Blender 2.47 moan

So I want to create some simple 3D models and show them in a 3D viewer in my "enterprise" app. The easiest way would be to create the models with a 3D modelling studio, import them into the code and then modify them a little to taste before viewing. I figured the first stop for this is probably Blender.

Now the last time I touched a 3D modelling tool has been on an Atari ST... or so. I remember that creating models in a 3D view was a real pain, and that ultimately I was editing the models usually in a kind of spreadsheet list manually and seeing the changes in real time in the 3D view.

After about three hours with Blender it has become fairly clear, that there has been virtually no progress except that Blender can't even do the basics well. The very first very obvious bug (Mac OS X or Windows) is this: Start Blender and you get a default scene with three objects (lamp, camera, cube). Now go into the outline view and you see... nothing (or almost nothing), which is pretty perplexing. Actually it's a simple redrawing problem, when you switch the view to "Oops Schematic" and back then you get the contents.

More hair pulling is the boneheaded way the selection works in Blender and how the inspector window isn't updated correctly. The thing is, if you say deselect all 'A', it's not really deselecting all. Your last object stays selected. So if you want to switch to another object by then selecting it with 'B', oh no, you have a multiple selection, because selecting is additive. If you are doing a multiple selection, the inspector can't really display it, so cleverly the old contents stay and are still editable. You don't even see, how many objects you have selected, unless you have the outline view open, which apparently is mandatory to have open all the time (see Atari ST times), and also the only(?) way to really select only one item.

But Blender can take gestures to initate rotations or translations and reorganize the panels with fluid animation, developer time surely well spent...

Now Blender may be otherwise a fine product, but I have my doubts...