A little good thing in the disaster that ex-Softimage developers are sitting 
now in the development team

I think a well prepared poll could help your work

Make sure, that all feature that is exclusive to Softimage is present in the 
list, like GATOR, Sticky/Supra Key, MMB for last menu command, Snapping System 
with ALT key pivot manipulation, animation icons (feedback on keys, animation 
types), etc.

Make then sure, that you can separate the user feedback based upon their area 
of work (like VFX, films, games, ads, etc)

Then you will get a really good overview of what is essential to inject into 
Maya.

Good luck guys. It's hard task. And to quote Lord Farquaad: "Some of yoy may 
die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make!" :)



From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Luc-Eric Rousseau
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 12:46 AM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

We are keeping MMB Repeat under consideration for Maya, thanks all for the 
feedback.

On Wednesday, March 26, 2014, Matt Lind 
<ml...@carbinestudios.com<mailto:ml...@carbinestudios.com>> wrote:
I fully understood what your post was about, Luc-Eric.

What I stated is what many users here liked MMB upon learning about it as, 
other than myself and one other person, nobody had used Softimage before.  They 
had all come from 3DSMax and/or Maya.  Many of them have commented they wish 
the MMB feature was in Maya as it's simple, intuitive, and saves repetitive 
work freeing up a spot or two on the keyboard for something else.  While you 
can use 'g' in Maya, it's not the same as MMB in the menus as each menu can 
have its own history remembering a different command whereas 'g' can only 
remember one command - the most recent.  That's important.  Users here have a 
mentality burned into their skulls from those other software that they have to 
make lots of keyboard shortcuts and toolbars to get anything done.  Introducing 
something like a MMB is a revelation as it's both simple and powerful.

What should also be conveyed is that when artists feel like they have to make 
lots of keyboard shortcuts and toolbars, they often tend to start dabbling in 
scripting to make those customizations.  Artist code tends to be a frequent 
cause of fires I have to exterminate and generally a waste of my time as a TD.  
If artists have these nice UI workflow touches such as MMB to repeat, they're 
less inclined to write crappy code which means fewer fires to fight and more 
focus on productivity not only for the artists, but also for me as it allows me 
to spend more time focusing on writing tools which can provide bigger impact 
than quickie buttons.


Matt




-----Original Message-----
From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com<javascript:;> 
[mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com<javascript:;>] On Behalf Of 
Luc-Eric Rousseau
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 12:25 PM
To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com<javascript:;>
Subject: Re: humanize Maya, SOFT top 5

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 3:00 PM, Matt Lind 
<ml...@carbinestudios.com<javascript:;>> wrote:
> Here at Carbine, users like the MMB to repeat a menu command.  It's popular.  
> They're not as fond of tear off menus.  They don't hate tear off menus, but 
> given the choice they'll use a custom key as 1st option, custom toolbar as 
> 2nd option, and tear off menu as last option.  The issue being that tear off 
> menus don't allow for customized menus. You only get the existing menu 
> structure in a different place.
>
> What users want is clutter free and minimal effort to execute commands or a 
> series of commands.  Tear off menus are good for situations where the entire 
> menu is a custom menu of commands like a custom toolbar would be, and the 
> commands in that menu are very closely related to the task at hand.  If the 
> menu is full of built-in commands, they're less liked because usually the 
> user only cares about one or two tools in the menu but is stuck having to 
> take all of them as part of the package deal resulting in clutter.  For 
> example, go to the property menu and you have entries for visibility, 
> display, etc..., but also a lot of unrelated tools such as rendermap or 
> gator.  It's a very tall menu but the user only wants 3 or 4 items out of 30. 
>  If tear off menus allowed individual items to be torn off and merged into a 
> toolbar, then that would be ideal.
>
> Implementing MMB to repeat a command in a menu would be a popular move.

that's OK, but that's in Softimage.  The bit that's not obvious is whether 
someone using Maya needs a MMB, that's what my post is meant to be about.
In Maya, you can even hold shift+ctrl while selecting a menu to make it a 
button the shelf.  (Doing the same thing in Softimage would be a
pain) You'll be working differently, have different reflexes.

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