Blender being used in a commercial environment??

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
#1

Hi every one

I’m new to Blender, but not the industry. I’ve worked in the broadcast TV industry, providing animations and digital FX for over 25 years now. I’ve worked on almost all the major 3d packages (Lightwave, Softimage, Max, Maya) and by chance I had a close look at Blender recently having dismissed it years ago as software you use if you can’t afford “real” 3d software.

How wrong could I have been?

I have been very impressed with the current feature set, performance, integration and pretty much everything about Blender so far.

My questions are as follows:

How many companies are using Blender in a commercial environment out there?
Are there any limitations to using Blender commercially (legally I mean)?
How many freelance artists are there actually working commercially on a daily basis?

I’m so impressed with Blender so far, I’m seriously thinking of starting to use it as my 3d weapon of choice, but I need to make sure there is plenty of freelance talent out there to back me up when things get hectic.

I look forward to hearing from you all

Matt

#2

Hi matthowarth

Here is my “Made with Blender” category in my blog. You can see some great examples including commercial ones.

Click here

#3

Hard to put a number on that. I don’t think anyone is tracking that. It’s not like a commercial tool where you basically know to whom you’re selling. Blender is available to anyone… though a variety of channels. That said, my company uses Blender. So there’s at least one. :wink:

Are there any limitations to using Blender commercially (legally I mean)?

For production in most environments (where your output is images, frames, models, animation, etc.), none at all. If your output is code (like, for instance, a video game), there are some potential pitfalls there… but only if you’re using the Blender game engine in your product. If you’re producing models or animations for a game in another engine, there should be no issue.

How many freelance artists are there actually working commercially on a daily basis?

See my answer to the first question. :slight_smile:

#4

In the last 10 years I use Blender in 5-6 game projects as main tool (not only for modeling but for level creating too). I use Blender 8 hours per day for at least 8 years! :slight_smile:
Some examples:
Ignite, racing game: http://etyekfilm.hu/makingofignite/
iPhone game: http://alpha-tauri.com/gatherthegems/index.html
X360/pc game: http://etyekfilm.hu/mweworks/
My home game project: http://deadcyborg.com/

#5
#6

All major of the work, since GPL its Commercial licence, a lot of things are Commercial.
(you choose to sell or not)

#7

thanks Gang,

one other thing (same thread will do I think) is there a website where Blender specific artists/animators/modellers can show off their skills?

thanks again

Matt

#8

http://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?27-Forum-Gallery
http://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?10-Finished-Projects

#9

thanks again

#10

My guess is as good as anyones, but I think Blender is used in many more commercial pipelines than known, it has it’s strengths and weaknesses, and if you have someone willing to work into Blender or already knowing it anyone would plainly be stupid not to gear up with a powerful and free tool.

None unless you plan to distribute Blender in an altered version with a linked non GPL library or don’t want to disclose the source of the changes. Content created with Blender itself and independent of Blenders binaries there are no limitations.

Guesswork again, I freelance, not as daily as I’d like though, depending on the order situation :wink:
One thing’s certain, Blender alone will not do the job in an economic manor unless you’re in a very specific line of work where Blender shines, and everyone saying only use free tools, Windows is commercial crap use Linux, are just denying reality. If you need to earn money and have a deadline you use what gets the job done in the most efficient way. Sure you can do all in Blender if you want to, but only if you got no bills to pay and plenty of time to work around issues.

I for one advocate to plan a project, look at the requirements and choose the best tools for it, be it the OS, the asset management, the tool to sculpt, bake or model, to animate and to render. There are so many choises and I don’t see any sense in limiting myself to one package because it was so expensive, or to another package because it’s so cool to use opensource and free stuff only.
I see no sense either in using something with bleeding edge technology and fancy features I do not need.
Over the years this served me well, I got various licenses for small tools, often only in the 30-50 USD span and they all got their eligibility, form a nice pipeline by now and sumed up still are cheap.

One thing is the “backing up” - there’s no professional community per se, only a community of enthusiasts, some with more talent and knowledge and others with less, or those with no talend and staggering knowledge or vice versa :smiley:
It’s a motley crew.
So if you ask for advice you’ll either get no forum replys, replys to work around the issue, or to hire a developer to solve the issue or do it yourself, or someone fixes your problem with the first reply after 2 minutes.
Same goes for outsourcing actual tasks, there will be plenty of people answering in a wide spectrum of expertise and talent, some for whoms talend I personally wouldn’t pay at all and others who are surely worth every buck they charge.