cgR – Episode #003 – “Richard Jones”
“……you’re the most unconventional programmer i know ….”
Hello campers! Apologies for the wait (if indeed you were waiting), but our absence is explained in the episode. There were a few technical issues with this session, but it is more than audible and it shouldn’t be difficult to follow. Its the first time I’ve recorded 3 voices. Gimmie a break 
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But boy do we have a show for you. In this episode Jonathan and I talk to Senior Wings3D developer, Richard Jones (aka “Optigon”). We talk about a multitude of things, from Richard’s background to the future of Wings3d and almost everything in between.
Richard also talks about the Home of Erlang, the current aesthetic of the Wings3D Official Forums and the Animation / Rigging Plugin written many moons ago by the user “Moth” which sparked his interest in writing for the application.
I tried not to exploit this opportunity to ask “will wings have this… will wings have that…” but i couldn’t resist. I never feel wings gets the level of exposure it deserves so hopefully this interview will shine a bit of light their way and for people to try it out. Remember it’s free.
Other than that, this episode isn’t for new users to modelling or cg in general and here is the discussed screenshot. (My Wings3D Setup) .
Enjoy.
This episode is rated: 
on June 29th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
WINGS3D RULEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
on June 29th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
WING3D SUUUUCKS ZBRUHHH!! IS THE SOLUTION
on July 2nd, 2009 at 3:43 am
[...] on over to http://www.cgroundup.com/?p=142 listen to the [...]
on July 6th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Awesome stuff, thanx for sharing (Wings rulez).
on July 8th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Andrew -
Can you post your Wings preferences file?
Cheers -
Dave
on July 9th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Is it just me or does it seem like the things they have chosen to add are pretty minor and dont add much to wings as a whole?
In it’s current state, wings is nice, but it has some serious problems and I was a little disappointed to hear that they aren’t going to be adressed
1) No manipulators. This makes the work flow feel very clunky compared to just about any other modeller because you are constantly moving your view around and trying to get an idea of which axis is which way.
2) The UI is a bit of an eyesore. It seriously reminds me of the first time I saw linux. The hard edged menus are the worst part.
3) Most modellers have features like widgets and options bars that let you adjust the effects of a tool interactively in real time. Wings’s approach to this is clunky to say the least. With most tools, you navigate through a lengthy series of sub menus and if you don’t like it, you have to undo and repeat the entire thing over again.
4) Most modelers add a few, very flexible tools (Modo is the best example), but wings is currently filling up it’s context menus with lots of very specific, limited tools. That’s another issue. Currently, there are so many options, that right clicking on the wrong place, can result in many of the options spilling off screen. Many menus also have a “more” option which just makes this worse. Robust it is not. Some serious thought needs to be put into how the UI organisation is going to change with all the tools being shoved into the context menus.
5) As a program meant for digital art, wings feels too informational and not visual enough. When you right click to bring up your tools, you are presented with a jumble of text. Not exactly an enjoyable experience.
To be honest, wings feels too much like it was designed by coders for coders, rather than for artists.
on July 15th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Hello first very good show and i loved to ear one of the wings3D best developers, now i would like to ear a interview of bjorn and Dan the fathers of Wings.
Second Eric just in the 7 years that i use wings3D many people add that same complaints, “why wings don’t have widgets”, “why wings don’t have icons for the tools”, etc, etc. And the same reply i will give here wings don’t need widgets, first because they are tricky to implement because of the particular way wings was initially made and second because wings3D is very keyshortcuts based, thats why is easy to assign keys to the various wings tools. About the icons the majority of the wings3D users like the simple look of the right clicking context sensitive menus in wings, and so don’t want the developers to fill the UI with icons. If you want a icon based 3D app them just use Truespace it is also free. The UI will one day be updated but for now the developers are working in more important things like making Wings3D faster.
on July 17th, 2009 at 1:20 am
I agree with Argoon. Its power is in the fact that it is widget/interface free. I’m never lost in Wings. Only the things I CAN do are avaliable to me at any given time and most of the time all the keyboard shortcuts are clearly displayed. After you use them over and over it starts to be ingrained in your memory.
To me what the Wings team needs to concentrate on is the realtime sub-D manipulation. Its very painful currently. But other than that I’m a wings guy through and through.