SamAdam wrote:well this is an annoyingly pointless thread.
we all know that in the end if we want more features we just wait. I have been with blender for about a year now and the feature list has skyrocketed. just look at the f1 competition for an idea of the improvement in user skill and program power.
if you want a huge update in features and power I have an easy solution. Stop using or upgrading blender for six months and then come back. I am sure you will find some changes for the better, and it will still be F. R. E. E. free.
Yeah, but blender will not be where softimage is now.. For more than 6 months, probably not for a half decade.. I'm sure this fact is just intimidating the others, for fear that users will lose interest..
I'm saying relax, its not going to die.. But you can't develop in a vacuum,
else you bring users future resentment on yourself, for keeping quiet on
the subjects that are obviously taboo..
Softimage will never be open source.. Its creditors won't let it, lest it becomes bankrupt.. And what do you imagine will happen to the sources? I foresee blender's GUI atop Softimage's brawn..
The access to data, directly, is a result of the database style of access that blender gives users.. The data is not structured and hiearchical, like an object oriented system would be.. But that has problems too, in that you can't structure complex relationships without the use of python, and special parenting relationships.. Eventually blender will become less accessible as features creep in.. The focus is to allow users to access the data directly, without construction history and other stuff in the way.. But that makes blender, what people say, its essentially the VI editor of 3D packages.. VI is modeless, it has three states actually, edit mode, command mode, and an expression mode.. Blender is similar in that any edit mode you are in, you can get out of with a hit to "escape". However blender even has commands in edit mode, which VI doesn't.. The expression mode of VI is what I call it when you use regular expressions and calls to external packages.. Blender uses python to give extended use and automation.. Blender has multiple undo and redo.. VIM has multiple undo and redo.. The similarities are uncanny.. Evne the choice for deleting and object is the same as deleting a character in VI, "x". So obviously Ton must use VI or must have been somewhat inspired by VI when he devised the design for blender..
Its amazing to me, that they didn't push to use VI as an editor for the text files in blender..
But to say Ton designed this in a vacuum with sheer programming genius is a made up.. I know facts about blender and what TOn has told me in the past, that would certainly kill blender's development if I said anything.. And I don't want to reveal what I know.. For fear that it would.. But blender borrowed a lot from other softwares.. But its not competing, because its free.. And its not a major competitor, its just a small little niche of the 3D world, not competition (* evil grin *).