I’ve been using Blender for a couple of years and I’m wondering whether or not i should just move on to Cinema 4D or Maya. What I want to know is if Blender will be a useful skill or not. By useful I mean will it be useful as a future job? Can you go professional on Blender or should I just change to C4D/Maya which is more commonly used by companies (to my knowledge).
I know this should be offtopic from Blender but there’s no ‘General Discussion’ or anything so I have to put it here.
There’s a slowly rising number of studios that are becoming more friendly to people who come from a Blender background, but they’re still a small minority at the moment (the vast majority expect people to be proficient with the Autodesk solutions and generally ban all use of Blender on paid assignments).
So yes, it’s possible to get hired due to Blender skills now, but it’s still not a given.
This is ridiculous. Of course Blender is a ‘useful skill,’ if learning 3D is in some way related to your goals, aspirations and plans. Blender takes a general concept; “3d”, and turns it into a tool you can use. Because 3D is a general concept, it can be easily transposed to another 3D product such as those you’ve mentioned, like Maya. You shouldn’t be asking, ‘should I move to another software?’ You should be asking, ‘what else can I learn from this other software?’
If learning 3D is not related to your goals, aspirations and plans, then learning any software; be it Maya, Blender, C4D, etc, will be complete waste of your time. What would you be doing it for?
Generally speaking, the quality of your art portfolio is far more important than the software you used to make it. Art directors will almost always bank on whoever has the best portfolio of work. The reason is it takes less time to learn new software than it does to get good at art.
Knowing other software probably helps, but most of the time what is going to get you the job is your art skills.
The quality of your work is the most important thing. If it helps I’ve done the opposite and moved into using Blender seriously only a few years back, after a very long time in the industry using the main commercial apps. If you need to get familiar with a certain app for an industry position that’s one thing and it certainly is a big help in getting work in certain areas. But for creating high quality 3D art and animation and pushing yourself to do high quality work, you are in no way selling yourself short by using Blender.
Remember…people forget this. You can always work for yourself, and use the tools you like. I own a custom furniture design and fabrication business, and have for many years. I don’t use Blender in that, as Sketchup creates quick and easy design drawings with a built in layout program for multi page PDF export. The point is, I did once use Blender, and I could use Blender. I do use Blender to develop models I sell, and make a few hundred in spare cash per month doing so. You can be whatever you want, and if you have great Blender skills down the road, or now, open a 3d based business - archi - vis, animation, game dev, make a youtube channel and create small Blender movies…whatever. The point is, don’t think of the future as always working for someone else, and industry standards etc. I use whatever gets the job done in my business.
Blender can be usefull in the future - especially if you will do some freelance jobs. If you want to get a job in a company you will have much better chance if you know maya/3ds/C4D. If I were you I would try to learn as many different software as possible (Blender included).
Blender is as useful as any other 3D package, whether you should focus on Maya if you want a job in the VFX industry is another matter. However, compared to say Cinema 4D or Lightwave, it can hold it’s own is some areas, is weak in others and has advantages in other places. Same with any 3D package really. I moved from Lightwave 9.6 to Blender and can honestly say I find Blender more fun and intuitive to use, plus it comes with a compositor, sculpting, tracking and NLE. When you consider how much it has for free, it really is rather mind blowing.
Correct me if I’m wrong but from your replies I’ve worked out that Blender is fine is you’re going into freelance but if you work for another company in a team, it’s likely you’ll need to know how to use some of the more popular programs.
I like to think there’s an analogy be drawn to the Microsoft Office model of stealth market domination tactics. New PC’s ship usually with the Microsoft Office suite, so every PC owner has it. If you use Office on your work computer, Microsoft will generously give you a license for your home computer. The strategy paid off, because Microsoft Office became the standard. Does anyone even remember Lotus and WordPerfect? Now we only use Excel and Word. Not because the Office programs were necessarily better, but because Microsoft was able to dominate the market by the seemingly “free” distribution of Microsoft Office.
What does this have to do with Blender? There’s no “market strategy” behind Blender, since it’s free and open source. But since Blender is available to anyone with a computer for free, realistically more people are going to have the opportunity to learn Blender than Maya. Over time, the number of skilled Blender professionals might just outnumber the number of Maya and Cinema 4D pros. If that happens, eventually the majority of the CG talent pool in the field might be those people who prefer to work with Blender. Then (and this is just hypothetical wishful thinking!) in the future there might be large studios that want to do a project based in Blender, because the available talent prefers to work in Blender.
Learning the principals, basics and concept of 3D modeling, animation, rigging, texturing, lighting, composting and other stuff is much more important and time consuming then learning how a program works when you already know all that stuff.
Think about it this way: when you want to get a job “making 3D,” the skill that you need to develop is … “making 3D!”
For instance, if I gave you the task of creating a 2-minute short about a little boy who climbs aboard a flying toaster and flies it to the moon (while valiantly fighting-off the raisin-bread monsters who want to knock him off the thing), could you do that in three weeks, “start to finish,” using any tool at all?
Two weeks and six days from now (a day before “deadline”) you come in with a professional-looking, well-edited work product.
“Bingo!”
If you can do that, and you can show that you have “done that, successfully,” several times, then congratulations: you’ve got a demo-reel. If you have that basic ability in demonstrable form, and you’re willing to learn and to be a team player, then the first thing that you might have to do on-the-job is to learn the particular tools and work-flows that your new employer uses. It will be “taking a sip from a fire hose,” certainly, but the things that you practiced and learned how to do in Blender (or, whatever …) will translate very directly. You’re doing the same things using different tools and in a different way, but “you’re doing the same things.”
I sometimes think like that myself. And perhaps things will work out like you described. But, I also think that most people have the need to pay for something in order to feel that they are getting something valuable. Everybody can get something that is free, but not everybody can pay $1000+ for 3D software. So the perceived prestige and social status that goes with using expensive software is for many people very important.
There is also one important question behind all these ideas… “How many skilled artists switch to and from Blender”! In fact these days I know people switching to Blender from Maya, C4D, LightWave and even 3DS so it means SOMETHING. On the other hand, how many Blender users switching to another software these days?
Yep, if U want to work for PIXAR or AnimalLogic than yes, U probably want to switch to something else, BUT … if U want to make some archviz work or commercials to make serious (yep, SERIOUS) money than make Yo-self a portfolio of Your GREATEST stuff and use Blender because NOONE in fact cares in what SW U did the kitchen render of the customers choice or the Mitsubishi model for a tunning fan … these guys wants to know how theirs kitchen, bedroom, livingroom, car, bike or spaceshuttle will look like after they invest some money into it and they very likely pay to know that BEFORE they will spend that money (especially in our spaceshuttle case ). The same way will pay for the archviz of the house for some catalog or short of some shiny engine cycles (car engine) according to usage of a new oil formula for changing every zillion miles driven…
Anyone cares about the RESULT, not the ROAD SO FAR!
I got seriously into using Blender a couple of years ago after many years working in the industry with most of the others. All the major serious 3D apps are hugely complex because 3D work is complex. Blender is no different although it is certainly my favorite interface to work in now.
I thought Blender was great then, and that it surely was going to have a big future as so much momentum and buzz was already building up around it.
After this years Blend Con I think it’s obvious it does have a bright future. Of course it’s worth sticking with.
But I very much agree that the most important thing is to focus on being an artist first. Don’t get too caught up with the tools.
When you work for a company you will use the tools this company provide you and/or allows you to use.
Ask yourself:
When I use Blender do I loose something? If not what may I gain?
What if I use other tools too? Will my skills conflict with each other? Does this prevent me from becoming the superior specialist in field I want to be?
Do I have that much options that I need to priorities them?
). The same way will pay for the archviz of the house for some catalog or short of some shiny engine cycles (car engine) according to usage of a new oil formula for changing every zillion miles driven…