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Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:23 pm
by cooldude
Which is better blender 2.49b Image or Blender 2.58? Image

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 2:09 am
by Endoperez
Depends.

1) If you can already use one, you could stick with it until you have reason to change.
2) If you get paid to use one, use that. You lucky bastard!
3) If you need a feature, or a script, or a plug-in, or an exporter, or an importer, that only works one... use that one.


If you're new to Blender, start with 2.58. It's the way it will work in the future, and most of the features that were in 2.49b that aren't in 2.5x are minor. The features in 2.5x that aren't in 2.49 are numerous and quite useful. Like the ability to re-define keys. :lol:

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:30 pm
by Noz
Outdated. But, 2.6!

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:59 pm
by Lotus Wolf
Personally, I can't see the new interface as sexy. Honestly it's harder to work with, all the controls are jumbled together, piled up the sides or buried under a menu.

Also, the default viewing style is now set to perspective rather than orthographic. Now I have to switch back every time I open Blender.

So yeah... Sexy... All the scroll bars are rounded and the screen space is "used more efficiently." It looks grim with its many shades of grey, not at all inviting...

2.49 FTW!

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:42 am
by johndh
Lotus Wolf wrote:Now I have to switch back every time I open Blender.
Can't you save the preference somewhere?

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:24 am
by cooldude
press control-u after you have set the preferences

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:11 am
by Endoperez
Lotus Wolf wrote:Personally, I can't see the new interface as sexy. Honestly it's harder to work with, all the controls are jumbled together, piled up the sides or buried under a menu.

Also, the default viewing style is now set to perspective rather than orthographic. Now I have to switch back every time I open Blender.

So yeah... Sexy... All the scroll bars are rounded and the screen space is "used more efficiently." It looks grim with its many shades of grey, not at all inviting...

2.49 FTW!

You can save the default settings into whatever you want. More importantly, in 2.5, you can change the keyboard shortcuts. That alone makes the 2.5 UI better.

The controls aren't as easy to use as the 2.4x ones, if you're used to the 2.4x interface, but the 2.4x interface is horrible. There's random panels of buttons that are in a specific place for no other reason that one guy once put it there. The buttons needed reorganizing.

Honestly, IMO the lack of instant Bevel is still the most annoying missing feature of 2.5.

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:55 am
by rudel_ic
If you're just now entering the world of Blender, 2.58 is the better choice.

If you have a lot of stuff that relies on things in 2.49, such as custom Python junk, or are extremely accustomed to 2.49's way of doing things, then you'll have a tough transfer, but it'll be worth it in the end.

The things that make 2.58 extremely compelling are:
— More flexible Python API, better tie-in of GUI functions for Py, and an included console
— Better rigging workflows and more stable and performant autorigging / ghosting / ..
— More reliable GUI drawing (for instance, custom GUIs in 2.49 can flicker in and out on OS X)
— Better UV mapping code (a lot of bugs were fixed there as well; for example, persistent mismapped UVs in 2.49 were a pain)
— Easier workflow for procedural materials
— Hiccups were fixed (one example would be a game prototype with lots of logic bricks => occasional inexplicable freezes; another would be the broken text editor)
— Better 3D display code (more performant, more consistent, completely ported to shader-based OpenGL)
— More sensible filesystem browsing
— Faster builtin renderer and baker
— Unified concept for custom properties + automatic exposure of those (custom properties were sort of borked in 2.49 anyway)
— More consistency across platforms (filesystem abstraction layer and other technical shit like that)
— Things I haven't intensively played with yet are allegedly much better now (sculpting, physics, shape keys in the IPO editor, other junk; gotta verify all that at some point)
………

There is a feature list somewhere, haven't looked for a while though. But that one should give you a better overview. It's hard to work through that though.

Basically, if you're married with 2.49, work hard and migrate over because it's worth it, but it'll be hard indeed. I'd recommend clicking everything and figuring out what it does, making small feature-oriented projects, stuff like that.

Some things are still a tad weird; undo in text editing is one of those (doesn't hold up under stress, basically).

I still have to go through everything feature by feature, but the everyday things are alright. I don't enjoy the API docs though. They weren't good for 2.49, they're not good for 2.58. That's my biggest problem with Blender in general, there are a lot of docs and tuts and they're alright at best, but I guess that for Py junk, templates and the raw function list are good enough for making stuff happen, so whatever.

Re: Blender 2.49b Vs. Blender 2.58

Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:25 pm
by Korban3
2.55 for PHXBN work, as that's what David used at the time of Rabbots induction and is the only one that's worked for me so far, but 2.8 for everything else, since it is epic. Although, I have a hard time without the buttons window. I was so used to that, now all that stuff is elsewhere, but I'm getting used to it.