Im well pleased… i found out last night…that 2 of my friends who were brought up on 3dmax and are professional 3d artists…have ben converted thanks to me, over to blender…!
they just cant bare to model in max or maya anymore… cause they simply know they can do it 10x faster in blender…
like most people…they started by thinking that it couldnt possibly be better than the big commercial 3d packages… they assumed it was no good cause it was free… but… once the got the hang of it… they saw the light!
Vega Moo you legend! keep it up. If only employers could be educated so easily.
Blender may be faster and more stable but it lacks a bit too many features or doesn’t implement them throughoutly. Turning away from 3DS Max may not be the best choice if you work in game or animation industry … Yet. :eyebrowlift:
There are other reasons why Blender isn’t used in the game industry, but lack of features or not implemented thoroughly are not the reasons. Or else please elaborate on what you mean.
Mike
here here
:yes:
I was using my co-worker’s Apple G5, a screamer, and accidentally hit the button to launch Photoshop. Now I know I will get flamed for this from you PS lovers, but I swear, the computer ground to a halt as like rabbits, windows started popping up all over. It was a full two minutes later after all the freakin plugins, works in progress, etc finsihed. I guess he is kinda messy and works with a few things at a time, but geez, it became like a game as I raced the computer to close the windows faster than the PC opened them. It took me quite awhile just to shut everything back down again. I really like Blender’s GUI, it has stood the test of time and fits for pro work. This overlapping windows stuff; I know it’s a desk metaphor, but my real desk is 4 feet wide, not one, so I have plenty of space and a blotter that fits 8 full-size pages side by side. My monitor holds one and a half. So, until I get my 42" plasma display with 100dpi resolution, I’ll stick with Blender. Having the work-oriented screen layouts is the way to go. with floating dockable windows does not help when I go from modeling to animation to compositing.
…hold on a moment… yeah sure blender doesnt have all the features…yet most of what it does have i find is so much faster and better to use than the major 3D packages…just a matter of tim…if it keep going on like this!
…and also…what do you mean blender doesnt get used by the games industry…i work for Jagex.Ltd who make Runescape…and we use it!!! …ok…not for the games…but we use it for higer res stuff…like posters/wallpaper/website icons and images/ and the concept artists use it to quickly block out enviroments and shapes/forms…before printing it out and then using it as a guide to draw over…
Blender is awesome…its what i learnt on…and its thanks to blender i got into the industry…i owe it big time!!!
RogerWickes and Vega_Moo, I concur. You tell it like it is, Vlad!
blender is gaining momentum and we (as a small company) are very excited about the decision to switch to open source software in 2007. The important thing is NOT to look where blender is weak but to adjust the content and expand on those features where blender is strong.
Maybe that sounds weird but it is a little like being in a band. There are certain songs that can’t be done right if you’re band has a drummer, bass and guitar player but, that doesn’t stop you from pulling off ZZ Top so good that people will pay to hear it.
This is the most important point when switching to blender … don’t look at what the software can’t do but be creative with the features that blender has. Blender is an AMAZING app and I really look forward learning as much as I can on how to use it.
Once Ubuntu releases the “studio” version, the company I work for will be 100% open source. Our web page is only temporary but the mini gallery shows stills of Metro City, an animation we’re working on and if all goes well should be completed in the fall.
Hope you all get creative and show your talents. That will bring more users and get blender faster into the professional pipeline. It’s already starting
thats fantastic onemanband…
Commerically speaking, blender is just so fast to work with and to render, i found that it simply alllows you to get so much more done under tough deadlines …
I had a huge poster to make once, of a character from our game, and only had two weeks!..blender was just so quick at modelling, i could just add loads and loads of detail like ther was no tommorw!..and of course i could do rendering tests all the time…without having to wait all day for the result! … i really needed to do large renders so i could see what it was going to come out like, cause it was going to be so big… …i feel i would of never had a chance with maya or max…
best of luck with switch!
I think that it is great that Blender is picking up speed, it will be nice to see even more people join the community, just the only thing I am fearing is that Blender will become so big, that it will become an actual program, and you will have to pay for it and it won’t be free anymore :)…
You shouldn’t force you beliefs on other people mmk?
Lua…thinking blender is good ,is not a belief…lol…
…and its not forced on anyone… these people were introduced on it and i m just happy to see they have come to like it loads…by themselves…
how can you force someone to use/like blender? …the world would be a very dull place if people didnt express and share there opinions.
…
In my opinion…companies dont use blender because it doesnt have the support and stablility of the other major 3D software…(not stabilty as in it crashes…stability as in it will still be around in yeras time)…the other 3D comps…also spend alot of time talking to the big games companies, finding out what they need…but blender…hasnt got this type of focus… the game companies would want the developers to give there needs priority over hobbiest…and the general community etc…although i feel blender is focused on becomeing a complete and professional package…companies cant feel the same secuirty with blender as they can with max/maya etc…
…uh… it was a joke.
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No major game company has support for Blender animations and Blender can’t port its animations to the widely used format (can’t remember its name).
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Without N-gons and modeling tools similar to Wings3D, you can’t box model in Blender efficiently.
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No preview for normal maps, sometimes they act funky (makes it difficult to test them).
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No support for the .blend file natively, exporting to wavefront and back between apps can be a pain in the ass especially due the funny positioning of the X, Y and Z axis in Blender.
I think Blender is a godsend to the 3D community and I love using it. Still, those three first mentioned facts slow down my own little game project a lot. Thank god we’re developing our own engine so that we can write support for Blender animations ourselves.
And yes, if someone gave me a full version of 3DS Max for free, I’d probably start learning it just because of those three things. When Blender would have these features working, I’d change back immediately.
Why do people think it’s some sort of a personal offence to point out some downsides of using Blender? I love the program but I’m not blind either. Blender’s main strong point is that it develops fast and that the community has pointed out their needs. I’m amazed what miracles people have done for free. I hope I keep seeing these miracles in the future. 
EDIT: By the way, think how big the Blender community would be if the piracy culture wasn’t as big as it is now. I bet 95% of the young people showing off their work on Maya or 3DS Max don’t have a legal copy. Of course there are those student versions that are affordable and the PLE but still, most have probably used torrents or something similar to obtain it. Those 5% are the ones working in the industry, have bought the student version or happen to be just filthy rich. If those major apps weren’t as easy to get, Blender would be even more famous.
it’s not a personal offense, it just isn’t true
I’ll kill you boy if you try to say otherwise
3dsmax for free. But only with a license, that i can sell it and continue to use Blender. I know lots of people which have switched from Max to Blender, but only noobs consider the other way round…only to return some day. However there are a small number of Pros which need it, cause they are forced to. Even Blender has more features than i have time to explore, so what’s the point.
MagicMyshu: I hope you were joking too. 
It seems to be picking up among art students in California…I went to a summer Comic-con and talked with one of the artists there, and he said that his students are using Blender.