There’s no need. It’s always nice to have competition, it help innovation.
Not in the actual state and any professional will tell you the same thing.
A few month ago i switch to Blender from 3ds max and i am happy with my decision but blender lack so many tools compare to 3ds max or maya that it will take at least another 10 years if they just want to get on par with them.
To tell a few area of Blender that would need serious upgrade for pro to really consider; Viewport performance specially in edit mode, the UV tool, the animation, geometry painting system, the splines, the precision tools, the modifier stack(like in 3ds max), the particle system.
In the past they use to say that Blender was the Jack of all trade but the master of none but for this i now disagree since Blender in my opinion as a 17 years CG artist and teacher is the master of modeling if you know your hotkeys and use a combination of pie menus.
If you are in the game development sector Blender is perfect for the job but you will still need a few paid addon like autorig pro to easily import/export to game engine without losing your sanity and asset sketcher to quickly populate a level and physic object painting. You can also get a few addon to facilitate hard surface modeling if the need be + a bunch of other utilities to make your pipeline optimal.
But beware you will need to stop thinking the autodesk way since blender have a very different approach in many aspect and the learning curve is still pretty steep but fortunately the forum here will generally answer most of your questions in less than a day compare to no answer at all on the autodesk forum.
I don’t see any reason someone would need to stop using Maya in order to use Blender. So I don’t know if it’ll dethrone Maya, but it is looking like a lot of people will use it.
Since Blender is a lot easier to get up and running with, I’ll be interested to see if we get an increase in developers experimenting with it. If that happens, and a lot of rapid development occurs, I could see Blender taking over.
The fact that 2.8 is a transition is responsible of a lack of efficiency in some mentioned areas.
In 2.79, several addons are compensating those lacks. But some of those upgrades are planned into 2.8 design.
People should keep in mind that Blender 2.8 extends above Blender 2.80.
Clearly, Blender 2.80 will not include several 2.8 targets like UDIM, overrides, everything nodes…
So, it will still take several years to reach what was imagined.
During those years, Maya will continue to evolve and it could be sufficient to retain its userbase.
If you’ve got an established production line based on <Product_X>, it’s really not likely to be in your business interest to try to “switch to” <Product_Y>. You’ve got assets and expertise and (most of) the kinks worked out in a reliable-to-you system that brings home the bacon. Switching to anything else throws 100% of that investment at risk – needlessly.
Blender has long ago proved its mettle. Everybody knows about it, and probably, everybody uses it for something. Just don’t look for it to “replace.” That’s not how business works.
Can Blender 2.8 Dethrone Maya?
Why do you care?
Just do your work. In either of them.
Judging from what I’ve learned before, no.
It’s not enough for Blender to match Maya or exceed it in some areas for the industry to change fundamental aspects of their pipeline (as entrenched as they are), Blender would have to blow away Maya in the majority of areas and simply be the best (because major studios like ILM and Weta have that as a requirement).
Can Blender make a dent in Maya’s hold on small and even medium sized studios? 2.8x may have a chance to do just that with many longtime annoyances for pros resolved. That is also helped by the way Autodesk is running things, it has been a long time since they last poured their full financial power into R&D.
Who cares? Is it Game of 3d Thrones out there? This whole Us v’s Them flame bait type thread lacks maturity and sensibility.
Software as a service, per seat/instance licencing and ongoing privacy issues may start being a consideration, especially for startups and new small to medium-sized CGI studios, as the Blender pipeline steadily improves. The ability to mix almost any hardware, old or new, with any OS without needing additional software for the entire pipeline, for asset management, texturing, sculpting, composition, foley, correction, etc. can be considered an advantage too.
I don’t care much about people not using Maya. As I posted earlier, they can use both.
However, Blender getting in more studios should lead to more development, similar to Tangent Animation. That’s what I care about.
Blender needs special features that other software can not do.
I mean not price.
Such as Non-destructive workflow.
Eevee.
Everything Nodes.
and what ?
Blender’s price is its most special feature. All the Blender Foundation has to worry about is making the program powerful enough, competitive enough, easy enough to use, to draw more attention to it.
No. I meant not price. The price , Free can not dethrone Maya, 3dmax, C4D, etc. I meant workflow, Everything nodes,and add-on ecosystem.
Probably in terms of popularity blender has already surpassed everyone.
Over the years, with the growth of users, of the devs, and of blender itself skills, the throne of blender will come sooner or later.
I am reminded of the video recorder war of the 80s betamax vrs vhs … betamax was certainly superior, but the vhs dethroned it for greater popularity, and in the end nobody used betamax anymore.
Everything Nodes will probably something interesting stuff on that front, though even then it wouldn’t be doing anything that’s solely exclusive to Blender, since procedurals are Houdini’s bread and butter.
Though in the end, I don’t think the Blender Foundation needs to worry about making Blender the end all be all of 3D modelers. That’d be nigh on impossible. Every single editor out there has one feature that it does better than all the rest, but none of them are good at everything, and they’ve been developed steadily for years and years. Those big studios? They have enough of a budget to use them all, leveraging each one’s strengths. All Blender really needs to be is good. And so far, the BF is doing a solid job getting things up to speed.
blender is not free, devs do not work for free, they are paid by donations and other outline systems, it is just a different business system, which over time is destined to grow.
probably the absolute best internet business model.
Let’s say it has an incredibly low barrier to entry then.
Yes. The Next special special feature is Everything Nodes.
Right now, I’d say that Eevee is Blender’s ace in the hole. With a few more features, and some tweaks to performance, it could compete with Marmoset Toolbag on render quality, and it has the added bonus of being a native part of the editor. Nothing else can quite match it at the moment.