“…this software is hard to learn…”
Here’s a part of the 2.40 Quick Start Guide:
“Blender does not follow the most common, somewhat standard rules for user interfaces — it doesn’t look like most programs do — which is not necessarily a bad thing. There used to be two sides to this: Blender was both a powerful production tool for professionals and enthusiasts who dedicated enough time to master it and also a nightmare for some newcomers who might have tried one of the commercial 3d modelers first. The main reason for this is that Blender was born as an in-house studio tool, optimized to speed up daily heavy work, not to please everyone. But it’s true that in the past the interface was far from newbie-friendly.
Hopefully this is not the case anymore: it has been considerably improved for the 2.3x series, exposing most functionality via menus, adding panels, color “themability”, tooltips for all buttons and internationalization support. This is an ongoing effort or, better, a goal to keep the best ideas in Blender’s design while expanding and making it more user-friendly.
Too many buttons!
Again, 3D Computer Graphics is a vast and fun field. If you’re only starting, Blender can seem daunting, specially because of all its packed functionality. Don’t let that upset you, there is no need to care about all those buttons right now — or ever.”
