I have just read a post about open source software competing against the big commercial players and as I used to use Maya, but now use Blender, I wanted people to point out what major differences there really are.
From my first impressions of Blender, I am overwhelmed by how much it can do. NURBs, polys, subds, animated textures, blobbies/metas etc. I haven’t seen things like paint effects and particle effects yet but because of Blender’s plugin architecture, I’m sure they could be added if they’re not there. I couldn’t find very many plugins for Blender online, though. Is there a database or set of links to plugins somewhere?
I’ve nearly completely switched everything I do over to open-source: MS Office (junk) -> open office, Photoshop -> Gimp, Maya 5 -> Blender. The thing I think I like most is that Blender has v few bugs I can see. Maya has some interface bugs (loads actually) - I can’t even type in CV coordinates manually as maya crashes, I have to use MEL (I much prefer the more standard Python - I hate proprietary stuff). Plugins are insanely difficult to compile for Mac lower than Maya 6 and you have to pay $$$$ to upgrade. It takes ages to load and the interface is just not as intuitive as Blender. Even the Maya UV editor makes me want to punch my screen.
Has anyone else switched to open-source stuff from commercial? What have your experiences been?