Coming from a newbie to Blender, just curious, why do you use it/prefer it over other 3D packages?
- Free and open source. Maintained by a passionate group.
- It does nearly everything I need in 1 program.
- Lots of documents all over the place.
- Fast and easy to update/install.
- Fun User Interface.
- Easy to learn. First 20 or so days will be rough but from there its very easy to self teach and experiment.
Pretty much the same as dREAD, plus community, which is pretty much unique!
Gilles
I concur with GCharb and dREAD except I would add…
- runs native 64-bit
- compositing and other post-production stuff
Yes, Blender does have its issues, but I can go back to an earlier version or later build to get around them; I can have as many versions as I want installed simultaneously or just have them all lying around as portables.
The ladies love blender users.
Good one, ldh1109! 
I use Blender only because it is free. It is not the best at anything and has quite a few bugs that have lingered so long that they are now consider simply the way Blender works. And just when you think you have figured it out the developers change it on you.
If any of the other packages were free, I’d switch in a heartbeat.
For the integrated render engine. I made the switch to Blender when Cycles came out.
Long time Softimage user here, and several years with 3DSmax before that, and I tend to disagree, as Blender has several qualities over the mentioned, for one, it is fully integrated with pretty much anything that is needed to do 3D, it is easier to use at several levels and I love the possibility to be able to model, then switch to sculpt tool from within the same application, as one example.
True Blender is not perfect, but it has many perks, like a well alive and kicking community, have a look at Softimage community, then You will see what I mean! 
Besides, its not the tool, its the artist, and plenty of artists do very well with Blender!
Gilles
So you’re pretty much saying any other 3D app (that cost something) is better than Blender? really? I mean, i don’t consider Blender as THE 3d app, but i would not want to go back to cinema4d, while it has espresso i’m missing in Blender, Blender Usabillity i would consider more usefull ;-)1
I could say many things that prove that Blender sucks, but also equally many other to say that it rocks.
I have tried all the other software, but I was not happy using them for A or B reason. The bottom line is that Blender has the most inviting and friendly community ever.
Also, Blender updates really fast. If you track releases in comparison to feature additions, this proves that Blender is evolving extremely fast (new major release almost every year). Take any other commercial software for instance, then look for any new features or additions into it, you will be amazed that the companies have virtually stopped innovating and they support monolithic and dinosaur software.
Good news for Blender users, because Blender is always at the edge of innovation. Everytime, Ton and other awesome developers announce new features, is a great joy, just like your favorite team wins.
I love the fact that it’s cross-platform and open source, meaning I can take it with me anywhere. With something as huge as 3D I felt like it would be a huge waste time to learn software “A” because my current employer uses it, then eventually move somewhere else only to learn a new piece of software. No one tells a painter he has to leave behind his brush when he leaves… Blender can be a friend for life:)
Sure there are short comings but compare that to how active the community is and the incredible volume of free knowledge. I’d be willing to bet there is no 3D software that has the sheer number of users that are willing to share.
Blender has become a real swiss knife of 3D, and if you’ve kept your ear to the ground everyone else is following suit. Nuke now incorporates 3d with their purchase of Modo, 3dmax and maya now include a compositor built in, even After Effects is getting into importing 3d models. If I were the other guys I’d be sweating:)
If any of the other packages were free, I’d switch in a heartbeat.
I think Atom just had a bad day:) for the amount of development / scripting he’s done in Blender I find that comment hard to take seriously. Thanks Atom!
Ah! That’s how I feel about Cinema4D, Lightwave, and Max. And Photoshop. And Flash. And a most other software - comes with the territory.
I guess the grass is always greener on the…
I started using blender back when it was 2.49. I chose it because it was free. I tried other modeling programs since learning blender. Daz Studio, Maya, 3DS Max, Google Sketchup, Wings, Lightwave, and C4D. All of them were so foreign to me, and I couldnt get use using them. After trying all of those out, I started to get confused about were things were and short cuts in Blender. That I end up having to doe refresher courses in Blender to get back to where I was. SO in essence, I chose it because of it being free, and stuck with it out of convenience. Besides, it is getting closer and closer to be able to do most if not all of what the other programs can do.
In short what you are saying is you like it for convenience, not necessarily capability. Having sculpting and modeling in one app is pretty much normal these days…even maya to some extent. What we really see is a desire for those who want the best art to use applications which specialize in each field. Sculpting in Blender for example cannot compare to Zbrush.
Blender misses too much, and is fundamentally flawed in the fact its ever changing…often with features implemented that are never perfected…in the same vein, because its community driven it can change for the better or worse without paying customers throwing a fit.
I would argue that Blender is one of those apps that can compliment a good commercial package for some things, but is not at the point where it can ever truly replace them…much less those that specialize.
As for the comment about the artist not the tool. That is one of the biggest misconceptions I see people post on the internet. The tool is what limits the artist, just as a car can limit where you can drive and how fast, a software app is what limits the artist. The tool is just as important as the artist, if not more so. The artist is the vision, the tool is what makes it so the artist can accomplish that vision and how far that vision can be pushed.
Well, I’ve been using blender for over 12 years now, as far as I can remember. the main reason I use it now is due to the resource of time:
- To use any other software, i would have to retrain heavily into a new workflow.
- That costs time which costs money.
- I can either pay the cost of maya or 3dmax and pay the cost of another seat for the company, or pay the training time it takes to get up to speed in blender, and know the monetary cost of the software is negligible. I would rather train up the person over a month or two in the worflow for blender. Especially since they should already have a grip on 3d development and would be able to adapt to software quickly.
- Blender is now considered a viable dev platform for 3d. I use it to test new people based on if they start with the phrase “Why don’t you use a REAL software platform for 3d development?”. I have never had one with that attitude really do well at making viable models for game development. They don’t understand enough of the pipeline to know what they’re doing wrong.
I guess when it comes down to it, I use blender because it really has good value for the real-money cost it has in training and using it.
Mind you, I keep running into people that just freak out when I try to train them up on blender. It’s rep as hard to learn seems to become a mythology in itself.
Personally I decided to embrace Blender when I learned that you select with the right click
I use blender because the first several thousand dollars I made from freelance did not have to go to purchasing a non cracked version of other software…
I found out about blender on ubuntu after using Misfit Model 3d. I thought it was easy and cool. also it didn’t cost me anything. I tried 3ds max but i quit that and moved back to blender.
Because it has become one helluva program, well demonstrated to be capable now of professional-grade work. Today, Blender is a blow-your-doors-off demonstration of the sheer power of open source development, and “it has arrived.”
Unless you are working with an upstream or downstream workflow that stipulates the use of a particular piece of software, it very well could deserve to be the one that you do standardize upon, and for pure-business reasons having not to do with license-costs. (Quite obviously, if you’re working on a big project with other groups, you would use exactly the software and the version thereof, that your $$contract$$ stipulated.)
“It’s nobody’s ‘toy’ anymore … if ever it was (which I doubt).”