http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas en-us Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC QAPoll module http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/229/
It should can measure distance/angle precisely because it has handles that you can snap them to any vertex in the screen.

And if you press Enter, the information (a line joining those vertices and the text about the value) will not deleted on the screen (just like normal text command and a simple line).

Or if you press Esc, the information will disappear. Sometimes you just want to know the distance/angle, not to put it as 3D objects.

Many architects will appreciate if Blender has this tool.

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Has many rendered images saved in memory until we close it. So you can compare one with another to decide which is the best. And you can set the total numbers allowed so it won't consume much memory if you do large resolution rendering.

Has ability to let you put some notes on it. You maybe want to put your radiosity settings, MBlur value, light positions ... everthing important to generate that quality of rendered image.

Auto generated notes about the rendered images, like time needed to render, which renderer you use (Blender internal, Yafray, or maybe external), which camera used, antialising information, etc. All the items to show in rendering window can be chosen in Preference menu.

Has some photo editing features. No, I don't mean Adobe Photoshop - that is too feature rich. Just some simple brightness/contrast/gamma adjustment, blur, and color balance. You know you often do brightness correction after rendering. But sometime the image itself doesn't contain enought color range, if you adjust the brightness too far it will become dull. So you can test adjust in rendering window to decide to use it or reconfigure the lamps.

You can save the rendered images directly from rendering window, don't have to use F3 (of course you still can use F3 if you want). And you can make it autosave using an autoincrement filename to a folder you specify.

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/222/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/221/
I only can browse into current opened file, cannot browse/preview into another .blend files.

It will be nice the Image Browser can browse into another files.

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It will be nice if the Boolean Operations will try to produce NGons as posible as it can rather than 3Gons/FGons.

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- Current opened/edited file name.
- State about the file have or haven't modified, maybe marked by * symbol.

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/239/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/271/ To save rendered image, press F3. To change file format for save the rendered image, there is an option on Buttons Window > Scene > Render Buttons.

My suggestion:
I think It would be nice if there also an option to change the file format on File Browser Window when we want to save the rendered image (F3). They refer to the same thing. Just put on different locations for user convenience.

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/271/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/225/
Here I mean a window that always show each command (keypress or button) you click as a script. But do not record or save to a file.

It will make you learn scripting easier. If you don't know how using script to command blender to do rendering, just press the render button and see the text in the Command History Window. No need to open the Blender API Script documentation.

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/225/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/387/
Do you think it would be nice if you can double click to select and process. So you just need to press [F1] and double click the file you want.

Also it should implemented on other dialog windows where have a default button supposed to clicked by user.

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You can have many menu/keyboard/button layout save them to a file (or seperate files). You can copy it from you home to office computer. Or maybe share it to your friends.

You can have different layout for different work situation. For example, today you will do animating. Just load your animating keyboard layout, so you will have all the frequently used commands assigned on your easy reach keys. Tomorrow you will do modeling, load your modeling button layout, you'll have most modeling buttons arranged nicely on a User Defined window.

And the most important, you can always load/reset to Blender's default in case if you've messed it up.

Also it must compatible with future release version.

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/224/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/227/
It will be handy for architect, isn't it?

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And the value should be configureable, like 1/10, 1/20, 1/5, 1/4.

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I'm using Blender 2.45 15 Rinky on WinXP.

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So would it be nice if there is a "Go To Top" button at the end of the page.

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/689/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/204/
Now I'm a Blender user, just about 1 week. Here I want to share my experience using Lightwave, hope it can be useful for Blender improvement. Please correct me if I've said something wrong about Blender.

1. VERTEX SNAPPING
Using Lightwave + 3rd party plug-in, faces/points/edges can be snapped to any vertex. It's very handy if you've modeled a desk and want to put it (snap it exactly) to a corner of a room.

2. MEASURING TOOLS WITH SNAPPING ABILITY
Lightwave 3rd party tools can measure distance/angle with vertex snapping ability.

3. REAL LIFE DIMENSIONING
For architectural design, it will ease you so much if you can use mm, cm, meter, ...

4. AUTO SNAP RELATIVE TO GRID SIZE
Each object dragging on 3D window will move 1/10 of grid size. For example, if you drag (move) an object it will increase 1cm, you can zoom closer to gain a drag increase of 1mm.

5. MORE PARAMETER FOR OBJECT CREATION
In Lightwave if you want to create a table with the size of 100cm x 60cm x 70cm on a specific location, you just fill all the informations after click the add box button. All in one step.

6. INTERACTIVE DRAGABLE OBJECT CREATION
In Lightwave, almost all the object can be created with the size controllable on dragging it's borders. Even you can control the subdivision number by pressing +/- while creating an isosphere.

7. TRANSFORMATION WITH INFORMATION RELATIVE TO PREVIOUS STATE
Sometimes after finish rendering, your friend tells you the windows should be 8cm higher. Just select the windows, drag the transform handle until the Transformation Information show you the distance is 8cm. That's in Lightwave. In Blender you must calculate it position + 8 point (maybe 0.8 or 80, depend on the scale you use).

8. NGON SUPPORT
Blender doesn't NGon. It will be difficult to manage because there will be a lot of 3Gon if a wall has 2 holes (windows). Lightwave support Convex NGon and torelable with some Concave NGon. If a polygon is too concave it will show in black color, you can repair by splitting it into 2 polygons.

9. POWERFUL BOOLEAN OPERATION
Lightwave boolean operation is powerful and easy to use, it will try to produce NGons as possible as it can rather than 3Gons/FGons.

10. POWERFUL MODELING TOOLS
Lightwave has known as a powerful modeling application. Here are some of very useful tools: Select Connected, Invert Selection, Select Loop, Pen Tool, Set Value, PxSP Move (3rd party snap move), Rest On Ground, Absolute Size (3rd party resize), Point Normal Move, Extender, Smooth Shift, Edge Bevel, Rounder, TrueFillet (3rd party), Drill (2D version of boolean), Bridge, Berzier Bridge (3rd party bridge), Knife (very powerful compare to Blender's), Connect, Find Center, ...

11. GRADIENT MAP
Lightwave Textures had divided in 3 main categorizes. Image Map, Procedural Map and Gradient Map. Lightwave don't have fresnel (except using node or shader), but it's easy to simulate fresnel effect using gradient map with camera incident as parameter. Gradient map can be very useful sometimes.

12. MATERIAL/CAMERA/LIGHT LIBRARY
You know it is good idea to have it.

13. EASY MANAGE LIST OF MATERIAL/CAMERA/LIGHT
Lightwave have lists of material, camera, light and use keyboard to select it's item. Something similar in Blender I think is Outliner. But you can't use arrow up/down keys to select it's item, you must use mouse clicks. Believe me, using a key on list is easier than a mouse.

14. MORE INFORMATION ON RENDERING WINDOW
Lightwave rendering window shows information about quality setting, elapsed/estimated time, percent of completeness. You can always cancel, adjust the setting and try render again to get desired quality vs time.

15. POWERFUL RENDERING WINDOW
Lightwave will save each rendered images in memory until you close the rendering window. So you can compare each rendered image to decide which the best or to tweak the setting.

16. COMMAND HISTORY
In Lightwave, each command (keyboard or button pressed) acts like a macro and can be viewed in Command History windows. It make script learning easier.

17. CUSTOMABLE MENU AND LIST
Everyone use Blender for different situation, Blender only have one menu/button layout. It makes Blender inflexible.

Blender if very powerful compare to Lightwave, that's why I abandon Lightwave and start to learn Blender. It's just my small contribution, hope Blender will become better. Any comments/corrections/criti

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/204/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/219/
And there should be an option to tell Blender where the documents reside, you know It's good to put all documentations, tutorials, etc together in a seperate folder (maybe My_Documents) rather then in Blender's installation folder.

Also it would nice if all the help show in a tailor-made viewer (not in Internet Explorer or Firefox) that has some features like temporary relink to internet, update documentation, remember last position read, and we can put some notes.

I think it will ease a lot learning Blender that many people say Blender is hard to learn. Especial someone like me who don't have internet access in their home.

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No attachments. ]]> Fri, 21-Nov-2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/219/ http://www.blenderstorm.org/qapoll/ideas/item/247/
Let we make Blender easier to use by Architect view point.

I don't use AutoCad, but my friend use it often. I got this idea from looking how easy he use AutoCad to draw shapes.

My suggestion is:

There has a button/command so you will enter new modeling mode (maybe called: Parameter Modeling Mode). A pop up window will come out. If someone think a pop up window can be annoying, I will suggest a text entry field on the header of 3D View window. No need to be large, 20 characters capacity is enough.

Supported commands are: X [value], Y [value], Z [value], DrawFace, Goto [X_Value, Y_Value, Z_Value]. More commands could be added on later.

To exit the Parametric Modeling Mode, you could Press Esc Key twice or type Exit followed by Enter Key.

For example, to draw a face. Type Goto 10, 10, 0 Enter. Followed by X30 Enter, Y-20 Enter, X-30 Enter, DrawFace Enter. A poligon will drawn with vertices on position [10, 10, 0], [40, 10, 0], [40, -10, 0], [10, -10, 0].

I know you may ask why don't just use an Add Plane command. Here is the answer. Architects often have coordinate/size that have been defined. They will appreciate to use a text based entry mode rather than mouse mode. They use numeric pad keys often, just like accounting use calculator often. So it will be handy not to change him/her right hand to the mouse. I mean he/she could use Enter Key to confirm the command (like the DOS days). So left hand to type the command, right hand for the value and press Enter Key.

I don't think Blender can take over CAD applications, but at least we try to make it more convenience to used by them. Perhaps it's hard to implemented. But it will muscle up Blender power.

How do you think?

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