of the workflow preferences can each of these users be a great artist.

Yes, you are right, and geo_n is right as well, when he says that every big modeler package nowadays can do nearly everything (even with UI).

But ... you can see it, you can feel it. Even in fullscreen mode without any icons at all, you feel the technically-oriented surrounding (maybe it better word than interface) of max or maya. It's in colors, it's in status bar, it's in every single detail no matter how much icons will you hide and how much keybord shortcuts will you make.

And that shoud be the point of dabate now.

What do we want? Technically oriented interface with all these type-in tabs a rows of buttons like in Max or Maya, or lets say simplier and for someone maybe more "childish" interface of Hexagon or Silo (believe me or not, in my opinion they are very similar in the overall feel), something between like Modo or something completely different?

We can make compromises in lot of things, sadly not in this basic approach, because the result would be terrible.

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Are you sure you OWN and use maya,max,xsi???? Richie rich

Pretty sure I placed the orders myself and did the installs myself. Not that that is ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS nor does it have any relevance to this discussion. Thanks for bringing it up though :rolleyes:

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You sound to me like someone who's never used Hexagon for more than a few moments.

Haven't used it since I got my money back from Eovia after they sold out, and I beta tested the original version too. Sounds to me like you don't have any experience with Silo or you'd realize the comparisons I'm making are simply NOT POSSIBLE in hexagon. Anyway, I'm all for GUI elements but some kind of happy medium needs to be achieved so that a user's first impression isn't like it would be if they open up maya for the first time, and hopefully, they also won't want or need to reconfigure the entire UI to fit their needs, but would be able to if so.

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Hey guys, UI's are a personal thing- so lets not get too edgy over all of this- OK? Besides- I think it's safe to say that the UI in 3DC, while not perfect, is more than usable esp. compared to a lot of applications.

Maybe I'm a fool, but I've liked almost all of the manipulator ideas (including Andrew's) shown thus far and am excited to have a universal manipulator to use for a lot of actions.

Regardless of what's used in the end, I'm sure it will take most users a slight period of time to adjust to- however I'm sure it will be logical enough to not make any user that steps away from the UI for a day or week have to re-learn it all over again (not naming names but hint: three rings).

Just so you know I own every single application on the planet and am a cyborg created by Andrew to help beta test and find the best features in all applications. ;)

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Haven't used it since I got my money back from Eovia after they sold out, and I beta tested the original version too. Sounds to me like you don't have any experience with Silo or you'd realize the comparisons I'm making are simply NOT POSSIBLE in hexagon. Anyway, I'm all for GUI elements but some kind of happy medium needs to be achieved so that a user's first impression isn't like it would be if they open up maya for the first time, and hopefully, they also won't want or need to reconfigure the entire UI to fit their needs, but would be able to if so.

Quoted for truth and common sense.

Off course its useful to discuss the interface. I cant believe some of you people. :blink:

Yes, the chance is small that "after" the ui discussion a single solution will be presented to Andrew. Does that make the interchanging of idea's a bad thing? Comparing different apps a bad thing? Stating your personal taste's for this or that solution and the reasons why a bad thing?

Off course not. Its all food for thought for Andrew. The more idea's that are presented here the more building block's Andrew has to create something that he thinks will be usefull to everyone. Eventhough i personally really feel he should hire a professional UI developer (yes a paid one). The application is definately worth it.

GrtZ

JW

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  • Advanced Member

Andrew, how about integrating Qt? :)

As for the docking interface, I like the ability to be able to dock several palettes and scroll through them (i.e. blender - not really docking but scrollable, ZBrush, etc.)

I also like tabs too.

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I like this idea. I had never heard of QT until it was announced that LW Core would use it, but then I looked into it and it seems very cool.

I actually like Qt since it looks like a professional 3D application GUI framework. It's also used in Mudbox, so they should feel right at home if Qt is uses. Qt is cross platform-both Mac and Windows.

Another vote for Qt!

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First of thanks for the new version! It squashed my most important bugs (not all of them regretfully) and im able to open all my models again which is great (for the models and for my morale). ;)

With that said the current manipulator is a big dissapointment to me. Unfinished in my book means something different from the manipulator we have now.

Let me explain.

These things did not get in. Im bummed but you said it was unfinished after all:

- switching between local and global

- ability to move pivot point in relation to object

Quite a few people said they really wanted planar transforms

- alt gizmo was suggested

Regardless of you agreeing with an alt gizmo (you know im in favor for it so i dont have to repeat that) this IS a neccesary part of a the new gizmo.

------------------------

But these things?

* Size not being absolute to screen. (and therefore not having ANY option of changing gizmo size to your liking)

if i zoom out the gizmo will become too small to use. If i zoom in the gizmo will become too big to use.

(not only that but the scale cubes ARE fixed to screensize)

* Scale transforms having an effect on the gizmo.

They shouldnt. Ever. I choose a gizmo size that is big enough for me to click on and it needs to be accesible wether im zoomed in or out and regardless of what i have done with scale on the object. Example case; i scaled an object really tall. I need to align its middle vertically with something precisely. I CANT. Why not? Because the gizmo is all disfigured and the move arrows are all the way up at the top of the object and all the way down at the bottom!

* The gizmo is not being rendered on top of everything.

You have to remember the gizmo is a tool. Its not part of the model. Its not part of the scene. Its a tool and it has to be available always. There really is no reason to create this "x-ray" vision malarky. Its clear you want people to be able to click on uniform scale and screen move even when they are hidden behind or inside objects. So why darken and discolor them. Its really bad practice. Not just that; the small circle for screen move actually dissapears as long as its "inside" a model. Just make the gizmo render on top of everything (yes even on top of objects in front of the object your transforming)

* The gizmo is a big three axial cross.

If you look at all the gizmo's suggested (even at the one you liked and wanted to use) you see that the vast majority are not like this but instead just show a three axial "corner". The reason? Its totally unnecesary to work with a cross. Nobody will be clicking on a "back" axis while its more convenient to click on the front one. This is just visual clutter and it needs to go. Just make it so that whenever you cross a plane the axis that becomes a "back axis" gets switched over to the other side.

The weird thing is that you almost did this for the rotation controls. When you rotate around the gizmo you can see the "back" rotation controls get hidden. The bad thing is that sometimes you STILL get to see TWO rotation controls for the same axis which should never happen. Just apply the principle for the rotation controls to the entire gizmo so you always have a 3 axis corner to work with and never more.

-- Less critical but still mighty annoying bugs/choices

* Not being able to undo any transforms.

Very simple really. Undo doesnt work when placing a primitive. Reset controls for the axis and size really dont cut it. Undo should simply work. I move my cube; im unhappy with the result; i press undo; i try again.

* Viewport navigation

Viewport navigation is centered around the current sculpt and NOT around the primitive your placing which makes placing it a major pain in the ass.

* Viewing angle discolors main sculpt

Your main sculpt will change colors depending on viewing angle as long as your in "place a primitive" mode.

* Spacing between rotation control and movement control

There is none. There should be a space between the rotation control and move control similair to the space between move and scale along axis to support easier clicking.

-----------

Unfinished doesnt mean unworkable in my book. It will serve its purpose for now (placing a box isnt that hard). But it will have to mature ALOT before it becomes 100% reliable and usable which in my opinion a universal manipulator that will be used throughout the entire app should be.

To end this with a (slightly) positive note; i think to move the rotation controls to the ends of the axis was a very smart move. It makes alot of sense to have them near the screen rotate circle and their farther distance from the center of rotation makes them easier to control.

Good night.

JW

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  • Advanced Member
I actually like Qt since it looks like a professional 3D application GUI framework. It's also used in Mudbox, so they should feel right at home if Qt is uses. Qt is cross platform-both Mac and Windows.

Thanks, I did not know Mudbox used Qt. Now I'm gonna have to watch some Mudbox videos.

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Quoted for truth and common sense.

Off course its useful to discuss the interface. I cant believe some of you people. :blink:

Yes, the chance is small that "after" the ui discussion a single solution will be presented to Andrew. Does that make the interchanging of idea's a bad thing? Comparing different apps a bad thing? Stating your personal taste's for this or that solution and the reasons why a bad thing?

Off course not. Its all food for thought for Andrew. The more idea's that are presented here the more building block's Andrew has to create something that he thinks will be usefull to everyone. Eventhough i personally really feel he should hire a professional UI developer (yes a paid one). The application is definately worth it.

GrtZ

JW

I think it has been useful to discuss the interface, but only in that it's has helped to show that we'll never agree on how the interface should work.

I've come to the conclusion that Andrew has to make the interface as customizable as possible. You're probably going to agree and say "Well yes, but we still need a good interface to start with". My reply to that is I don't think we can agree on what a good interface to start with is. :)

My advice would be that Andrew shouldn't try to do anything too radical with the starter interface and try to make it meet people's expectations. In other words - simply copy other popular interfaces that are already out there. Trying to be original and different just for the sake of it may just alienate potential users.

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Pretty sure I placed the orders myself and did the installs myself. Not that that is ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS nor does it have any relevance to this discussion. Thanks for bringing it up though :rolleyes:

Shame you BOUGHT all those expensive appz and have no clue at all how to use them. A simple interface customization is beyond you? really?? What a pita. rofl....

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