As I see the standards of modelling and renders increase, I keep asking myself ‘do these people use Blender for Work or Play?’
When these super models are finished being rendered and put up in the Finished work forum, is that it? Does anyone use Blender soley on it’s own over other Modellers? Do people see it as a free joke ( a bit harsh but I have heard it called this) or a serious piece of kit?
What do you think?
hey dj
yes people see it as a free joke (people that have never seen blender or saw it years ago, and have never used anything but maya)
but then again i personally see anim8or as a free joke LOL.
in recent years (in the last year) blender has really turned around its on the verge of being considered seriously by people.
not only blender users but other people are standing up to have a look and say wow some blender users are doing some top shelf stuff.
basicly i have seen crap from maya, i have seen crap from blender. it all looks the same
i have also seen god stuff from maya, and good stuff from blender. there is a way to go in blender but its getting close.
i always invisioned myself moving up to maya or somthign when i began to take 3d more seriously but i have a feeling that blender will be good enough by then for me to still use it
Alltaken
I use Blender for making money, be it web design, logo design or some illustrations eg for brochures. I can’t say I make the big bucks, but I am still in the process of getting customers for wy design company. So it’s only the beginning.
I decided to stick with blender because it is a good tool with strengths and weaknesses, just like any other tool. And the application does not really influence whether you make good artwork or not. You will not be better if you use Maya from tomorrow on. I think it’s sad that most people switch to other apps as soon as they reach a certain level.
We have no pros but a lot of potential. Look at endi and Landis, what they do is just amazing. No cgtalk ‘pro’ has a unique style like basse. There are quite a few names around here who know how to use blender’s strengths to create great artwork.
Blender has a lot of features that seem not as easy as in other apps, but for me, nothing is more important than speed, because i need quick in-between shots to see whether the lighting / texture looks good. Nothing beats blender here.
Nuff said, Blender is no joke. It’s up to all of us to prove it.
Oh, and I think this is off topic. More like News&Chat, no?
I use it for print and 3d animation. It’s been used for a couple of international clients that our advertising agency works for. Two of the pieces I worked on last year- one of which was comp[letely Blender, and another which incorporated rendered elements – are up for national awards.
Having said this, I must say that it’s mostly from playing at home and from this site that I’ve learned what I know.
nik
hi djfuego
well come one blender is free so what do you expect? fluids dynamics caustics fur powerfull particle system uv painter well blender does not have it.
but does maya havea powerfull modeler? in my opinion maya has a set of three modeling types and each piece is very unfinished. wings3d and blender blow maya away in terms of functions and ergonomics.
i now many who use wings3d for head modeling and import it into maya since there the animation system is just quit more powerfull but i hate modeling in maya. its a pain.
but for a free app i thin the suer communicty here is very powerfull and the images released here are quit good. well yes since there is no real fur system special things cannot be found here.
i use blender for my metal design to explore technics and design.
and since it is fast i love it.
final good renderngs are done in tempest a reyes renderer.
so i am fine with it.
so i would not call it a joke. it offers many usefull tools it has a strange interface but few pretty neat helps and a well ballanced offer of features.
most features are not state of the art but blender is just F R E E .
I wrote that we have no pros but I guess endi is a real pro, right?
Sorry endi 
The place I first learned of Blender was in a CG trade magazine. (I’m not sure which one, but I think it was Computer Graphics World…) They were doing a 5-year anniversary issue, and so they had picked different categories of CG tools (rendering, compositing, etc.) and listed their picks for the top 5 tools in each category. Blender was listed under the model/render/animation group alongside Maya and Lightwave. So you see, a professional trade journal didn’t consider Blender to be merely a free joke.
I use it both for fun and at work. My supervisor at work has had Maya for about 5 or 6 years, and still hasn’t learned to do some of the things that I have done after only 2 years of using Blender.
I’m still learning Blender, and my work is not up to the quality of most of the artists on this forum. Even with my limited knowledge, Blender still allows me to make graphics and animations good enough to be used for TV broadcast. Blender will grow with my ability, not hinder it.
-Fuzzymoose