Blender's UI and Runtime: Much Faster Than GPUI

(github.com)

134 points | by ppmpreetham 2 hours ago

20 comments

  • pythonRon 2 minutes ago
    I gave it a quick try (Fedora 44/Python/pyenv) with some Tkinter code which is supposed to just work... It doesn't.
  • dev0p 1 hour ago
    I love the general idea behind Blender's UI.

    And I do appreciate the effort that goes into it, especially in the latest versions as it got much better,

    But I really really really REALLY don't want that UI in anything else other than Blender.

    Please don't.

    • OtherShrezzing 1 hour ago
      If you're working on a small game project without an existing framework/platform, you usually build a really bargain-basement game editor alongside it. That editor takes a long time, and it's often spent in arranging UI stuff.

      If you're already using Blender to make assets, there's some benefit to stuffing Blender's UI into your game editor too.

      • archerx 15 minutes ago
        After trying blender for about 20 years I still find the UI/UX awful. I think a lot of the new blender generation has baby duck syndrome.
    • lentil_soup 1 hour ago
      Why not? For similar applications it would be really beneficial to not have to reimplement all the little UI interactions they've polished over the years
      • luckydata 1 minute ago
        Polished is not the word I reach for when I think of Blender's UI
    • atoav 22 minutes ago
      No? I think there would easily be other use cases where Blenders UI would be very suitable, e.g. Audio software.

      It is not a UI paradigm that you would use for just anything, but for certain poweruser software it is one of the best paradigms I have seen, especially since they managed to get rid of 90% of the rough corners in the past decade of development.

    • PalmPilotProMax 1 hour ago
      Imagine this spinning off and becoming this generation's GTK.
      • mkl 13 minutes ago
        Not going to happen, as it's GPL.
    • amelius 54 minutes ago
      How about a simpler UI consisting of just a text input field for AI.
      • jon-wood 43 minutes ago
        Despite rumours to the contrary not everything is best interacted with via an LLM. If you want to go to that degree then have at it, all you need is an old school TTY on a serial cable, but the rest of us quite like having UIs designed to fulfil a purpose rather than a soup of Claudeish prose describing a progress bar.
      • atoav 20 minutes ago
        "Oh you talk about different paint brushes and pigments? How about just hiring a painter?"

        Yeah you can do that. If you have low standards and don't need control of the details.

  • bvrmn 10 minutes ago
    I have a python "DSL" which allows to create a simple UI for synth parameters you also make in python. It uses Tk and looks like, mmm, Tk with all other Tk issues. Project was abandoned because of it. Looks like it's time to revive!
  • felixthehat 1 hour ago
    It would be such a boon if GIMP and Inkscape could adopt blender's fantastic GUI
    • anon-3988 3 minutes ago
      I just want to be able to crop and draw on top of images. Like old Paint. That is literally all I want to ever do with images. What should I use in Linux for this purpose
    • felixthehat 13 minutes ago
      A side by side screenshot of inkscape/gimp/blender for those who don't have them installed

      https://cleanshot.com/share/WW9yFdMy

    • kleiba2 1 hour ago
      De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum.
      • vintermann 39 minutes ago
        Gustus est sicut nates - divisus est.
      • jansan 27 minutes ago
        cum emptore
      • darreninthenet 1 hour ago
        vel adrogantia
        • kangalioo 50 minutes ago
          This feels like those AI models suddenly switching to Chinese mid-conversation
    • p-e-w 47 minutes ago
      Inkscape’s UI is much, much better than Blender’s, IMO.
      • grufkork 2 minutes ago
        Inkscape is actually one of the few FOSS apps that is actually pretty intuitive to use. In fact, way back when I first started using vector design tools, I found it more intuitive/had better feedback than Illustrator (same thing can't be said about GIMP vs Photoshop). Inkscape really is great, but I have one huge gripe: I'm sure there's a system to it, but the file export name never stays what I want it to be...
    • archerx 13 minutes ago
      Fantastic is the last word I would use the describe blenders UI/UX.
    • 4k93n2 22 minutes ago
      and then rename it blimp
  • hn_submit 16 minutes ago
    This is excellent. I thought about this years ago for an OpenGL based desktop UI. Apple's UI is using something similar I believe. And the Windows UI too is mostly rendered using Direct3D (which is comparable to OpenGL) since Vista.

    I hope someone else uses this for a new Linux distro.

    • pjmlp 5 minutes ago
      Well, given that so many folks always argue they are Linux distros even though it is an implementation detail for userspace APIs, ChromeOS, WebOS and Android.
  • cultofmetatron 1 hour ago
    Ive been thinking this would be amazing to do for ages. happy someone finally did it. its the perfect system for interfaces where speed matters. hope to see more 3d modellers, video editors, daws and simulation systems built on this.
  • petterroea 15 minutes ago
    The readme suggests it's a port of the blender code, at least the renderer is claimed to be so:

    > The drawing code is a C port of Blender's own widget code

    How can we guarantee BUI is still performant?

  • xiange 45 minutes ago
    It looks good, but the GPL license restricts the use cases
    • exitb 23 minutes ago
      I was just a kid in 2002, so couldn’t contribute, but I remember checking the MoneyMeter going up every day, so that the community could buy out Blender and make it free software. GPL does restrict it, but it’s also only the only reason Blender is not a long forgotten piece of software from the 90s.
    • buster 29 minutes ago
      Well.. Old discussion but I actually think it's the better way (sorry. MIT, you are more free then anything). Either contribute back or stay away from open source work that others did for you.
  • keyle 24 minutes ago
    It's obviously vibe coded, but it's quite well done by the look of the ideas and implementation.
    • Zecc 20 minutes ago
      What makes you say that? It was the part that goes...

      > The repository is built entirely using LLMs, with no human-written code. The drawing and interaction code is ported from Blender's sources, and the behavior is checked by tests: C, Python, Rust and JavaScript suites, the tkinter side-by-side programs and the GPU parity test.

      ...wasn't it?

  • gostsamo 23 minutes ago
    not a single mention of a11y or accessibility, so please be careful before using it for general purpose applications.
  • Groxx 55 minutes ago
    >Who wrote it?

    >The repository is built entirely using LLMs, with no human-written code. ...

    • artemonster 26 minutes ago
      and thats fine. without LLMs no human would have invested so much required time and effort to do this! and now such awesome things are possible with a bit of tokens and a small prompt. overall a win
  • scotty79 1 hour ago
    That sounds like an amazing idea. I've been using a lot of Rust+GPUI and sometimes behaviors that I'm expecting to be there just aren't.

    Swapping it for UI that's as battle tested as Blender might improve things.

    • _odi_ 48 minutes ago
      Super curious about the limitations you see in GPUI! I built a custom rust UI framework for the software i am developing but i always kept an eye on GPUI, what is limiting about it in your opinion?
  • p-e-w 42 minutes ago
    I’ve thought many times “Man, those widgets look terrible!”

    I’ve not once thought “Man, those widgets are slow!”

    • spoiler 26 minutes ago
      I never found them terrible, but I guess I spent a long time staring at them so maybe I just got used to them.

      Do Maya and others have better UIs? Honestly, I find them more repulsive than Blender's

  • antman 1 hour ago
    License of GPUI is Apache and BlenderUI is GPL, which is limiting for adoption.
  • chiroyce 1 hour ago
    always liked blenders design language, looks cool!
  • IshKebab 1 hour ago
    Definitely a worthy goal but they've gone down a super weird route by providing clones of other GUI toolkit APIs on top of this. Your target audience is people that are ok with vibe coding. They don't care about switching to a proper Blender-style API.

    Just because you can...

    • MomsAVoxell 57 minutes ago
      More like a “why not both” situation, imho. I have apps I could port to use this immediately.
  • clilog_d 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • grougnax 33 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • andsoitis 1 hour ago
    Use the native widget toolkit if the platform you target; your users will love you more.
    • swiftcoder 1 hour ago
      Most native widget toolkits don't actually support rendering into 3d canvasses very well, nor very compact UI layouts. I generally prefer native widgets, but for a dense prosumer application, they aren't always the correct choice (and you'll see even Apple stray from their native UI widgets for, say, Logic Pro)
      • pjmlp 3 minutes ago
        They actually do, just not on GNU/Linux, **BSD worlds.
    • p-e-w 45 minutes ago
      I target all platforms, and so does most other desktop software today.
    • anonymous908213 0 minutes ago
      I am pretty sure HN is an enclave of the only remaining people in the world who think this way.
    • bvrmn 4 minutes ago
      Ok for linux it's GTK and Qt. What's native for windows in 2026? It's a complete joke of system UI.