I was going to point this: It is simply a too complicated workflow. No amount of UI revamping will solve the issue of "having a shit ton of actions that can be done and parameters that can be tweaked". One just needs to bear with the process of learning until it becomes second nature.

I had the same "issue" when I was learning music production on a tracker-inspired daw: Renoise. Really steep learning curve, Lots and lots of buttons because you have lots and lots of doable actions. You just need to do it badly enough until you are okay with it. It becomes second nature, part of your hands, really.

I don't think anyone is pretending that 3D modeling and the like are able to be made simple just by UI changes: any proper craft requires practice and perhaps combined with some innate knack for the discipline.

But with computer applications, I think it is pretty fair to say that there are certain expectations of behaviors for applications (or groups of applications) across various OSes which correlates to the intuitiveness of the application itself. Vim and the like are powerful tools, but if someone feels like they're battling it from the onset (or still after a few hours), they may be discouraged from continuing to try and use it and stick with something more akin to what they're used to like edit or nano or something else entirely.

As such, the artificial barrier to entry of an obtuse UI and mannerisms (for one, iirc, Blender has/had an opposite behavior for mouse buttons) may've kept some people from using that otherwise would've been inclined to do so. Now it becomes a case of whether they can get over the learning curve of the subject matter itself which, who knows, time will tell I suppose. But at least now, presumably, the application itself won't be the thing that prevents them from digging deeper.

(EDIT: I'm going to preface this comment by saying I'm a failed 3D artist, but it's not because Blender has traditionally used right-click to select).

The mouse button argument is utterly ridiculous and has been going on at least for as long as I've used Blender, which is over 10 years. The number failed 3D careers I've read about online that are blamed on that choice of "right mouse button click to select" is hilarious (note: left click is the default as of 2.8 so there are no more excuses). It is a minute problem compared to the learning curve of defining a good silhouette, 3D modelling, sculpting, topology, UV layout, rigging, triangulation and animation etc. If people are still getting stuck at the select button being on the wrong side of the mouse, they really don't have the interest.

I suggest taking a look at ZBrush UI if you haven't already. Yes it lets you select subtools (meshes) with a left click. In nearly every other way, it has one of the most unconvential UI you will see in nearly any piece of desktop software. It actually works in its favour once you get to know it, but its much more intimidating than Blender, at least for those starting out. You don't hear many complaints about it, well, because ZBrush is not cheap.

Yet a massive amount of meshes for 3D games, film, etc are created in ZBrush. Apologies if this comment comes across as brusque but I'm tired of this specious complaint about Blender's UI.

I’m kind of shocked by this. Careers torpedoed because of being unable to get past the UI (presuming they didn’t come from Maya or some other system)? Would seem that’s the first hurdle before getting to the core of the discipline. Like I’d say it is too early to say that an inability to figure out Visual Studio or Xcode tanked a programming career.

Again, I’m saying that if an application doesn’t at least behave in a way that is expected from coming from other applications (either similar ones or common behaviors of applications for a particular OS), it’s going to deter some: perhaps in a way it acts like a gut check of sorts, but it probably eliminates a few that just can’t wrap their heads around the UI.

ASP.NET WebForms I don’t think anyone is going to say is God’s gift to web development, but it worked in that the barrier to entry was low for WinForms developers so it allowed companies who wanted to take their desktop applications and move to the web a little easier. If not for it, who knows how many (small) companies would’ve had to shift direction entirely.

I wouldn't take the "careers" comment too seriously - it was intended to be a little tongue in cheek, but I forgot the quotes. I'm pretty sure too that those 140K readers on the Blender subreddit didn't all come from the Maya subreddit either (with only 20K users).

But you wouldn't know it from all the complaining over the years on the Blender subreddit about how it "could never compete" with the incumbent commercial offerings with right-click select. Anyone who ever looked at the art gallery on blenderartists.org would know this was bunk.

A common retort from right-click fans was frequently "can you show us any of your work you've done using left click select in Maya?". Almost all of the time, the response was crickets. When it wasn't, they'd be told how to change it, and they'd get on with dealing with the rest of the differences between Maya and Blender (because there are plenty).

Personally I never found right click select difficult at all, it's just a muscle memory thing and I retrained my self to the default left click select in 2.8 in about 5 minutes. I do appreciate that I am not everyone, and that some people, particularly new users, are much more put off by it.

The developers acknowledged all this by making left click the default in the dev branch nearly a year ago. In the stable branch, it's been possible to change it with four (left) mouse clicks after opening Blender since 2.60 was released - in 2011. Eight years ago, and people are still going on about it.

I acknowledge you want to repeat the argument that user interfaces should be as uniform as possible between all applications on all platforms. That's a fine goal from an application or software developer point of view. But working artists (in my experience) are generally way less bothered by this kind of thing. They tend to overcome small obstacles like this because they are really driven to create. Those people actually look at the Blender docs since 2011 and realised that they could change the setting with four clicks, and went on with their life and got shit done.

Or as per my other example, ZBrush, which is really difficult to use it well in mouse mode. The interface is completely different to anything because it's designed to be used on a drawing tablet, with the menus rolled up/down with the pen. It's an extremely fluid experience for 3D sculptors, but at first sight it looks ghastly, and frankly even most Blender users would run from it.

I'm not trying be rude, I just think this issue is extremely old news, and overplayed. Blender has long accomadated the masses, now it has kowtowed to them, and that's fine. The massive increase in usage over the last 10 years though seems to suggest that changing the setting wasn't really a problem for most people who really wanted to make 3D art.

This wasn't really necessary to point out ... I'm not a 3d artist, I don't need to do this, which is why 1) not free professional tools and b) non-intuitive free software UI, was enough of a barrier to keep me out.

I'm familiar enough with the 3d workflow/pipeline, so it has nothing to do with an ignorance of what 3d art is and what it takes to accomplish ... but I've mostly stuck with making 2d games when I make games because pixels are easy to push around, and there are a plethora of software out there to do so.

See asutekku's comment in this thread regarding Autodesk giving out free student licenses for Maya. I don't know how true it is, or how to go about it, but if the Blender UI is really what is keeping you from pursuing 3D art as a hobby, perhaps that could be a solution.

I'm not a student :)

The same arguments apply to programming — but many people entered the field when JS became easy to fiddle with in browsers.

UI is important in terms of cost slope, and easy UI allows people (like GP) to dabble — even if they aren’t going to make a masterpiece (or become professional programmers).

Your comment strikes me as incredibly elitist: we should want anyone who wants to dabble to be able to, even if they don’t meet your standards for “good art” — just like we want people to have access to scripting languages, for their own purposes, even if they don’t meet our aesthetic preference of “good software”.

We do allow it. I pointed out right at the top the number of Blender users vs. Maya users. You can download Blender for free right now, either from the website or through Steam. Left click to select is now the default in 2.8, and going back to 2.6, it was configurable. Now that the left-click argument has been shot down, I'm waiting to hear what the next significant complaint about the Blender UI is.

As I've pointed out in another comment, the 3D industry is full of professional software with "unconventional" user interfaces (eg. Zbrush, Syntheyes) that don't have a lot in common with other 3D software, let alone desktop applications in general. Those expensive packages are used by professionals who occasionally bitch about the interface, yet they still manage to produce astounding works of art with them.

I'm a rubbish 3D artist. But I understand it is because I'm not prepared to put in the amount of work required to get to a level where I'd like to be. I don't blame my tools.

I think your comment is a little disingenuous; I never suggested that only "good artists" understand how to use Blender. Like being a good programmer (which I am also admittedly not), becoming a professional 3D artist is a 10,000 hour (if not more) kind of problem, except for those with extraordinary talent.

The reason we hear these comments so frequently about the Blender UI is that it is free, so many people download it, and when they realise that it will take more work than they expect to become proficient, they take they easy way out and blame the UI (IMHO).