if FoFiX had an official guitar controller (EPIC)

[nobby76]

You should try blender 2.5 beta, they completely re-did the interface to make it more similar to other programs.

Actually i did go and have a look at a couple of videos regarding blender 2.5 today. And i must say the interface is a massive improvement. Finally a company has decided to move away from making their product look like 3DS Max ( or any other autodesk product for that matter, as they all look mostly the same. )
It looks kind of a cross between the VUE 8 interface and the Lightwave 3D interface. In comparison to the old interface its a million times better.
For now tho i think ill stick to the apps im already using ( i have a list ) altho i use some of them just for one special feature. Rather than try and do everything in one app, ill use one app just for doing fluid and smoke dynamics, one just for doing landscapes and atmospheres, one for character creation + basic animation and then another app for expanding on that animation to make it more lifelike, heck i have one app just to make heads for characters but it does it so much better than most of its competitors.

If you have any other stuff you have rendered, id like to take a look.. Heres a link to a few things i did.. i apologise in advance.. Yes that is a 3d version of me and also the image tagged as dual screen looks pretty small, for some reason it resizes the image after upload.

[tjb0607]

If you have any other stuff you have rendered, id like to take a look.. Heres a link to a few things i did.. i apologise in advance.. Yes that is a 3d version of me and also the image tagged as dual screen looks pretty small, for some reason it resizes the image after upload.

http://tjb0607.deviantart.com/

Nice 3D stuff you got there! :D

For now tho i think ill stick to the apps im already using ( i have a list ) altho i use some of them just for one special feature. Rather than try and do everything in one app, ill use one app just for doing fluid and smoke dynamics, one just for doing landscapes and atmospheres, one for character creation + basic animation and then another app for expanding on that animation to make it more lifelike, heck i have one app just to make heads for characters but it does it so much better than most of its competitors.

Wow, so many apps... lol. I just stick to blender. It's good for a lot of stuff.

[KenshinHimuraRK]

Finally a company has decided to move away from making their product look like 3DS Max ( or any other autodesk product for that matter, as they all look mostly the same. )

WAT?

Blender looks more like 3DS Max than Maya, which is also an Autodesk product.

[nobby76]

WAT?
Blender looks more like 3DS Max than Maya, which is also an Autodesk product.

OK you seem to have missed the point here.. i dont really give a crap if it looks more like max than it does maya. ( altho there isnt a vast difference between the two or even mudbox and thats a totally different kind of 3d editor but also made by autodesk) My point was its now starting to look like OTHER apps rather than autodesk products.

The big difference thats making it look less like an auto desk product is the fact they are using more text buttons rather than cryptic images of beach balls or magnets ( how the hell do you make the connection between an image of a beach ball and the Materials/ Surfaces editor) thats a stupid icon image, why use that ?
Many of the big 3d apps are now moving towards text buttons ( which lightwave has always had ) as they are easier for people to work out how to do the things they need to do. without having to stop and think " now does a picture of a car mean make a cube or animate " when they are still learning the app.

[KenshinHimuraRK]

It's getting off-topic, but I'll just say that:

Many of the big 3d apps are now moving towards text buttons ( which lightwave has always had ) as they are easier for people to work out how to do the things they need to do. without having to stop and think " now does a picture of a car mean make a cube or animate " when they are still learning the app.

Which 3d apps? Softimage always had text buttons, Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Modo, even Sketchup, they still look the same.
About text buttons being better than icons: It's easier the 1st time you open the software. The 2nd time onwards, it'll be a huge waste of time and space.
Icons are much more identifiable, and they do work in explaining the tool when they're well done. Also Maya and Max (don't know about the others) have a help line in their interfaces to explain the tool you're selecting. Can you imagine if Maya used text buttons in all of their tools, including the shelves? It wouldn't have space for anything else, and you would probably waste a lot of time trying to find a certain button (you can't have key shortcuts for every tool).

I'm not saying text buttons sucks, Softimage has a pretty intuitive interface with logical texts, but it usually means more clicks to get what you want (lots of submenus) and/or more space wasted (depending on how much submenus).

Also, magnet = snap, and that's a pretty easy icon to understand.

[nobby76]

I'm really not gonna get into a contest over what is better text buttons or icon buttons. its just my personal experiences with most of the big name apps ( and i wouldn't include sketchup in that list Lol thats about as big name pepakura ) when i say Big name apps i mean industry standard apps, such as Lightwave 3d, Max ,maya, Massive prime (the app used to do the big orc fights in lord of the rings) mudbox/zbrush , vue extreme ( i also happen to own all of those plus a few more ) and after trying most of them from scratch without bothering to look at manuals i found the text buttons to be a lot easier to find and know what they do without having to tool tip over them to see what they are. It also happens to be the opinion of Rob Powers ( the animation director and lead VFX supervisor , for Avatar) his biggest gripe about using max 2010 and 2011 where the icon buttons, he said even after using max for a few months he still had to think about which icon he had to click on, as most of them didn't seem that intuitive to him ( and in all honesty you think the logical icon for snap is a magnet ?) altho i know what a magnet icon means id personally say that a magnet would be better suited to something like Parent, as a magnet causes one thing to stick to another thing and go where you take it, which is what the parent command does too.

Anyway this is all purely opinion. we are both comfortable using the apps we use for our own reasons ( altho i prolly use some of the same apps as you too, i have quite a few ) plus this is taking the thread way off topic. so i think im gonna call it a day.

Keep up the good 3d work tjb0607, lets see more stuff from you And good luck KenshinHimuraRK with your maya's and sketchups

Nobby76

[raynebc]

I'm not a 3d modeler, but a U shaped magnet makes sense to me for snap. Using a push pin for "parent" sounds intuitive.

[Stefan_Alfons]

Now we just need someone with good mechanic skills, and tada, we have an epic fof controller.

[slashfan7964]

I have extra guitar pieces and a spare keyboard....This sounds possible. Maybe I'll start later.

[GuitarBoy55]

Haha I wish I could make one of those. Sadly I'm not a mechanic so I still gotta stay with the RB Strat. It would be sweet to use that for the ps3 and xbox also, you can play guitar hero and instantly use a keyboard when you need one for chatrooms.