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Proposal: Blender

Stack Overflow works so well because it has users from loads of different programming languages. By merging the Blender proposal with the CG Artists proposal, we can get more experts and more momentum. It seems that Blender would be a great tag for the CG site.

Shall we merge proposals?

Edit:

Although I accepted MidnightLightning's answer, I really like AbrahamVanHelpsing's answer as well. Please read both answers and vote on the one that you think is the best course of action.

Edit 2:

It seems that the majority is now predominantly for Blender as its own site (myself included). Unless there's another shift, I'm going to accept AbrahamVanHelpsing's answer

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I agree with @Christofian . Blender is so much more than just a CG suite. Consider the game engine for one. The ability to produce stand-alone apps for another. Would scripting BGE be considered on-topic on a CG proposal? or would it be diverted to GameProgramming.stack? I think Blender definitely has enough differing characteristics to make it a sister site instead of lumping it in.

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    I agree with you, and would like to add my two cents. In my opinion, I believe that as many Blender questions as possible should be kept in the Blender SE. Building a SE site on a single program requires a large user/developer base to take off. LaTeX and Mathematica have large user bases, hence the Mathematica and LaTeX (not necessarily in that order) SEs. Therefore, splitting off the Blender dev questions (unless they clearly relate to, say, C++ itself instead of Blender) might prevent this proposal from gaining enough traction to come out of beta.
    – fouric
    Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 23:09
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    Amusingly enough, my primary interest in Blender is in the the Video Sequence Editor. Blender is now both a "floor wax and a desert topping." I guess the hard question is whether creating a new stack exchange serves as a form of advocacy for the product rather than centralization of questions. At the moment, it does feel like a good idea to me, given the overlaps in workflow from the different editors.
    – Norman Nunley
    Commented Jan 11, 2013 at 15:36
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Since StackExchange questions can be tagged, I'd be in favor of this merge: It would allow one site that has generic 3D tutorials ("What's the difference between an icosphere and UV sphere" that's currently in the Blender proposed questions could apply to (nearly) any 3D package), and software-specific questions with a tag for that software. People who are just Blender users can just browse that tag's page for specific info.

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  • Those are my thoughts as well.
    – RustyTheBoyRobot
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 17:31
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    The whole time I was thinking of questions for the CG Artist board, I was thinking of questions for Maya, Blender, and other programs such as RenderMonkey and zBrush. I really feel that Blender should be merged with CG. Have a Blender tag just like you would have a Maya or whatever else which is comparable to how C++ and SQL share the StackOverflow even though both are large enough to warrant their own exchange.
    – zero298
    Commented Nov 25, 2012 at 5:59
  • I don't think merging Blender with the CG Artists proposal is a good idea, for the following reason: Too broad of a proposal leaves too diverse of a user-base. Arguably the reason the old 3D Graphics proposal failed to get enough activity was that there was mostly software-specific questions. With such a diverse user-base, only a small number of people were even using the same software as question askers; even fewer were able to answer those questions.
    – Peter Cassetta
    Commented Feb 14, 2013 at 23:40
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Let us not forget that Blender is not just a 3D modeller. It's not just limited to the game engine either. Remember that Blender has a renderer of its own, its own video editor, text editor, etc. Blender is like an all in one solution, and such things should be dealt with more specifically. This is why Ask Ubuntu is successful for example. It focuses on one platform and does it well, so users get answers quickly and good answers at that.

If Blender's questions get pushed into a general CG site, then we would face some challenges in getting good clear answers quickly, and it would be all to easy to lose yourself among all the other CG suites.

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As the creator of the blender proposal, I don't think that this is a good idea. In order for a proposal to work, it needs to gain traction and activity. With sites like stack overflow, and CG artists, in order to gain activity, you need to get activity from users of all the major programs. With our blender proposal, we're just have to attract users of one software, which makes the site a lot easier to promote.

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    And a lot harder to get a larger number of people. The wider the net you cast, the more people you can get involved. Plus, there is a lot of cross-talk. How to do a particular technique with Blender may require Blender specific knowledge. Or it may just be a general technique that would work in any art package, and a Maya expert would be just as capable of answering the question. Also, SO didn't start with activity from all major languages. Indeed, early criticism of the site was that it seemed C# specific.
    – Nicol Bolas
    Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 19:11
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    I wouldn't be suggesting this if we had a whole bunch of interested people. Since both the Blender and CG proposals are quite small, I feel like a merge is necessary.
    – RustyTheBoyRobot
    Commented Jul 20, 2012 at 17:36
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    It's not that there are less blender users, problem is that majority of blender enthusiasts are still scattered on forums and bulletin boards. And spreading the word will take some effort.
    – user117
    Commented Dec 8, 2012 at 13:13
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I think this question is strongly correlated with the audience we want to have. People that just are 3d-Artists are probably better off on the CG site.

BUT I don't think a blender user is just a user, he/she always is a developer too. I believe a lot of people are always trying out the newest features and report back to developers. And even if they don't code themselves they still are a part of the developement process

And I think it is not suitable to have a site where you always have to define the application you use und in the case of blender the version as well. (you would need a tag like [blender 2.64a]). I would feel offtopic if I were to ask blender specific questions in a general CG site.

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I agree. Also all 3D modelling software should be merged. I have created http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/46377/virtuality proposal, but I agree that all should be one. It's a pity that no modelling section exist on SE. Modelling questions are highly criticized on main StackOverflow since they are not programming ones.

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  • There was one a while back but it never took off due to "not making the cut". area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/5022/3d-graphics. And that one actually did have various 3d modeling and graphics topic merged together -- it originally started out as being just blender specific as I recall.
    – greatwolf
    Commented Jan 3, 2013 at 21:18
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A general modeling site would be too confusing and as pointed out above, simple questions related to scripting and the user interface might be lost in the mass of questions related to other packages, mel, *zbrush, 3ds max plugins etc.. :/ Blender is a powerful suite to itself and can be sustained by the community with questions regarding it and it only. With addition of improved modeling tools, tracking and masking and an improved compositor, a q&a site dedicated to it would make alot of sense and be an ease from irc and lengthy threads in forums.

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