Im still new to Blender and bought the offical book and its really good. One thing…Ive been looking around at other programs like Maya, 3D Studio Max and LIghtware and noticed they rendering is superior to Blender by a long shot. Is it because the guys who use those programs are taking more time in their detail and imagination or is that blender is not as powerful as the big boys? Dont get me wrong, I love Blender and its the only program im using right now. I have learned alot but when it comes to the rendering and animation, I just dont see the quality that I want to see. Help me out people. I really like Blender. Is there something Im missing. I have installed Yafray as well…
i love blender too =) but its NOT as powerful as the big boys… in all honesty it may be able to compete with realism to an extent in some scenes, but there are many many types of scenes blender could never compete with in realism… certain types of scenes blender can render really well with alot of good lighting, but not all types… its radiosity also doesnt compare, especially the work load if you uvmapped everything FIRST, what i love about lw is that its radiosity is calculated as real lighitng or something of the sort and not vertex painted on permanently =)
I just dont see the quality that I want to see.
even if youve made the best blender render ever, chances are it would look better with a big boy renderer
but blender exports to alot of the big boys so its cool =)
raytracing… ahhhh, raytracing… blender really needs either some realistic fake caustics/reflections/refractions, or a built in raytracer i have played with the refraction in tuhoppu! its looking really good! i dont mind faking it when it looks that good
Also, another thing that is not to forget is that even when using the “big boys software”, the really stunning rendering are more often than not done with external renderers (Radiance, Mental Ray, you name it).
As people delve deeper into Blender’s code, I’m pretty sure you can expect a much tighter integration with external renderer than what you have now (scripts).
Just use YAFray. I have been geting great results with it using HDRI. Also, the exporter, YableX, works great and allows for texturing and bump maps now as wel.
If you use external rederer as they do (and know how to use them) you’ll get the same results as they get… if you’re as good as they are, since I bet you haven’t looked at the poor work of bad ‘artists’. Yes, there’s such a thing as a horrible rendering using Brazil or Mental Ray.
The majority of really great looking 3D-art comes from really great 3D-artists. Not from the software they use, but from their knowledge, attention to detail, texturing and modeling skills.
Most of those artists work professionally as 3D-artists, and they will naturally have access to the best (hence most expensive) software. But what you see in their images is their personal skills more than the result of some technical advantage.
Blender’s renderer is a decent scanline renderer. And, in the right hands, it can do anything that any other decent scanliner can do. There’s lots of really great art made with the very old and average scanliner found in Max 3.1 for instance. And have a look at Rustboy - it is made with an incredibly old and abandoned piece of software known as Infini D.
The bottom line: Blender is technically not as good as the ‘big boys’. But it is still better than most of its users. I’m not trying to offend anyone, and I include myself when I say that Blender is still better than most of its users. Maybe most of the people hanging around here at Elysiun could get ‘better’ output from some 3.000$ software, but the real problem is skills and experience. There are certain types of images that Blender never could produce - but those are very few compared to all the images that it can indeed produce, but no user has yet been capable of concieving.
Yeah, i agree with that. Blender is definitely not as weak as the people who only use ‘top of the range’ products say. The only things that blender falls back on IMHO is rendering, armatures and texturing.
rendering because of the limited capabilities (but the you can use an external renderer).
armatures because they are much more tedious to set up
texturing because i don’t feel as if i have as much control.
I can’t say that I have great knowledge from the “big boys progs”, but I like Blender, not only because it’s free, because it has so much other things it offers, like the Sequenze Editor or the full scale armature animation options.
And what comes to appearance of the final rendering, well, more you do it, better you get with it. As JamesK said it, it more upto the artist, not the software.
Then there is alawys the possibility to use external render, like Yafray (which I still not master) or lightflow or something.
I like because I don’t to scurry around a long menu list to find a function like extrude. In blender, it’s simple just select your border B and press E. I tried making something with Max, and it took too much time.
i myself have used maya and houdini…
and yes, sometimes blender cannot be compared to them…then again, i don’t think any application can ever compare to houdini, not even maya and max and other such appliations…houdini is way over the top.
i myself love houdini and everything about it. i have used it for sometime now, but lately, i realised that its right that i can use houdini well and all…but, in the end, would i ever be able to actually afford the application and use it for my own work (such as freelance, demo reels, etc?). the answer i really got is NO!
blender is the best bang for the buck. there are many aspects of the application that i have found better then other applications…and vice-versa.
there is no perfect application out there. (not even houdini, which i praised soo much). if you would have looked at maya home renderer in the 1.x-4.x series, the renderer in that sucks as well…the render times are HUGE!
but, it wins in many other things…the same goes with blender. blender is an awesome program, as long as you understand how to use it well.
It is ultimatley up to you how good of results you are to achive through Blender. Yes, as everyone has said there are certain features that other programs have that Blender does not…yada yada blah blah blah…and I do not care if I affend anyone because you need to hear this. I realize that you are faced with a simple but important question “do I invest the time and very little money to learn this application…is it worth it?” Well, in terms of industry standard, Blender is not. And often times that is very important depending on where you wish to work in the future IF you wish to take 3D as serious as doing it professionally. On the same note, alot of the larger production facilities use their own in house software (ie PIXAR). They do not care what software you can use…their philosophy is that if you have the talent they can teach you how to use a computer program…its alot more difficult to teach someone how to draw or show traditional art skills. What does all of this mean? Well…to keep it nice and short…3D is all about problem solving. If there is a certain effect you are trying to achieve …odds are there are always a hundred different ways to get it out of a piece of software…and if Blender doesnt have a pre-packaged all in one “click the button” answer, you might have to actually use your imagination and pull it off in another manner. No one really cares how you did it really…just all of us strange people here care about that …what others viewing your work want is quality…no raytraced this and animation package that. Does your character show personality…does your textures look believable…not realistic necessarily, but believable in terms of your story. Blender can answer all of these “problems” you will encounter while working in this exciting industry…you may just have to dig a little deeper than you would if you had another much more expensive application on your hands. The biggest aspect that Blender lacked in the past was raytraced rendering capabilities…now I know that there were various external rendering alternatives and such but YAFRAY (if you havent already explored this app already) was written by people from the Blender community and is much closer to the developement of one another than any two apps could ever be. Now, the renderer that is built in to Blender is by no means junk…it is scanline but it is very fast…and if you take the time to work with it you will be rewarded with some nice pics…YAFRAY on the other hand takes less tweaking to achieve extrodinary results…I reccommend you look into YAFRAY if you want to push the envelope with Blender. Lastly, the community…this community is closer than the nieghborhood you live in…seriously…I know more about whats going in in some of these guys lives than I do with my family right now and as sick as that may sound it is true. You will recieve at least 10 answers for every 1 question you ask if you havent noticed that already. Well…last but not least…welcome to the greatest community in the 3D industry. Here are some links to get you started:
i have played with the refraction in tuhoppu! its looking really good! i dont mind faking it when it looks that good 
…what others viewing your work want is quality…no raytraced this and animation package that. Does your character show personality…does your textures look believable…not realistic necessarily, but believable in terms of your story. Blender can answer all of these “problems” you will encounter while working in this exciting industry…you may just have to dig a little deeper than you would if you had another much more expensive application on your hands. The biggest aspect that Blender lacked in the past was raytraced rendering capabilities…now I know that there were various external rendering alternatives and such but YAFRAY (if you havent already explored this app already) was written by people from the Blender community and is much closer to the developement of one another than any two apps could ever be. Now, the renderer that is built in to Blender is by no means junk…it is scanline but it is very fast…and if you take the time to work with it you will be rewarded with some nice pics…YAFRAY on the other hand takes less tweaking to achieve extrodinary results…I reccommend you look into YAFRAY if you want to push the envelope with Blender. Lastly, the community…this community is closer than the nieghborhood you live in…seriously…I know more about whats going in in some of these guys lives than I do with my family right now and as sick as that may sound it is true. You will recieve at least 10 answers for every 1 question you ask if you havent noticed that already. Well…last but not least…welcome to the greatest community in the 3D industry. Here are some links to get you started: