Ogre Forums

Once you get past the interface, are there really any advantages of modelling in Wings over Blender?

Now I understand that wings is strictly a modeller and does not support animation, but many of the reviews I have read online detailing what is better between Blender and Wings seem to deal strictly with ease of use of Wings. And this alone seems to be the only reason I have seen spelled out why it is consistantly picked over Blender.

Now, no doubt Blender is not intuative at all. You need to sit down and go through the tutorials and learn the interface. And most importantly, USE THE SHORTCUTS!.

But it seems once you have learned the shortcuts, you can create content very quickly.

For me working with the Blender interface is like typing. I no longer have to look at the keyboard and can fly through it. Of course this hasn't helped my lack of any real artistic talent, but I'm working on that part. And I can't really blame the tool for that!

So basically, once you know the Blender interface, is there really any advantage to Wings. Or better yet, is there anything you can do modelling wise in Wings that Blender can't do, or is prohibitively difficult to do?

Wings is designed completely around edge-loop modelling, so it's faster and more intuitive than Blender, which is sort of designed around the concept of throwing everything possible into one program with little thought to layout. I know Blender has some edge-loop modelling buried in there among the thousands of other things, so I'm sure you could probably do it in there too. Honestly, you will just have to try Wings and see if you like it. I'm quite sure that almost nothing anyone posts will get you to change your mind if you're already determined to stick with Blender.

makeshiftwings wrote:Wings is designed completely around edge-loop modelling, so it's faster and more intuitive than Blender, which is sort of designed around the concept of throwing everything possible into one program with little thought to layout. I know Blender has some edge-loop modelling buried in there among the thousands of other things, so I'm sure you could probably do it in there too. Honestly, you will just have to try Wings and see if you like it. I'm quite sure that almost nothing anyone posts will get you to change your mind if you're already determined to stick with Blender.

Actually, I just downloaded Wings yesterday and was curious if it was worth learning, or if it would buy me something Blender didn't.

If it does, I will certainly put some time into it.

So I'm not dead set on strictly using blender. But I have had a big headstart with it!

Well, Blender has more OGRE support than Wings..
I guess you can use Wings and Blender together.

jacmoe wrote:Well, Blender has more OGRE support than Wings..
I guess you can use Wings and Blender together.

I'm no expert, but when I create content that is my pipeline. Or sometimes it may be:
1. Wings
2. ZBrush
3. Blender

I am having trouble with this pipeline, because if I want to go back and tweak something(i.e, add more detail to the object) I have to go back to step 1.

This is a pain, especially if I have animation data in Blender.

If using only 1 tool works for you, you will gain a lot of benefits. For me, I can't stand Blender. I think it is sloppy. So I've been saving up to buy XSI, or waiting until ZBrush encapsulates animation support.

Anyone with more experience have any opinions on what's best here?

It would probably be best to keep the pipeline simple. 3 steps, when 1 can be cut out, is not ideal. If you need blender in the pipeline, I would recommend learning it well enough that you don't need Wings any longer. I work just fine between Blender and ZBrush without any need of another tool, unless it is a UV mapping one. Like sarge said though regarding Blender, you need to use the tutorials to get past the gui.

If you really can't stand Blender at all, then stick with what you are doing, just know that it could be streamlined more with little effort. Also, jacmoe's point is an important one. Blender is what has better support. Also, its OBJ support works perfectly with ZB.

When you start working with large quantities of content, every step you save turns into MANY steps you save. It is truly worth it to keep your pipeline as painless as possible. Of course, it all comes down to your own preference. Some people just hate Blender and never give it the time of day. It really is getting better and better (Esp. since they are working on adding sculpting capabilities to it as we speak).

martyn wrote:I can't stand Blender. I think it is sloppy.

Hehe.
The difference (to me) is that in Blender, the user interface doesn't get in the way.
You are able to work at amazing speeds, because all you need is in 10 keyboard shortcuts and your mouse.
Also, the interface changes dynamically depending on what you do.

I must admit that I was totally flabbergasted the first times in Blender, but even though I have access to Max, XSI and Maya, I find myself working in Blender most of the time.
Because the interface of the other programs gets in the way (feels clunky).

I am not saying that Blender is better than the above, probably not.
But it sure promotes productivity.
Sloppy?
Definately. And that's what I like about it.

IMO Blender is definatly a quicker tool for modelling than XSI. XSI being a huge monster of a program that does anything you could ever want, still its a very cool monster. It'll only take you a day to get used to blender, all you have to do is run through the manual's first part (chapters 1-4).

Edit: though... I think martyn has probably already done that.

Nope. Can't stand blender. Once you get used to the XSI way of manipulating the camera, you won't go back to blender. Sooo much easier.

The worst in all that is that I know that I will have to teach blender even though I can't stand it.

I have tried getting into Blender a few times. However, it's frusterating because whenever I open Blender up and start a tutorial, the interface in the tutorial doesn't match the actual thing. It's for that reason, I just stick to Milkshape.

The Blender Summer of Documentaion is about to change all that:
http://www.blender.org/cms/Newsitem.607 ... dc5.0.html

And - if you haven't - check out the video tutorials:
http://blender.org/cms/Video_Tutorials.396.0.html
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread?t=30825

They are required material. In fact, they were the only documentation which managed to teach me the Blender interface.

Thank you jacmoe. I will look into getting my hands on those videos.

I've heard the hotkeys excuse a lot for blender. "It doesn't matter that the interface is clunky, because once you learn all the hotkeys, it's super fast!" But isn't that true of every other modeling program as well? Every modelling program out there has hotkeys; this isn't unique to Blender. I've found that if I memorize or set hotkeys in Wings, XSI, Zbrush, Maya, or Max, I can do just as little mouseclicking as Blender. The difference is in the apps I like, if you haven't memorized the hotkey for something, it's intuitive to figure out how to do it using the mouse or menus or widgets, whereas in Blender, it's generally hopeless to find anything without digging through tutorials and documentation.

I mean, I'm glad some people like Blender, and I'm really happy it exists as it is probably the best full-featured open source modeller. But I don't like people telling me I haven't given it a chance or that if I'm patient enough I'll learn to like it. Trust me, I've been trying for six years to like Blender, and it just isn't happening. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

But the tools are all in the context menu to be opened with the space-key. And the menu itself looks pretty much like the one in wings, just nested instead of flat. But it is all in there.

I agree, that the tools itself differ sometimes slightly, sometime greatly in their use.

I think you'll like the Blender interface more if you switched to the rounded theme.
The default theme is gross, IMHO.

haffax wrote:But the tools are all in the context menu to be opened with the space-key. And the menu itself looks pretty much like the one in wings, just nested instead of flat. But it is all in there.

That's true. But that only applies to Blender 2.4.x - even more so in the upcoming release.
Getting all commands into menus has been part of the Blender 2.42 roadmap (IIRC).

I didn't mean to drag this topic off course; Blender and its community just make me rant sometimes.

There are zealots in every camp.
Like Linux and it's advocates?

I use everything.

jacmoe wrote:There are zealots in every camp.
Like Linux and it's advocates?

I use everything.

Don't even get me started on Linux