How to Vent into Blender: Submitting Bug Reports

     As with almost all programs, Blender has issues.  Quite ironically though, when most people complain about the small amount of documentation, bugs, poorly written tools, etc etc they fail to realize that the main reason Blender is still alive is because the developers have help.  Who helps them?  Well, the silly people that sit in their basements and make cg art all day long.
     Being a open source program has its advantages, of course.  Whenever Blender feels like upgrading to a new version, (all the time) all they have to do is construct a test build then release it to the public.  Within the course of about a week, Blender users will send in all sorts of bug reports, and the developers can happily debug the code to their heart's content.
     The advantage this gives Blender over other non open source programs such as Maya, Cinema 4d, and 3DS Max is enormous.  All developers of any program will readily understand the benefits of not having to test and test and test your new program.  This makes both the developers, and the users, (who don't have to pay any money)  very, very happy.

      So!  How to submit a bug report in Blender?  Super easy.  Simply go to Help, and choose submit bug report, and then follow the instructions from there.

     And that's it.  You just helped yourself and the developers out.  

     But that's not all!  

  

     This is the part where I vent about something Blender should have made a long, long time ago.  In Blender, lets say i'm building a fairly complicated node setup, or a fairly complicated object.  For instance:  

      The question is, how in the world do I transfer this material to a new project?  Wouldn't it be nice if I could just save it in a Blender library and just pull down a menu and access it whenever I feel like it?  But no, I have to create a .blend file with a fake user and then append that material and then set up the node system again so it will actually work with the current object format.  No.  Why is there no easier way to do this? 

     Same deal with objects.  Yes, you can save them as objects, but you can't keep the materials with them.  It saves the materials as a separate file, which is even less cool.  Sometimes, if I'm really unlucky, I will even lose my UV unwrap information.  So, if a developer ever happens to read this, I would be really happy to see a nice little library option somewhere.  

    Anyway, here is the picture that the node setup above put out.  Enjoy!