Interface discussion

[philnolan3d]

On the other hand it would be wise to say things differently, because things like "Don't mean to offend but is the English in it going to be correct?" can sound a little harsh. But no worries Phil I'm cool...

I just asked because 3DC did have some grammar issues, as can be seen in the forum post about it. I knew it sounded harsh, that's why I tried to word my post very carefully. Glad to hear about the language teacher, that's more than I expected.

[Arkanis]

No worries Phil, glad you are happy with the news. I know 3DC has grammar errors and weird names for some tools or settings, we will rename them with common used names or things more straightforward.

I actualy speak and write almost 5 languages, so sometimes things get mixed up in my head...

A.

[Mantis]

Hi arkanis, the new Ui looks pretty.

But I am not sure that the tool in the pie menu are those who should be there.

You are letting us to choose between the different "modes" of 3DCoat, sculpt paint and so on, but these tools doesn't change quite often, you just switch between them when you finished a task, and you will stick with it as long as you finished your task.

Will you be able to get a pie menu for the Tools in each mode? I think that will be much more usefull.

And what I will really appreciate is to have independant hotkey for each mode.

Because right now 3DCoat can do many different task, and it's quite difficult to bind every fonction you use on your keyboard.

So that should be better to allow the same hotkey for different task depending on which mode you are using (sculpting, texturing...).

Edit:

Will you plan to reorganize the tool in the 3 majors modes?

Sculpting, Texturing, Retopologize? Or in an other way? It seems a bit messy right now.

[BluEgo]

Are you kidding me ? Similar to Zbrush ? Where ? When ?

Zbrush don't have dockable panels as we are planning to implement, I don't thinkg the look and feel is like Zbrush neither. Dark themes are best for artistic work, neutral gray doesn't interfere with colors of the creative thinking, it's the reason every pro app has a dark grey or neutral grey theme.

You only saw a panel, whait for the rest, then you can tell me if it looks like it or not

I will like to add that Zbrush uses collapsible panels CONCEPT, but they didn't invented it, maya and max have this since a long time ago. We don't need to reinvent the wheel for everything, we have to be smart and take the good concepts that are out there. Otherwise you will end with something painfull to use for the common user because of some Alien minded GUI.

P.S : Forgot to tell you, we want to make the pie menu custom, so you can drop in the tools you want from a pre-made list. That way it doesn't get clutered if you never work with some tools.

A.

Sorry Arkanis, I did not want to be offensive.

What I mean is not that the GUI acts like ZBrush, but that the graphic is similar to it, maybe in the use of colors.

Maybe it is cause I am almost bored from the web 2.0 style.

[Doug B]

Cute, expecially the pie menu, but I think this mockup is in a way too similar to zbrush.

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro uses these pie menus as well. It's a nice compact menu, very quick to use.

Cheers

Doug

[artaq]

Hi arkanis, the new Ui looks pretty.

But I am not sure that the tool in the pie menu are those who should be there.

You are letting us to choose between the different "modes" of 3DCoat, sculpt paint and so on, but these tools doesn't change quite often, you just switch between them when you finished a task, and you will stick with it as long as you finished your task.

Will you be able to get a pie menu for the Tools in each mode? I think that will be much more usefull.

And what I will really appreciate is to have independant hotkey for each mode.

Because right now 3DCoat can do many different task, and it's quite difficult to bind every fonction you use on your keyboard.

So that should be better to allow the same hotkey for different task depending on which mode you are using (sculpting, texturing...).

Edit:

Will you plan to reorganize the tool in the 3 majors modes?

Sculpting, Texturing, Retopologize? Or in an other way? It seems a bit messy right now.

I'm with Mantis here, this is a nice solution for when you're in an established work mode (i.e. volumetric sculpting, painting, etc) much like how Maya currently functions, but if you're just being able to select what overall work mode you're wanting to switch between, this should be rethought. Perhaps as Mantis mentioned, it could be more like in Maya, as in if I switch to modeling 'mode', my fly-out pie menu reflects all the tools and functions that I would need purely for this (naturally this is customizable), same with animation, rendering, etc. This could be especially useful in sculpting, if I have a fly-out menu that's tailored specifically to all my sculpt tools, that way I don't have to rely on the sidebar to switch between them. I'm all for this fly-out menu though! Looking great!

[buqa]

Have you thought about Ribbon I mentioned soma time ago?

Even MSPaint in Windows 7 will get ribbon interface. Better say, nearly every application in Windows 7 will get ribbbon interface. But of course, its nothing against dockable panels, pie menu etc, it can work together.

And I agree with Artaq and Mantis, its much more logical to have Tools in pie menu rather then Modes. But I know was only a mockup, icons can be anything in the end.

[Doug B]

Have you thought about Ribbon I mentioned soma time ago?

Even MSPaint in Windows 7 will get ribbon interface. Better say, nearly every application in Windows 7 will get ribbbon interface. But of course, its nothing against dockable panels, pie menu etc, it can work together.

And I agree with Artaq and Mantis, its much more logical to have Tools in pie menu rather then Modes. But I know was only a mockup, icons can be anything in the end.

Why do they call this a ribbon interface interface? From what you showed it just looks like a Toolbar with a new name!

[lc8b105]

This time I could see the pictures, thank you Arkanis!

I like the color style and the new brush editor method.

BTW, is there any plan to redesign icons, more artistic and simple?

[Arkanis]

Mantis : You burned the surprise Yes different subtools will be available in the pie menu depending of the mode in wich you are. And you will be able to chain pie menus, I will be posting screenshots soon about the chain pie menus so people understand better what I'm talking about.

Shortcuts for the different modes are in the schedual too and you will be able to custom every shortcut in the software.

Buqa : Ribbon, bah... you will be able to build your own ribbon docking the different panels. But I must say that this kind of UI is not well suited for modeling/sculpt/paint workflows... Eats way too much screen space, and you end up with a panoramic view of your model, not optimal at all. And you will get something like Blender. I love Blender, but the way Blender actually lays down things is getting hard to manage (all those squares).

"Why do they call this a ribbon interface interface? From what you showed it just looks like a Toolbar with a new name! " I totaly agree with this... it's just hype.

lcb8 : if you read my previous post, icons aren't yet redone, but yes they will be redesigned from the ground to make them more simple and intuitive.

More to come soon guys, thanks for the feedback and all the replies.

A.

[3DArtist]

This is looking really nice! The pie menus look like fun to work with.

To add a suggestion, Silo allows you to add buttons directly on the viewport and they can be organized into pages. I find that useful.

[Doug B]

"Why do they call this a ribbon interface interface? From what you showed it just looks like a Toolbar with a new name! " I totaly agree with this... it's just hype.

Thanks for confirming that I am not always crazy! lol!!! :-)

Was it MS that named it a ribbon interface? If so, that does not surprise me.

Cheers

Doug

[Mantis]

Mantis : You burned the surprise Yes different subtools will be available in the pie menu depending of the mode in wich you are. And you will be able to chain pie menus, I will be posting screenshots soon about the chain pie menus so people understand better what I'm talking about.

Shortcuts for the different modes are in the schedual too and you will be able to custom every shortcut in the software.

Oups sorry

But that's very good news, especially for the customisation of every shortcut.

If I can help you to save some time, in Mudbox they got the same thing but a really annoying glitch is that you can't replace existing hotkey because they don't ask to do so.

If you try to replace a hotkey who already exist they just prompt a window saying that you can't because of that.

Really annoying.

Btw can't wait to see your new icons, that's really important imho.

[3dioot]

Just wanted to voice my support. Huge fan of the pie menu, mode based shortcuts and rearranged/regrouped interface. Keep it up.

3dioot

[Dilla]

Arkanis,

I'm guessing the plan is to introduce the interface overhaul in v3?

Also, there was talk about different modes (i.e. Paint/Texture, Sculpt/Detail, Volumetric Sculpt)...

- Will there be a visible indication of the current mode that the application is in?

- Most of the existing tools fall into the Paint/Texture category, so I'm guessing that the Sculpt, Volumetric Sculpt, UV Edit and Retopology 'tools' will be turned into full-blown modes?

- UV Editing and Retopology currently have little use for the standard palettes that the other brush-based modes use. Will these palettes be disabled or hidden away?

[ghib]

Cute, expecially the pie menu, but I think this mockup is in a way too similar to zbrush.

Looks more like Silo to me.. which is definately a good thing.

[artaq]

Any idea when we might see some of these UI redesigns show up in the Alpha builds of 3.0? Or are we looking to see them trickle in more towards the beta/final versions? Looking good, very promising!

[Arkanis]

People, juste a message to let you know that my computer died on me three days ago. Lucky me I had a LOT of backups... so nothing is lost. But I'm building a new computer rig to get to work again. Thanks for beeing patient.

I will be posting more screens this week-end on pie-tooloriented-menus, docked/undocked, and some other things too.

Take care, and sorry for the silence.

A.

[ldzywsj]

Oh,bad news,Arkanis,Andrew has made a rule that every week has something new ............

[Mantis]

Andrew has made a rule that every week has something new ............

Where?

Don't be so greedy.

Sorry about your PC Arkanis, take care!

[ldzywsj]

Where?

Don't be so greedy.

Sorry about your PC Arkanis, take care!

sorry,just a joke ,but truly Andrew has something new every week!

[lc8b105]

People, juste a message to let you know that my computer died on me three days ago. Lucky me I had a LOT of backups... so nothing is lost. But I'm building a new computer rig to get to work again. Thanks for beeing patient.

I will be posting more screens this week-end on pie-tooloriented-menus, docked/undocked, and some other things too.

Take care, and sorry for the silence.

A.

Glad to hear no data lost.

Do you mean "week-end" Saturday or Sunday?

[2byts]

I had some issues with the functionality of your design Arkanis. It looks really beautiful....but i think we could streamline the elegance even more. Making it as minimalistic as possible is very important.

http://img377.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3dcoatwipep9.jpg

Also, about the pie menu design....which is straight from Modo....i dont know if you ever used Modo, but the pie menu is actually slow in response when comparing to the marking menus of Maya which are lightening fast. In fact, i strongly suggest trying to reproduce the speed and feel of Maya marking menus. The speed is essential, because the user will want to press a button, and drag in a direction so fast that they will never actually see the icon. In the case of these kind of menus, speed is the entire point....so the user will want to keep things clean and simple....and to do that, having it all text and only 4 available menus is optimal.

Speed selecting with 8 directions is impossible.

Of course, ideally, the user will want to create their own menus....with the choice of icon or text.

I say this because when I model in maya, i am constantly flicking through marking menus without every looking at the menu intself because of muscle memory.

You cannot do this with a 8 pie layout, or with the Modo pie menus. Maya uses the direction of the mouse drag to recognize which menu is selected, whereas Modo uses zones....which is slower.

[efflux]

I have Modo and to tell you the truth I'm actually not too keen on it but I don't use Maya so can't comment on those things. I do however think that sliders in those boxes are unnecessary. The solution that is being proposed is good. It is Blender like and that is cool. Blender's UI actually has some very good aspects despite what people say. However, sliders are good in the appropriate place especially where values are constantly manipulated like in a painting program. Presumably we will still have popups to gain access to some sliders. We don't want any wasted space in the boxes or elsewhere in the UI. Also, the most common parameters to want to quickly alter can be done by key command and mouse anyway. Best to keep everything as simple as possible but still have different ways of entering data - The most appropriate and uncluttered way for each UI method.

[efflux]

Another thing. What is happening to that bar at the top that presently has sliders? I largely ignore that. I'd rather have more work space. I have only been using 3D Coat for about 3 days by the way, in case I miss anything but it is already incredibly easy to use. I'm still testing the demo but it's almost certain I will be purchasing a license.

[SonK]

2byts, i like what you did with the brush profile portion and maybe if you could use the down arrow key to add new brush(via a popup menu) that would be cool(and kinda like Mudbox). I like your slider design better than Arkanis, because it seem more simple and straight forward to use. The only thing i would add to your design is to add the check boxes back in(where it make sense, i.e. Soft Stroke). I assume the number after the slider, can be alter by clicking in it and entering a value?

[2byts]

2byts, i like what you did with the brush profile portion and maybe if you could use the down arrow key to add new brush(via a popup menu) that would be cool(and kinda like Mudbox). I like your slider design better than Arkanis, because it seem more simple and straight forward to use. The only thing i would add to your design is to add the check boxes back in(where it make sense, i.e. Soft Stroke). I assume the number after the slider, can be alter by clicking in it and entering a value?

I personally feel that Modo and Blender are not good examples of UI. One of the most elegant UIs i have seen is Nuke 5.1 (compositing app) which is why I am really passionate about my suggestions on this.

Please understand that I am not making aesthetic design suggestions.....i am making functionality suggestions that improve and speed up the workflow. The important factor with UI design, is that although it has to look good, it is not the priority. The priority is working fast and intuitively. To do that, one must minimilize to the point of making it a religion. The holy grail of UI design.....is no UI at all...and the easiest way we can achieve that is by eliminating as much as possible without sacrificing.

I think we could do without the visual representation of sliders as well.....but if you click and hold in the text field you activate the slider and can drag left or right (like channel box in Maya)

The checkbox is made redundant by simply highlighting the attribute name instead. The functionality is exactly the same -a dimmed text means it is checked off- but without the extra clutter in the Menu. This gives more space and a cleaner interface..

The problem with the previous design is it had 4 seperate hot areas (check box, left arrow, textfield, and right arrow) to click in a very small space...which is cramped. I am reducing it to 2 hot areas (name is the checkbox and textfield can be dynamically used as a slider, keyboard input, and arrows for incremental changes) and still maintain the functionality and design concept.

[2byts]

I have Modo and to tell you the truth I'm actually not too keen on it but I don't use Maya so can't comment on those things. I do however think that sliders in those boxes are unnecessary. The solution that is being proposed is good. It is Blender like and that is cool. Blender's UI actually has some very good aspects despite what people say. However, sliders are good in the appropriate place especially where values are constantly manipulated like in a painting program. Presumably we will still have popups to gain access to some sliders. We don't want any wasted space in the boxes or elsewhere in the UI. Also, the most common parameters to want to quickly alter can be done by key command and mouse anyway. Best to keep everything as simple as possible but still have different ways of entering data - The most appropriate and uncluttered way for each UI method.

The most elegant solution for this is what Mudbox does(copying and improving from Artisan of Maya).......for brush size, you just hold a hotkey....and then drag the cursor to the size you want. For intensity, you do the same with a different hotkey. When you do this away from any geometry....it scales up and down in increments of 1.0, when you do this with cursor over geometry...you scale in increments of .01 (for finer control).

This palette is necessary when you need to turn off features, or need precise values (especially for spec and alpha).

I dont mind so much the location of this pallette, but it really needs to be consistent and all values need to be in one place.

[philnolan3d]

I don't know if it's straight from Modo, Sketchbook Pro also uses this type of pop-up menu. Sketchbook has got to the best UI I've ever used when it comes to tablet use. You can get through your entire project and almost never touch the keyboard.

[efflux]

Highlighting the name instead of a checkbox is OK. Less UI clutter. I didn't think of that when I looked at your picture. The only possible issues I can think of is different UI colours making it less obvious i.e. text possibly not so easy to see and then some functions will not have any sliders or any data input except just a button. Would we want all this text to be grayed out or do they still retain buttons? It could be an oversimplification but maybe an original one?

In the first UI plan the falloff area looks like wasted UI. I like the idea of the space wasted by buttons being used for smaller previews of falloff curves. That seems good.

I notice colour at the control for specularity for example in your new idea. That's interesting. I'm not sure how all the brush controls are being laid out in the new version but at present it's a bit messy.

Talking about colour. We currently have a colour palette which is cool but why can't we have the color picker open all the time if we want and choose colours from there. At present you have to select a colour then press OK. Otherwise it does not update the colours in the box on the right (the way it would do in other 2D image editors). This is bad news in my opinion. After all this is essentially a painting app as well as everything else it does. If you could have the colour picker open at the IMG tab for example then you could constantly choose colors from a picture. That would be useful.

I think a lot of UI standards that people are used to, have way too much UI (icons, buttons and sliders everywhere) but as people get used to certain simpler concepts it isn't be so hard for them to find things straight away. The fact that 3D Coat has tons of popup help info means people could learn this stuff fast anyway.

By the way, I'm currently running 3D Coat on Linux so if anything I say is not correct please let me know in case running under Wine has any issues.