Blender: Beyond Mouse and Keyboard

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Touch devices, tablets, and platforms

  • Excitement about a touch‑optimized Blender, especially for sculpting and drawing, given how well pen tablets and devices like Wacom screens already work on Linux and even low‑power hardware.
  • Some want the new touch paradigm on existing x86 2‑in‑1s (Asus Flow, Surface Pro, Yoga) rather than only iPad/Android; they argue these are already powerful Blender machines and better testbeds than a new platform.
  • Question about whether the simplified UI can be enabled on small Linux touchscreens; answer: likely yes, via configuration or compiling with appropriate flags.

iPad, Procreate, and artist workflows

  • Many note Procreate’s dominance among students and professionals: low cost, great Pencil integration, portability, and “digital sketchbook” role.
  • Teachers criticize Procreate for small‑screen ergonomics, limited support for complex workflows (matte painting, compositing), and difficulty integrating student work into desktop pipelines.
  • Consensus: tablets are great for sketching and certain kinds of concept work, but not yet a full replacement for high‑end desktop workflows.

Competing and complementary 3D apps

  • Discussion of Nomad Sculpt, Feather 3D, uMake, Shapereality, etc. View that there’s plenty of room for focused, performant touch‑first 3D tools even if Blender comes to iPad.
  • Suggestions to differentiate by specializing (e.g., CAD/architectural, B‑rep/NURBS, texture painting) rather than chasing Blender parity.
  • Some argue Blender still needs competition despite being open source; others counter that commercial tools like Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D remain dominant in studios, so Blender is still an underdog there.

Modeling paradigms and Blender’s “start with a cube”

  • Several replies stress Blender supports many workflows: sculpting from a high‑poly sphere, box/poly modeling, metaballs, CSG/booleans, NURBS/patches, extrusion from 2D sketches, geometry nodes, scans/photogrammetry.
  • Broader comparison with CAD/parametric tools (SolidWorks, Fusion, Rhino, OpenSCAD) and text/coordinate‑driven modeling; Blender’s Python API highlighted for scripted pipelines.

Beyond mouse and keyboard: VR, 6DoF, BCI

  • Some expected 6DoF or voice/AI control; Blender already supports space‑mouse‑style NDOF devices and has experimental VR scene inspection and third‑party VR modeling add‑ons.
  • Debate on VR modeling: intuitive for beginners but often more fatiguing, less precise, and screen‑limited than traditional setups; better suited for review than production.
  • Brain–computer interfaces seen as far off for noninvasive “thought control”; implants may allow fine motor signals, but high‑level thought decoding is considered distant.

Complexity, accessibility, and UI trade‑offs

  • One camp fears “tabletizing” Blender will force oversimplification, reduce power, and confuse users unless clearly branded as a separate “Blender Lite.”
  • Others respond that the tablet UI will be an optional application template, not a replacement, and aligns with Blender’s mission of accessibility and experimentation.
  • Broader thread on why 3D tools remain extremely complex: many believe the complexity is inherent to high‑control creative work, not just legacy UI; others hope AI, gesture, or speech could eventually enable radically simpler interfaces without losing power.