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Blender welcomes Lightwave Users
Published by Kernon on October 13th, 2006 in 3D News, Documentation, Toolbox
As Blender continues to grow, so does the community. One way to make new users (and even casual visitors) feel more welcomed is to recognize the problems they may have in translating their experiences with other 3D applications to the Blender experience. It can be a very frustrating experience that can often cause potential new "converts" to simply give up.
Well, we can't just sit back and let that happen, can we?
Here's a Lightwave to Blender Keystroke Translator that should help smooth out the transition for our Lightwave guests.
Another way to help is to openly discuss creative ways to meet the needs of new users coming from other 3D applications:
If you're an experienced Blender User, what are some of the most common problems new users encounter and, more importantly, what reasonable solutions would help them?
If you're a Lightwave User, what was (or maybe still is) you're biggest problem with using Blender? What reasonable solution would you like to see?
If we all participate in creating solutions, we can make the Blender Community an even greater example of the true power of Open Source.
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50 Responses to “Blender welcomes Lightwave Users”
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i´m not a light wave user, i´m traped in 3ds, but the two main reasons of it, is:
Is very dificult to map in blender, or i may be say, is very easy in 3ds?
exporting from autocad eficiently, is a big problem, if i coud doit i woud think on uninstalling 3ds from my machine.
every thing else in blender is very nice
cheers!!!
Modelling…this is all I don't do in blender. I will still keep buying Modo and Silo so long as Maya and Blender still have hideous modelling tools.
@Teatime:
Specifically, what do you find "hideous" about the modeling tools. Help us understand. If the issues are reasonably addressable, the Blender community will provide a solution.
I have been using blender for a while now (since 1.8) I remember when I started using blender it was a problem getting to know the interface since it was a bit intimidating, but I must say that once I got to know it, it was awesome. I like blender.
Sufficient documentation was a problem as well. That has been sorted out. There is a wiki where people can go look up how to use blender. SO… as with all other things, it is going to take time and effort. No one who starts off 3D is going to be a master in one day. It has taken me several years to get where I am, and I'm still picking up tips and tricks here and there.
It's not about whether it's difficult or not. Is IS difficult in the beginning… there i've said it. But how much effort one puts in is going to be the determining factor for how much you'll get out of it.
For those new to blender: Keep blending! It's a great program if you're willing to put in the effort. And the rewards are worth it.
Well, I've been a long time user of Lightwave, made the transition to Modo which has a very nice set of mesh modelling tools indeed. However, a friend of mine convinced me to give a try at Blender.
Honestly, when you come at it for the first time, with Max, LW or Modo in mind, you are utterly lost and helpless with Blender user interface. One tutorial that was very helpful from the beginning was the startup tutorial explaining shortly the zen of Blender UI.
http://blender.org/cms/Blender_User_Interface.224.0.html
I still remember the sentence :
"If you are reading this tutorial, you are probably feeling like I did exactly one year ago."
As for Maya, one graphist friend told me that one feature from Maya he would like to see on Blender are the "most used tool" shelf. From what I understand, it is simply a window independant from the main UI where you place tools you frequently use to speedup your workflow :)
Otherwise, I am quite happy with Blender now. Hideous doesn't mean it can't do anything :)
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/7845/detailsyz1.jpg
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/9365/details2io7.jpg
nuff said :)
I agree with Kernon…. what exactly is hideous? Maybe I can help with that.
I've teached Blender in the university students. Some of students had previous experiences about modelling and some hadn't. When students were guided to Blender from a very beginning, they did not think that Blender is difficult to use.
But when you start on your own, Blender can be pain in the ass. I first tried Blender maybe six years ago and I couldn't even make a cube. Actually I couldn't make anything until I pressed spacebar by accident and found menu. That took half an hour :)
Blender's user interface is almost genious. It is fast and stays away when you do things. I think the best way to make Blender newbie-friendly is not to change GUI but to offer high quality manuals and tutorials.
I've tried to make my part of this job by writing tutorials in my language (Finnish). But we need more, more stuff.
As a structural engineer, I have been using Blender for years to illustrate concepts to others, help myself to understand complex 3D geometry and generally get a feel for how my structures go together. It is excellent for that, as one can knock out a serviceable model in a short time.
The major barrier for me in taking Blender forward in my work and promoting it to others is in the modelling tools, as mentioned by Teatime. It is just too difficult to define, say, two curves that then form a surface which I can then cut a hole out of without creating a mesh that is very difficult to handle. This is the area where NURBS are, I suspect, hard to beat. In the meantime, a large number of engineers use Rhino to do this sort of work. Any chance of developing the NURBS (or equivalent) tools in the future. I suspect that the focus is on subsurf mesh modelling, but it's worth a shot :-)
A beautiful thing, this Blender tool, I've been in love with it for about 6 years.
I'd encourage everyone to help expand the hotkeys list at
http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools
that will allow all users to more easily migrate to Blender.
LetterRip
Keymapping only works if users are used using hotkey which many just don't.
I found Blender's GUI intimidating at first, but a couple of video tutorials helped me through and within a few weeks I understood the basics.
Max, Bryce, TrueSpace, Carrara, Maya, and Windows users: also welcome!
Snaps, Measurements in Real World Units, etc. Obviously I do CAD but those are VERY useful. I want two meshes to meet up exactly for an easy merge if I want, or to keep them seperate but not have a hole for odd things to happen with. I want to translate this into approximately the correct size for this world, without doing 50 pages of math in my head(Or on paper) in order to do so.
The UI is very intimidating, keeping it WELL documented helps a lot. Making sure that the keymaps are availiable, and the buttons functions are mapped to make sense. Many people aren't used to using hotkeys, so make sure that the hotkey combination to get to there is always visible in the menu, it usually is, but not always. Make sure that every function is availiable in some way in the menu, there are several I use hotkeys for that I haven't found in the menus yet.
All that being said I love blender and use it a lot, so I am not the best person to ask obviously, but these are just my personal experiences.
Seablade
I don't think blender's UI is more difficult to learn then a UI of any other 3D app. When I started using blender (my first 3D app) I had no idea how it works, but I kept on trying and once you found out how you can achieve what you want it is pretty easy to use. A while ago I tried Maya and XSI and I didn't know what to do either although I now have some experience with 3D graphics from blender.
So I think the problem is not the UI but the time you spend with the app. and if you're ambitious or not.
Thanks for the warm welcome. I use both Lightwave and Blender. I know Blender from way back then — and even bought the C-Key. What I like about Lightwave: Fprime — a very fast preview raytracer plugin. Almost like the new preview in Blender but better quality and really fast. I feel very comfortable with the Blender-UI. Actually quite similar to the Lightwave UI. If you think it is complicated try to work with dynamics in Lightwave. You will be lost in panels. What I would like see in Blender: larger render sizes. I currently need to render a pencil at 10×3Meters with at least 600dpi. BTW: Does anybody know how to split this up into smaller (render-) pieces to be composed into one image later ?
Best regards, Christian.
I first tried blender back in around 1998 or so. At the time I had experience in both 3D Studio Max and trueSpace. I will admit that the lack of documentation had me lost. I moved from that into Hash Animation Master. I rediscovered Blender about a year ago and was pleased by the new tools and even better the great community support and large number of tutorials out there. I myself don't find migrating to Blender any harder than moving to another app. It was a challenge to move from Max (which I learned in school) to trueSpace (which was what I could afford then). It was hard to move to A:M too, but I managed that. Learning Blender is no different. You just need to get the hang of the tools and workflow. I will say this. I find Blender's online community much better than any of the other app's communities I've been in.
@Hexa: Did you just say 30 square meters at 600 dpi? That's a lot of pixels! Is that some kind of banner project?
I think that the assigning materials process is the most unnatural thing about blener, specifically, assigning a new material to part of an object. Most of us have memorized a 123 process, but it is very odd to click add new material then have to go to the other screen and click "make single user". I mean "make single user"??!? What in the world. It almost sounds like a threat to those with girlfriends.
@morris: I agree that it maybe unnatural but it is very logical in Blender's data-architecture. I think the datablock system Blender uses is a very flexible and many problems are related to lack of understanding this structure.
Few links:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Advanced_Tutorials/Advanced_Animation/Introduction
http://wiki.blenderpython.org/index.php/BPyIntro/Blender_Database_Introduction
There's a thread at blenderatists.org ( http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=79827 ) where you can download pre-1.73 versions of Blender. I just d/l 1.68a for windows and I believe that people still have in mind those versions (almost unusable) of the program, which can't be compared to the current state of Blender.
Let me say that you can make people feel more comfortable with blender probably by having a fully customizable keystroke option where every single modeling, rendering, animation, etc. tool can be changed to fit whoever wants to change them. These custom files could then be saved and then shared with the rest of the community.
While on the topic of user friendliness, I really thing the translation, size, rotation tool needs an update/alteration. I really LOVE Hexagon 2.1's translation tools and the best part is that it should be incredibly easy to impliment. They really make organic modeling a whole LOT easier.
No I'm not a Lightwave user, but do have experience using HEXAGON 2.1 (hint-hint, plz go take a look at it) which is an incredible program that's dedicated to 3d modeling. It has spectacular everything as far as modeling is concerned although it is glitchy and nobody is going to update it ever again - which is the reason why I left it.
PLZ go check it out, if you don't want to buy it, I will GIVE you my copy (if you are a real blender developer) either that or make a ton of screenshots for you to look at.
I would like to say that Blender is a great tool for hardcore users. But it has flaws, specifically the biggest flaw being its dependence on hotkeys. Think about it. What was more user friendly to the general public, DOS or windows? Be honest. Of course people who spend a lot of time with it will love it. Now think about this. How many people will be responding I don't use blender because of the Hot Keys? Answer none. They're not responding because they're not at this site. Why? Because their not using Blender. Why are they not using Blender? If I had to guess I would say it's that they weren't able to get into Blender the first or maybe even second or third time they tried. Or maybe they got into Blender a little bit, left for a short while and came back. But when they came back they found themselves having to relearn everything again because they forgot it. What do you think causes this? I think the greatest thing to be added to Blender is an easy to use optional graphic user interface to compliment the hotkeys. Wouldn't it be great if someone who has never used Blender were able to make something within a few minutes without ever using a manual? How many great programs are there that have good graphic user interfaces complimented by hotkeys? Just because you prefer hotkeys doesn’t mean they’re for everyone.
For me, as a bloody beginner, it is very important to have good step-by-step guide. I download every video tutorial i can get, that can show me some new tricks. The wiki is very good, but i miss something there - background. Not just what this and that button does, but also why and what will happen. For example: step-by-step guide to create a rig/animated leg with additional infos why you need this bone here and there. When to use an IK Solver (still do not know it) and so on.
I would like to replace trial-and-error with reading -> understanding -> doing (and then trial and error ;-) )
UI: very fast - if you can remember all hotkeys. A "myTools" Menu would be great as mentioned above.
I agree!….like some others say´s above Blender is hard to learn! (but i think all 3D Applications are Hard to learn)!
..but if you learn to use Blender then you Love this Amazing 3D Application.(Its like a Virus Infection)!!!
Very Fast…and hey…what a Development!!
I use also some other big 3D Applications but i only Love to use Blender…i dont know Why!!
…and Blenders Online Community is also Amazing!!
I've been using Lightwave for almost two years now and I've just started using Blender for about two months. The thing I like about Blender is the consistency of the tools throughout all of its parts. The G key alway grabs and moves. Whereas Lightwave isn't always so conistent moving from Modeler to Layout. In Blender, I like the ability to paint a weight map and then test the deformation immediately. In LW you've got to create the weight maps in Modeler, switch to Layout to test, back to Modeler to tweak, etc.
But one thing I like about LW is the ability to split a Shape Key into left and right versions. You can create a Shape Key on a character's face, select just one side of the face, and apply that to a new Shape Key for just the left or right side. That really helps when animating.
One thing about Blender also is that the renderer doesn't seem as clean and crisp as Lightwave.
But I'm here and using Blender now because LW wants hundreds of dollars for me to upgrade to version 9 to get things like edges and Catmull-Clark subdivisions, when Blender already has them for free :o)
One suggestion that I have made several times would not only make it easier to move to Blender but would make it easier for the more experienced users too; add numbers to those menus! If I pop-up the specials menu with a quick hit on the "W" key I don't need to think or even to look at the menu if I want a function I use a lot, but if it is one I rarely use (or worse, one that moved in the last update) then I have to sit there and count down the menu or look for the manual. If the menu entries were numbered it would be hit the "W" key, a quick glance and hit the number, done! Number those suckers! If this feature were present I'd have learned much much faster how to use Blender.
I have to say that I'm impressed with how everyone is making their comments and suggestions without this turning into another UI war. I think many of the comments and suggestions are very good.
@DD: yes, windows is more friendly to the general public. But whenever I see people still using dos programs (and trust me, some still do. Not presentations or things like that, but more like accountancy programs, warehouse managment, gas stations etc.) and they tend to be more productive than those using windows equivalents (like TAB, TAB, TAB, Enter, TAB, TAB, typing several numers, Enter as opposed to click, move the mouse, click, select text entry, enter numers, click)
Blenders use of nurbs could use a tuneup
and maby the addition of the geodesic sphere.
Other than that, Blender could be an easy transition.
I also want to say that the hotkeys for blender are like Zen, okay. It was the first program that I learned and to be honest for me, learning hotkeys is a lot easier than using menus. And faster. Hexagon 2.1 is awesome for modeling, and it had customizable hotkeys, but like most programs, for it hotkeys are more of a shortcut and a side dish than the main course, like in blender.
I think that so far as attracting LightWave users perhaps you need a message window that should always show what the hotkey would be for whatever menu interface they are utilizing at any givgen moment. That way, while they are using the menus that they have gotten used to, as time goes on they will realize, "Hey, I can use the knife tool just by pressing k, instead of moving my cursour back and forth, back and forth."
Eventually, they'll see the light. But that's just my opinion =)
just some comments, I was a lightwave user around the 5.5 - 6.5 days,
In general I liked it, however there were a few things that wernt so crash hot..
modeler/layout seperation… *(Has this changed??)
This strikes me as realy clunky, and somthing that blender does with having an EditMode very well.
I liked lightwaves UI however the dialogs are often blocking, and Iv found blender non blocking UI much faster to get around.
At the time I think UV mapping was a bit primitive also…
On the upside for lightwave, I liked its layout for tabs/tools,
its layers wernt limited to 20, though theres advantages with both ways.
and it has some good image filters when using an image as a texture.
Hexa, about 600 dpi images. 1 pixel per dot is way overkill. since it takes a few dots to make an area of color,
One more thing… just wanted to say that it was the Blender Summer of Documentation Character Animation tutorial that really tipped the scales for me and allowed me to jump into Blender. That's exactly the kind of thing I had wanted from the Lightwave community and never found. If we can have more of these high quality, start-to-finish, project based tutorials coming out of the Blender community, I think there will be a lot more converts.
I just moved from Blender to Lightwave. I still use Blender for video editing though. I do most of my modeling in Silo, so the move to Lightwave was only because I like its renderer and because it is used professionaly in the industry I so desperately want to become a part of.
Ideasman42, the Modeler and Layout are still seperate. Layout in version 9 does have some modeling tools. And yes, the UV mapping is still primative.
I used to be a lightwaver (which I still really like), now I don't do 3d anymore for a living but since a couple of years I watched blender evolve and got interested in it. Only recently I used blender to create a 3minute long animation for a trade fair and compared some aspects of it to LW.
So here it is, topping my personal list of lw features I'd love to see in Blender:
* measure units! (in lw you can write your dimensions, position in mm/cm/mt etc and, best of all, you can add and subtract them in the coords text boxes! awesome for precise modeling and positioning)
: )
I moved to Blender from Wings3D (still the best open source modeller there is in my opinion) and basically this was my transition.
* Downloaded Blender, installed, opened, screamed at UI, closed, uninstalled, deleted Blender.
…many months later….
* Got onto net, read Blender has new update and can do water sims, Downloaded Blender, installed, opened, did water sim tut, liked what I saw so I started looking for other things it could do.
Basically I the first time I download Blender I looked at it once and stuff that! Next time I got I said "Well others have made very cool things with program so maybe I should at least give it a go". I think that some of the common problems users have when starting out is getting used to the new keyset (I tried to use Wings3D and Blender at the same time but it was too difficult, I was doing Blender commands in Wings and Wings commands in Blender and screwing myself right up!). But for someone who has no experience in 3D and are using Blender as their first 3D app (god help em) I think that there needs to be a dictionary made that explains all the terms used in the program.
And there is some things which just simply haven't been fixed yet like something for Blender or maybe built-in to Blender that NEED to be made easier… like managing a renderfarm… or UV mapping. I of the things about Wings3D which I loved was that I NEVER EVER had to read a tutorial or go through tonnes of documentation… it was all logical, it was all just right there. Without a single tutorial I was able to make detailed, UV mapped, textured levels for the games I was making back then. One level I made in just a little bit less than a hour and it was easy as! I was very soon making people and whole cities…. I love blender but making a whole city in Blender … just takes way to long compare to other programs.
So basically in my opinion the commands in Blender the tools, just need to become more obvious and more "just right there" *Think Firefox or MS Word*. To a experience Blender user the UI seems great and the commands seem right where they should be, but thats for people which are experienced with Blender, for people for aren't the UI just seems all over the place and is just a mess.
redesign the ui and allow hotkeys to be user assigned
these are the number 1 and 2 reason that i hear on a regular basis
it took me several yrs and attempts to finally get past the ui and hotkey setup
and with more and more features and those features being forced to use hotkeys that are no longer intuitive, obviously the fixed key system is seriously flawed
cheers
@moondog:
In Blender, you have the Transform Properties dialog (press N-key while mousepointer is in a 3D View) that allows you to enter values into textboxes. If I'm not mistaken you can also enter actual python code (or maybe just formulas) into the value fields. I'll have to confirm that, though. I know it can be done, I'm just not sure if it works for ALL value fields.
Also, for units, if you establish a scale to use for the grid units you can do "measured units". You also can modify the gridline frequencies to suite your needs (see 3D View Header bar: View | View Properties…)
I am an intermediate/advanced Blender user and I am trying to learn Lightwave. (no, I'm not a traitor, I just want to broaden my experience;-) Can you or someone else bake a blender theme with all the keystrokes from lightwave mapped to the blender tools so that I could learn lightwave in a more familiar setting?
Thanks,
CGuy
I would like to vote for the modelling units thing as well. Even though more recent versions of Blender has the Nkey, it still is nowhere near the functionality of programs like Rhino.
In fact, the ability to open Rhino/Any Nurbs files in Blender would be an awesome first step. AFAIK, Blender has all the backend support for NURBS, so its just a matter of coding OpenNurbs into Blender?
Having no redefinable hot keys are about all that makes me hate the UI. some of the other features are amazing. Lack of N-Gons is another drastic flaw to speedy modeling
Lightwave is elegant, and has a great renderer- Blender
still has a way to go to achieving elegance.
More specifically though… the DRAG tool and SPINQUAD
(maybe something like spinquad already exists) are two
of the greatest tools in lightwave for character modeling.
The functionality of DRAG is gorgeous- it's what has
prevented me from permanently switching to maya (or
blender) for modeling. Gizmo's in blender, maya, 3ds etc- are okay, but DRAG in
lightwave is just so intuitive- I'm surprised no one's
mentioned it here yet- ALOT of people ask about it
in the lightwave forums and some blender forums I've
seen over the years.
Finally the out-of-the-box renderer in lightwave is
superior to Blender's. However I imagine it's only a
matter of time until it catches up- keep up the promising
work on blender!
Gimme DRAG and SPINQUAD! Cheers.
@Hexa - At the risk of tooting my own horn, ResPower has what we call "Split/Frame" rendering. I'm not sure it will render at /that/ high of a resolution (haven't tested that far out), but it's fairly inexpensive to give it a try. In fact, if you contact me at support at respower dot com, I'll be glad to use your scene to test the limits.
@markd - is drag in lightwave the same thing as proportional editing?
@markd:
Similar functionality to DRAG already exists in Blender, if I'm understanding it correctly.
In Blender, you don't have to always explicitly active the Grab (G-key) tool to be able to move things.
Try this in Blender: Select any vertex/object by dragging with the RMB. Also, select multiple vertices/objects using Shift-RMB but, when selecting the last one, do it with Shift-dragRMB (just like with the single vertex earlier). In either case, after the tool has been activated, you can release the RMB and continue to perform the function on your selection.
Blender also has Mouse Gestures for basic operations like Scale, Grab, and Rotate! No keystroke required! Check the wiki for more details. At some point, I'll cover this on my website.
@spamagnet
It's going to be a part of a large projection of 60×10 Meters in total. It will show a desktop from straight above. There will be heaps of pictures and newspaper articles on it too. These will be scanned at a somewhat high resolution. The 3D-parts will be the desktop, a cup of coffee, a magnifier (as a frame for a video-presentation) and the pencil + paper.
@Early Ehlinger
I registered over at Respower about a week ago. I just did not have the time to try your services though. I have some projects that will rely on your services pretty soon. Thanks for offering your help. I will contact you for sure.
Actually I solved this high resolution problem a different way: I did a large render (not too large :) ) sent it through autotrace and did some optimizations. Now it looks great, and is scalable to infinity.
One more reason why I prefer Blender over Lightwave: Respower is way cheaper ;)
@kernon
There is a large difference between figuring out distances in your head and translating to units, for example for those of us taught on the english backwards way of measuring, 12 in=1 Foot, making it very difficult to model, for example, a 2×4x16 stick of lumber, which the actual dimensions would be… 1.5" x 3.5" x (16X12")
Now wait until you get into the much more complex stuff as well. I am not looking for an architectural CAD program, but the ability to do something semi-accurate should not be to difficult. For example I recently did a lighting design in blender, the raytracing engine was great, and without to much work I could get Gels and Instruments working fine, but doing basic walls on the set was very difficult as getting things to but up to each other was incredibly hard.
Of course other things that I found useful were snaps, in particular allowing me to set up a guide for a model when I needed to. I need a desk that consist of two circles of differing diameters, I would lay out those two circles with the same center, and lay out arcs(Or in blender trace using curves if I needed), and erase the circles, connect the end of the arcs with line segments, of course then I could extrude if I needed to after I made the appropriate faces.
These are just useful tools, the snaps would be tougher to me from a promgramming standpoint to implement, but the unit measurement shouldnt be to difficult IMO, but I haven't looked at blender's code at all to be able to say for certain in this case.
The ability to redefine hotkeys would be interesting, not sure if I am for it or against it, I think more for it at the moment though.
Seablade
Cheers for the help! I've been asking about that one on and off for a long time. I'll be much more ready for the switch now. Was getting close anyway cause of the improved sub-d's so yeah…thanks all- kernon- totally looking forward to seeing a tute on your website!
Ever get the feeling you just spent a lot of money on a worthless piece of garbage? That is how I feel now. No wonder Lightwave users are switching to Blender. As for me, I'm off to learn 3dsmax…
@Howitzer:
:) …be careful, you might be making the same mistake again.
Hi, I am still a noob to Blender, and to the 3D world in general. There are some features I am unable to find, or maybe they just require learning techniques I still don't know?
Anyway, here they are:
* Knife Subdivide tool doesn't appear to have a snap-to-grid function.
* Snapping selection to grid cannot be done on only one individual axis at a time. (And I'm not talking about the "type G then type x,y,or z and then Ctrl while dragging - this only moves in relative increments - it does not conform to the universal grid.)
* The position of individual vertices cannot be measured, as far as I know. So it's difficult to confirm exact location.
* There appears to be no way to use one mesh as a subtractive brush to carve another. Can this be done? (Or for that matter, what about an additive brush?)
* I would also like to see various polyhedra in the list of meshes that can be created. I've imported meshes from a more primative freeware prog called Anim8or to get around this, so it's only a minor inconvenience for me, but I believe that prog is PC only, so those with only Macs might be out of luck. Also, scaling these has been difficult due to the grid-snap issues previously mentioned.
* Is there a way to make a mesh conform to the shape of another? If you want to take for instance, a glob of ice cream and make it splatter on a character's face by making the ice cream conform to the contours of the face…is this possible?
* I understand that the "Shift+E" method for creasing SubSurfs doesn't translate when exporting to other non-Blender formats. It would be nice if this could be preserved somehow (perhaps by having the option to automatically add more geometry to achieve the same curves when exporting?).
With all that said, Blender is an awesome application and I have commited myself to completing all the tutorials and mastering it. Appreciation goes out to all developers.
If anyone out there knows how to accomplish the above tasks, please contact me at: quantumanomaly (at) gmail (dot) com
Thanks in advance.
-QA
I know this is not popular with die hard blender user and the people who develop blender but if you want to see the best User interface for new user and something that is user intuitive take a look at Daz Carrara Pro 5. Yes I know it does have bugs and it is not top of the pack in 3D but of all the interfaces I have looked at it is the verrrrry best for what a user interface should be like. Look a program should be designed to be easy to use and of all the 3d apps out there 3Dmax, maya, cinema4d,xsi,lightwave ect. I found Carrara the easiest to learn how to use. Blender and all of the others suffer from button overload. I like that atleast in Lightwave the modler is broken off and is a seperate program. I know they are working to integrate everything but this is a mistake too much to learn with too many buttons. In Carrara to cut down on button clutter they seperate the working area into rooms. In one room you model, in anoter you do layout and in the next you animate and the last room lets you render. If blender were to take this approach to layout and modeling new users would be able to learn the interface more easily. Just my two cents.
WEIGHT MAPS..
Can Blender import the weight maps from an lwo file (LWO2) - and if so, how?
(I am trying to avoid remapping a model I made in Modo.)
I have tried a number of import/export variations, but to no avail..