And evidence mounts. By 2010
-Blender 2.50
-SoC projects, and next year’s projects too
-Durian improvements
-Possible Mango improvements
-Farsthary’s volumetrics
-Possible inclusion of many current cool patches in the tracker
-Coding projects by developers we don’t know about yet
-Theeth’s skeleton generator work
-Deep shadow maps by Joeedh
Will Blender be fully up there with the commercial apps by 2010?
CAN WE PLEASE STOP WITH THESE THREADS ALREADY!
Really, I can only take so much of it. I honestly don’t give a crap anymore, just because I’ve been annoyed with how many times variations of this question have popped up.
Oh c’mon, isn’t there a quota of like one comparative thread per month? Geez, the noobs need to know these things after all.
Blender is high end already. In 2010 the commercial apps will have more fancy bells and whistles, which Blender probably won’t, so this question will be asked again, and again, and again… It’s all relative really. Apps get new features then suddenly people wondered how they even made anything at all without them.
More high-end users would be a better feature.
Quoted for truth.
If you want the skeleton generator now, set rt to 42. 
I’m not kidding. Find it in the Editing Context (F9) while in Edit Mode on a riggable object.
The question is factoring in the possible new features being worked on now and what may be in Blender by 2010, will it be considered fairly high end by then. Will it have enough for many users of other apps. to fully jump ship.
If you think at all that bullet point lists of features have much bearing on whether professional users of high end software will change to Blender or not, you’re very mistaken. It’s much more complicated than that, and the usefulness of an application like this in a high-end workflow is much more than just adding together a sum of points.
Please, enough of these redundant and misguided threads.
Well I’ve seen you write paragraphs full of things Blender is missing or can’t do very good.
If you’re very pessimistic about Blender being a major workhorse even in 10 years and the posts in other places where all you say is what Blender lacks or doesn’t do well in, why do you and many others who think the same way even use Blender, why haven’t many of you completely written off Blender as a tool to use yet?
I mean I believe Blender will become much better in the years ahead, apparently even more people are kind of pessimistic of Blender becoming more then just a tool for hobbyists and open source geeks.
I’m not worried because the mailing lists indicate Blender development set a record pace this year, at that rate, 2009 will see even faster development.
Could the mods just lock topics like these as soon as they happen? They just clog up the forums.
In my opinion blender is perfect as of now. Going high-end means more learning of doing the same things different ways. Get a key board and start doing python scripting for blender to get it “high-end” - you decided what you want “high-end” to be.
I thought this thread would be a good idea because I say if it’s high end by a future date rather then “is Blender as good as the commercial apps right now”
Reading some threads here and on CGTalk, pessimism about Blender’s capabilities can be widespread. There’s little optimism and little of it about Blender’s future capabilities as well as I have seen among more professional users.
Sigh. To be regarded as ‘high-ended’, a suite needs expensive courses and skyrocketing price tags per added feature, so the corporates can yell “I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS SO I EXPECT RESULTS” at someone. It’s not just a matter of feature lists, as broken put it.
Blender is what it is: use it because its feature set works for you, not because it meets or fails to meet someone else’s standards.
To me, the real power of open source is accessibility. If I had to buy a commercial app even to discover whether 3D is something I want to pursue seriously I wouldn’t reach first base. Even if I do ultimately move to a commercial app because it has features I need, Blender will be the cornerstone of my development as an artist, and I may never need to look elsewhere.
To clarify, as a would-be stock photographer I use Photoshop rather than the GIMP, which is what I learned my image editing on. The reason? Better support for 16-bit colour, integrated file browsing (Adobe Bridge) and metadata support, and a range of plugins such as Primatte Chromakey and Noise Ninja that significantly improve my workflow. These issues are probably not very significant for most people - the demands of stock photography requires them.
I teach some basic design to computer science students (part of a web design course) and I use the GIMP. I want them to practice at home, and don’t encourage piracy. Maybe some of them will pursue an interest in design.
I own full commercial licenses of 3DS Max and Modo yet i still prefer to model and animate in Blender. ‘High end’ is completely subjective but I’d say Blender’s already there from many points of view.
One thing I can say about the future…I’ll bet that in 2010 CD still incorrectly uses ‘then’ in place of ‘than’ 
Well, thanks to the Particle System updates, blender walked up a few gold steps. Apricot’s realtime shaders are doing real good too. Blender’s way is take time, do it correctly, and it comes out correctly.
If you think at all that bullet point lists of features have much bearing on whether professional users of high end software will change to Blender or not, you’re very mistaken. It’s much more complicated than that, and the usefulness of an application like this in a high-end workflow is much more than just adding together a sum of points
There’s usability too but I thought Blender 2.50 will greatly improve that with the event recode, which is why I put 2.50 down.
You know, some sites have informal agreements to not feed the trolls. Perhaps we could all (but one) agree not to feed the dragon. Yeah, it’s a pointless thread, but he starts them for the attention. Let them die an unlamented death. No need for moderators wasting their time on such nonsense.
agreed…
Agreed. I will stop posting. Everyone hop on the bandwagon!
Just import a motion capture file, like BVH or C3D, and a skeleton is automatically created and rigged to perform the motion that the actor did. I know for my C3D importer, the skeleton matches the actor perfectly, right down to asymmetrical (uneven) bone length, like all people have.http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Tutorials/Motion_Capture