Blender represents both the triumph and tragedy of open source software. I've been vaguely following its development since the late 90s, periodically making attempts to learn it, and failing until I finally made a more serious push earlier this month. Once one has gotten over the very steep learning curve, it's an amazing piece of kit. On a feature-by-feature basis, it handily outcompetes many commercial packages, and once one has learned the keyboard shortcuts, I can see how the interface would actually become a pleasure for daily users.

However for beginners and casual users, the UI is a disaster: stupidly opaque and pointlessly obtuse. It is obtuse in ways which aren't necessary to support the power-user workflow, but seem to exist for no other reason than to maximise the "WTF?!?" factor for new users.

For example: object-selection is done via a right-click, requiring the user to break their muscle-memory from literally every other GUI program they've ever used. WTF? And where are the contextual menus? And why are the all-important keyboard-shortcut tooltips scattered so haphazardly through the UI?

Making things worse, the defaults and documentation assume a three-button mouse and a full keyboard with a numeric keypad etc., and the most basic navigation functions -- panning, zooming, dollying, orbiting -- all rely on inputs from these devices. Working on my 13" Macbook Pro, it took me about 15 hours of banging my head against the software until I found a combination of settings which allowed me to pan and zoom etc. using only my trackpad. (I had asked the Blender forums for help, and the advice I received was to buy another computer). Now it's working quite well for me, but only because I was willing to endure a few days of pain to get there.

3D software doesn't need to be this difficult. In my day, I've been highly proficient at 3D Studio, Lightwave, Cinema4D, Form•Z, and various other platforms, and none of them embody UX anti-conventions the way that Blender does. Heck, even basic things like its click-drag mechanics are just wrong (click-drag to initiate a drag, at which point the object or control point becomes "sticky" to the cursor, even after it's released; a second click is required to end the drag), requiring the user to comprehensively retrain their muscle memory in order to use the software. WTF?!?

The Blender community, unfortunately, seems to largely be a self-selected cabal of people who have survived this pointless hazing ritual and are determined to make sure that everyone who follows in their footsteps does the same. Although a small minority of the community "gets it" and is making earnest and well-thought-through proposals about how to fix the situation (see: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9...), they don't seem to have much traction, and are continually derided / ignored by the rest of the community. Thus even the very simplest lowest-hanging fruit -- such as enabling "select with left mouse button" by default (it's already an existing setting, buried deep in the preferences where no noob will ever find it) -- aren't implemented.

It's a sad situation, because with a bit more polish on the UI/UX, Blender could be a genuine player in the 3D industry, rather than an intriguingly powerful assemblage of missed opportunities.