From time to time, I like to visit the forums of the other cg apps. It seem like NewTek can’t go a day without someone bringing up Blender, in one way or another. They’re really envious of Blender’s CA tools and other features.
It’s all a part of Ton’s grand plan for Blender to take over the world.
Why be envious of Blender’s tools at all, just download for free and use them.
Yea! That is the great thing about free tools, we all can use them 
I love the fact that I can share the application, and my knowledge with others freely.
Well, the Newtek forums isn’t exactly a shock. I’m surprised there’s anyone left there really. I know a few people that have left LW for Maya, XSI, C4D or Modo. The character animation tools in LW leave a lot to be desired which is why most of my friends left it. My copy is really just sitting here waiting to do a competitive upgrade to something like XSI Foundation or maybe C4D. I think in general, that’s where you’ll find most of the users that are talking about Blender… the lower end apps (XSI Foundation, LW, C4D base)…
…Lightwave render speed and F-prime are still a big draw! Blender’s preview render seems to take an absolute age! (and n-gons are sorely missed …for now)–, Lightwave Modeller,whilst clunky by modern standards and in need of some consolidation still has a lot of depth and breadth, (admittedly much of that by community scripts and plugins)
I know many that have gone elsewhere (modo,maya etc and for some things they still go back to LW 'cause it’s rock solid and has a feature they need for the job at hand.
but blender wins in character animation, and the modelling core is very good, ALMOST there.
No doubt Blender is Great. Other Apps are so expensive that any struggler just can’t buy. The only problem with Blender is that in the starting you don’t udnerstand the gui because every one know PLE version of Maya. Once you start working on Blender. You will like only blender.
I can’t wait to read various forums, when “Big Buck Bunny” and the official build is released.
stay tuned blender is going to make it even bigger after i,m done with it all newbies are going to love blender after i,m done with it (i have spoken) something to think about
I don’t want to be rude, so I’ll excuse in advance in case that happens:)
I don’t get this reaction from people:
“Oh, look, they are talking about Blender”
If blender is good, there is no need to get surprised by that, or to make a big fuzz about it! If the people who use blender gets like “uauuuu, the XYZ company used blender”, for me at least, it sounds like “I didn’t think blender was capable of that! I never considered using it for anything serious”
Saying things like that in here, it’s ok. Its all blender users. But when people go post things like that on cgtalk, 3dtotal, etc, I really don’t think it helps blender in any way. Quite the oposite. It sounds like if a bunch of funboys are trying to push a less-than-average piece of software down the throath of other people. You don’t see people saying “ohhh, do you believe Maya can do that?!”
Pixel Master, don’t get me wrong:) I understood that you are saying that a once great application is now running after the “little application nobody takes seriously”. But it is very easy to go from here to a “bad propaganda” like I said before.
I posted this with my best intentions towards Blender, and anybody is welcome to disagree.
/me agrees! great post! :yes: i approve.
Id give this post alone 5 stars if i could.
so blender is pretty good for animation? cool… I just bought that book by Tony Mullen.
Now I just need a better computer to put it on.
I’m glad more people share my view:)
If you want to promote something, you need, you MUST to be sure of what it is capable of. If the users get surprised, it’s because they are not sure.
If you are good, sooner or later people will acknowledge you. If you are not that good, and try to sell that you are that good, or you don’t understand what you are trying to sell, when you really get to be that good, people won’t listen to you twice again. A first bad impression lasts much longer than a good impression. And I fear that, even though people try to promote blender, many times the result may be quite the opposite.
EDIT: Before someone asks. I have never studied publicity, public relations or things like that. That is just the approach I use on my life and so far it is working very well:)
Yes, Falk, you’re right.
But you also have to be aware of the broad newbie user base Blender has because of the free distribution. Those users don’t know that Blender is very capable of great things and additionally many people think because it’s a free program it’s not very powerful or has a restricted workflow, like in a demo version.
Nobody tries a product like Maya just for fun (illegal ways excluded) and so most artworks and movies have a higher quality than most of the Blender stuff.
agreed, blenders biggest strength is its biggest weakness or vice versa, It really is for everyone.
When i first joined this forum I was shocked by the amount of schoolkids and how low the average age seemed to be.
When I first started out software was out of the reach of the individual, let alone the hardware that was needed to run it… users of SGI’s with softimage were like a “high priest hood”
Blender on an average computer outstrips that with ease now… It really is a limit of talent and perseverance rather than money that stands in the way of creativity and professional output now.
It often confuses me when people ask "can blender do stuff like in film “X”…
Well, usually whatever software was actually used in film X couldn’t do it out of the box , rather it was the customisations and sneaky use of talent that made it work great and made people go wow!
It also amazes me when people post work for critique and people reel off lists of “problems” like “No subsurface scattering”, and “No ambient occlussion” or “textures are a bit lo res” rather than noticing that the composition is terrible and the anatomy dubious at best, the pose wooden and dead…
The question is no longer “can blender do X?” or rather it shouldn’t be… it’s “can blender do X efficiently?”
Falk, I think you misunderstood my post. I was just reporting that all eyes are on us and it’s really going to blow up when Peach is released. Just so you know. I was lurking but I didn’t post on thier site. I’m not stirring things up on other people’s site. I was letting the members here know that we’re doing pretty good.
3D World has had some decent tutorials in their mag lately, I think that should count for something. Blender will take over one day, everyone knows this to be true! MUAHAHAHA… (sorry that was uncalled for).
Excellent post, I totally agree.
It’s something pretty common on this forum to see people give TECHNICAL reasons why a piece of work is bad, when it’s really just down to a terrible model, or a badly thought out scene that hasn’t had near enough time put into it.
Art comes first, then comes the technical details like AO and soft shadows et cetera.
Sure, art comes first.
On the other hand Blender needs those “kids” and tech freaks for spreading the word in the forums (like in the Newtek one).
I don’t think it’s wrong to have a huge base of average users and some outstanding artists.
This may also contribute to the acceptance of 3d animation in movies because there are many people (also many artists, I have met loads of them!) who think the 3d software takes all the work from the artist which is definetely wrong…
Um, Blender does not need “kids” and “tech freaks” spreading the word in the forums of other CG apps. That’s just bad form. Note how people are treated here (and deservedly so) when they show up telling how awesome 3DSMAX is.
Again, I was not spreading the word in Newtek or any other forum. I was just reading what they brought up on thier own. Anyway, Harkyman, I am really looking forward to “The Beast”. I visit your site, from time to time, do you have an estimate of when we may see it?