Collection usability #68974

New Issue

Collections system is related to common layer systems (3Ds Max, Maya, AutoCAD, Sketchup, and any other application that have unlimited hierarchical entities called "layers")
The main problem with the usability of collections is the limitations of the designed infrastructure - the collections were not designed as a system with unlimited entities support.
It is nice to have 10-20 collections to work with default solutions, managing 50 is challenging, having 100 is tough, 1000 are impossible to control.
As a result, to manage dozens of projects with hundreds of collections with several settings in each, obtained from different people is extremely exhausting.

There are a lot of examples in different software, that expands usability limits of unlimited entities systems.
For example, autocad workflow can easily handle up to 10000 layers due to special management tools, design solutions and scripts.
This is reached by "Turing completeness" of such management infrastructure.
In particular, autocad also includes some extreme solutions, such as separate UNDO engine for vertical (hierarchical) navigation, and different tables with entities filtering and sorting/grouping properties abilities.

There are several signs that brings "Turing completeness" to common layer systems:

Flexible visibility management (ability to observe 3 states - any single entity, some entities setup and all entities at once, with ability to quickly switch between that states)
Ability to view implicit properties setup as explicit properties (for example, to view renderability or selectability setups as visibility for visual control)
Ability to invert state (to observe and manage what is hidden separately from what is visible)
Ability to navigate every nesting level (expand selection from object to it's hierarchy levels)

and so one.

Here are links to proposals and design solutions, that can be useful:

Flexible visibility management example link is updated
Outliner improvements proposal with GIF - implicit properties and inverting ability explanation.
Layers Maniphest to observe different problems and possible solutions from different software.

Thank you for attention.

Collections system is related to **common layer systems** (3Ds Max, Maya, AutoCAD, Sketchup, and any other application that have unlimited hierarchical entities called "layers") The main problem with the usability of collections is the limitations of the designed infrastructure - the collections were not designed as a system with unlimited entities support. It is nice to have 10-20 collections to work with default solutions, managing 50 is challenging, having 100 is tough, 1000 are impossible to control. As a result, to manage dozens of projects with hundreds of collections with several settings in each, obtained from different people is extremely exhausting. There are a lot of examples in different software, that expands usability limits of unlimited entities systems. For example, autocad workflow can easily handle up to 10000 layers due to special management tools, design solutions and scripts. This is reached by "Turing completeness" of such management infrastructure. In particular, autocad also includes some extreme solutions, such as separate UNDO engine for vertical (hierarchical) navigation, and different tables with entities filtering and sorting/grouping properties abilities. There are several signs that brings "Turing completeness" to common layer systems: - Flexible visibility management (ability to observe 3 states - any single entity, some entities setup and all entities at once, with ability to quickly switch between that states) - Ability to view implicit properties setup as explicit properties (for example, to view renderability or selectability setups as visibility for visual control) - Ability to invert state (to observe and manage what is hidden separately from what is visible) - Ability to navigate every nesting level (expand selection from object to it's hierarchy levels) and so one. Here are links to proposals and design solutions, that can be useful: - [Flexible visibility management example](https://developer.blender.org/T69577#791921) link is updated - [Outliner improvements proposal with GIF ](https://devtalk.blender.org/t/gsoc-2019-outliner-improvements-ideas/7185/334?u=1d_inc) - implicit properties and inverting ability explanation. - [Layers Maniphest ](https://devtalk.blender.org/t/layers-maniphest/6578?u=1d_inc) to observe different problems and possible solutions from different software. Thank you for attention.

Ryan Inch commented

2020-05-30 08:42:22 +02:00

Could a unique id be added to LayerCollections and exposed to the python api?

Paul Kotelevets commented

2020-06-18 11:53:49 +02:00

A question - Disable Viewport collections restriction option seems to release RAM, unlike Exclude Checkbox.
Is it possible to provide the same behavior for Exclude Checkbox as well?

upd. It seems to behave OS-dependently. Need more tests. Sorry.

A question - Disable Viewport collections restriction option seems to release RAM, unlike Exclude Checkbox. Is it possible to provide the same behavior for Exclude Checkbox as well? upd. It seems to behave OS-dependently. Need more tests. Sorry.

Paul Kotelevets commented

2020-06-29 19:16:31 +02:00

@dfelinto since such topic is pretty much complex, and hierarchical systems/management issues are usually hard to explain,
we made proper explanation video about some collections usability issues and provided several possible solutions as an addon called Collection Manager.
We hope it will be interesting and useful.

https://youtu.be/yiti0xWO7Wg

@dfelinto since such topic is pretty much complex, and hierarchical systems/management issues are usually hard to explain, we made proper explanation video about some collections usability issues and provided several possible solutions as an addon called Collection Manager. We hope it will be interesting and useful. https://youtu.be/yiti0xWO7Wg

Paul Kotelevets commented

2020-09-20 13:24:49 +02:00

To the list: fix this inconsistency

To the list: [fix this inconsistency ](https://developer.blender.org/T65730)

fin commented

2020-09-22 15:31:56 +02:00

Added subscriber: @finirpar

fin commented

2020-09-22 15:31:56 +02:00

Yes, it is inconsistent where the objects you hid with H become visible when you toggle the collection excclude checkbox, bypassing alt H, revealing all the hidden copies of objects.

Philipp Oeser removed the

Download

What's New

Blender Studio

Manual

Developers Blog

Documentation

Benchmark

Blender Conference

Development Fund

One-time Donations

Collection usability #68974