Blender does not use Windows GUI, but I think that this is a big plus.If you are accustomed to use the max, maya, then will be difficult for you to use Blender. Just have to get used to Blender to use it.
Blender is not a standard project, which I think are doing wonderful people.

My experience from university is that people who are new to 3D don´t have more problems with blender than with maya, max, lightwave or whatever.

When switching from one software you are very experienced with to another one there often is a lot of cursing involved though. But this also isn´t a blender thing and usually nothing that can´t be overcome with some weeks of patience. There is no user interface standard in 3D software. All of them are very different.

You get pain from using hotkeys? Do you have some problem with your hands or something?

I do not dispute that, in some cases difficult to use Blender, but not always. For example, I was hard it was to learn 3Dmax, 3Dmax this Professional Program, to study all of its possibilities I will take years, but Blender can learn for months, I needed a program that was able to -
to work on my weak computer (3Dmax is a great resources eater),work with the geometry, do UV unwrap, make animation , save the model in mdl7, Blender coped with all this,easy and fast, more than I did not need.

LOL, i just have waited for that question. I think we have them all now. I am too dumb, have no clue about 3D, am not willing to learn and not healthy enough to use Blender

Nope, all healthy and fine. It's just when i press hotkeys the whole day i get pain in my neck. You would too. I don't have that trouble with using my mouse for that job though.

And to prevent another misunderstanding, no, i have absolutely nothing against hotkeys. I use them too - where they make sense.

I have to disagree that there is no UI standard in 3D. They all have a somehow working Button or Icon UI, they nearly all are customizable. They nearly all tend towards the Windows UI too. Which is a big plus in learning and using.

What do you think why the big players creates such highly customizable UI's? It's all about the useage. You come from Maya? Then customize Silo to look like Maya. Big workflow plus. Big learning plus. You are in trouble to remember more than 10 hotkeys because you already know 100 from other software and would mix them permanently? Then just use this ten and use the button UI for the rest. Big workflow plus. Big learning plus. Under good circumstances you don't even have to touch a tutorial or the manual. You don't use the software permanently? Then you are lost with just hotkeys. You will have forgotten them when you come back. A hail to the icons and tooltips then that makes you remember what is what.

This is missing in Blender. You have fixed hotkeys, and that's it, besides a totally cluttered button UI. And they don't have a tooltip to explain the tool. They don't even have an icon to make you remember its function. Which means to have a steep learning curve before you can even do basic stuff.

Fact is that Blender has a weak UI. Even Blender makers knows that. And promises improvements since years. They always implement new tools instead though. Brings more fame.
Fact is also that i am not the only one who is in trouble with Blender UI. It is too special. I know enough who tried it and have given it up very quick.
Problem is, nearly just hotkey lovers stays with Blender. Rest migrates. And they don't really see anymore that the rest is in trouble with the UI.

No, I really don´t get neck problems from using hotkeys all day. You must sit in a very unergonomic way or so.

houdini:


maya:


lightwave:


XSI:


blender:


modo:


...and many others...

I don´t see any standard there. Also under the surface. They all are very different and they all are a lot more complicated than the typical office application.

Sure, the blender user interface has weaknesses (of course the others aren´t perfect either). The work on 2.5 is in full progress now. I think they aim for a release in mid 2009.

But blender already is great nevertheless and everyone should give it a chance. If it works for what you do then it will save you a lot of money and licensing trouble.

Congrats for not having problems:)

And again, no i am healthy. No it is not me. Yes, i sit in a economic manner. It is Blenders Hotkeys. I have no problems in other software, but became problems in Blender. Fact

May i suggest to have a look at the top of every software? There resides everything file menu. Except in Blender. Half of the file menu is somewhere in the middle of the software. Parts even hidden until you enter a mode. I have spent days hunting for one special tool and had to ask a Blender user in the end. Very intuitiveParts are so hidden that you will never reach them without help. Who pulls an invisible handler at the top for example.

May i also suggest to have a look left and right of the software. Nearly every software has Buttons with Icons and Tooltips. Except Blender ...

May i also suggest to have a look at the customization posibilities. Every shown software is highly customizable. You can define your own hotkeys, you can customize your toolbars. Except Blender ...

It is out of question that you and lots of others are comfortable with it. Nothing bad with that. Blender has some very neat features. I don't complain about that. That is not the point. But i cannot reach them because the UI is in the way. I simply cannot agree that Blender is easy. It is not. I have tried it. Again and again. It is one of the hardest to learn and hardest to use software i know of.

I have over years again and again wasted my time with trying to learn Blender. I know it since 2000. I have spent complete Weeks with reading through tutorials and looking at videos. And everytime i gave up the hunt for the missing tools at one point because it became too much. It killed the fun. I am not made to learn 300 hotkeys. Yes i know, most Blender User talks about 20-30 for the mainwork. But even that is too much. I personally would give up 3D when i had to use Blender. That's for sure

Blender also has a file menu and buttons and icons with clear and concise tooltips. These icons are not at the left or right of the work area but at the top, bottom, left and right.

I'm not a modeler, and I don't see much difference, and I took the time to go through the tutorials and learned it well enough to get around. I think I agree with you about the heavy use of hotkeys, but I also would think you could do everything with the mouse too if you knew where the appropriate button was located. That's what the excellent tutorials are for. Even so, the next version supposedly allows those customizable UIs, so it's simply a matter of time.

half of that is in fact wrong. blender does have tooltips, it does have a mouse clickable gui, and you can set your bars up to do basically whatever you want them too. the only downfall you said that i agree with is the fact that you cant reset the hotkeys to your own settings, but once you learn them anyways its not an issue. and come on its logical-
e-extrude
g-grab
s-scale
r-rotate
e-edgetools
k-cut
u-unwrap toolz

xyz-transform on [key]'s axis.

it all makes sense.

I'm still new to blender, but when I decided to write down each use of a feature or a set of keys in one text file, I got a grip on it.
Each session I open blender and this text file, so I can read anything that I forgot. And, when I use an additional feature, I write into this text file how to use this feature.

I use the VLC media player to play the blender tutorial videos in higher speed to get an idea whether they are about something that I want to know. I learn by a combination of looking the videos, trying different buttons in blender, which open lists of tools. I learned so far importing, exporting, splitting the areas, open the uv view, adding image, marking seams, layout uvs, render to texture ambient occlusion, switching between the different modes like object mode, edit mode, texture mode, sculpt mode, and use them, moving the view with the middle mouse button in combination with Ctrl, Shift and Alt, editing with the right mouse button, confirming the change with the left mouse button, undo with ctrl+z, and - a year before I didn't believe it - but I get sort of used to it!

Thanks to ventilator, who never got tied to make plugins for blender and acknex, and who advertised this free tool with words and a tutorial!

****
Just want to add that there is a book coming about the game engine part of blender, and the old book about the bge (blender game engine) is available as a .pdf for download.

http://www.yofrankie.org/

Again, do hotkeys have tooltips? No, they don't.

Yes. Blender does have a button menu and tooltips. But you loose yourself in finding the right tool here. The button menu is totally cluttered. And i disagree that it is customizable enough. It is not. You cannot rearrange the menus. You cannot union the important parts to one toolbar. And you loose yourself in digging in the submenu of the submenu of the submenu. Means when the menu item is there. And not hidden in another mode.

The method to handle Blender is to use hotkeys therefore. The learning videos are made using hotkeys. The manual is made using hotkeys. It is the official way to use Blender. And then we are back at the point above. Hotkeys do not have tooltips.

One last question. How comes that so much people try Blender and fail at it when the UI is so great as everybody tells me here? All dumb?

Anyways, i know that this discussion is useless. Others simply leave it alone and never discuss. And that is what i do now too. I don't use Blender besides some small conversion jobs. And so i don't really mind about this software. It's just that i can never agree when somebody calls Blender easy, it simply isn't.