As long as someone can bring something to the table with a different toolkit without disrupting the pipline then its most common that they’re allowed to use their own programs.
Eh, they just sometimes have to take whatever is available. Other times a concious decision is made because software X is good in A and software Y is good in B.
We often did camera animations in Cinema for example because for Cinema is pretty good for this type of animation and the operator in question was really good at animating interesting cameras. Then everything was imported into Max and completed there.
I can take a practical example. I was taking part in the final stages of a project where they stictly used Max and maya, and i had enough experience in Maya that i could help them out. - Just as an assistant.
I quickly realized that most of the tasks i was given could be done much quicker in blender, and after arguing back and forward and showing that blender was faster for me, with the same results, they finally allowed me to use blender at any stage, however, the model had to be imported and finalised in Maya before exporting it to the server.
Taking this extra step was still quicker for me overall, as the finalizing stages only took about 1-5 minutes per model.
Quite true, this is something often brought up, and it’s used as FUD by commercial software vendors to scare you into buying their products, but my experience is that when you make “support” an optional purchase almost everyone will drop it, and it’s virtually impossible to make a living trying to sell support for free open-source software (from personal experience and several failed industry examples).
There are rare cases where people actually need frequent “support” services and some products that it makes sense for because the company has an old-timey service-oriented culture and you actually get something for your money, but for the most part (with most well made products) it’s not actually a service at all but simply insurance against something bad happening, and with enough experience that in fact nothing really bad ever actually happens, people stop seeing value in it.
… whereas Red Hat® Linux is a very noticeable example of doing it successfully. Since day one, RHAT sold its software and associated support on a subscription basis. (To comply with the open-source requirement, they also offer a free version, minus various tools and with no support.)
Many companies specifically use Red Hat because it is much less expensive for them to pay a pro rata share of the cost of what Red Hat, Inc. does for them, and to get access to their valuable custom tools. (In that respect, Red Hat simply borrowed a play from IBM® = “Income By the Month,™” who never saw a piece of great(?) software that they couldn’t … lease.)
Full disclosure: I realized the value of this business model and therefore snapped-up a bundle of shares at their IPO. I still hold most of them. The investment has paid-off quite handsomely. I still believe in what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. They have a “value proposition,” and a “revenue stream” they can count on. Plus, I think that they do their job extremely well – the price is quite fair, and you get your money’s worth.
And now let’s give Ton his proper due. “Software is hideously expensive, even when it’s free.” In my humble, one of the key reasons why Blender is so great, and why it is expanding so very rapidly, is because of the Blender Foundation, which I am very happy to do my tiny part to support financially. And (not intending to divert this thread by saying this …) I think that Blender is in the very good hands of people who care about it extremely much, and who think about revenue in a businessman’s way. Because: “one way or the other, it takes money, folks!”
Are you actually serious?
well they just introduced maya 2019 which is odd since this will break their versioning number ,besides from fast scene loading and cached playback which they showed back at GDC18 nothing major , i think blender is closing the gap and even passing maya/max in certain areas.