First of all, sorry for my english !
We’re two students from Germany who are studying “Digital Media”
We now have to write about 70 pages about Blender.
There are a lot of cool sites which helped us.
But one thing we still don’t know:
What is the difference between Blender, 3d-Studio Max, Maya ect. ?
What makes Blender special ?
What can Blender do what other programs can`t ?
Is there anythig like that ?
Are there any unique features ?
Well, first of all: Blender is free. Period.
Then, it has a very streamlined production workflow; lots of shortcuts. The program is very light (3MB installer), runs and renders very fast.
It would be great if someone who has used both Blender and Maya could comment on some of the OTHER differences between the two. My own decision to choose Blender was based on checking out various 3d programs, and it seemed that, except for Maya, most of the commercial 3D/animation programs were on their way out (i.e., not getting updated and destined for extinction), so the choice boiled down to Maya vs. Blender and Maya’s ~$3000 price tag made my decision clear.
After using Blender, I would emphasize two aspects of Blender which (I suspect) differ from Maya:
Once you master the learning curve and the many keyboard shortcuts, working in Blender is blazingly fast. I don’t just mean the rendering, I mean the process of creating meshes, animations, etc. Someone mentioned that using Blender is like being able to reach into the computer with your hands and sort of magically create the things you want.
The support at various groups, especially this one, is extremely good; there is almost always an expert who will answer any question. Compare this with the Maya user group (Google comp.graphics.apps.alias) which has an average of only 3 to 4 posts a day, over 25% of which go unanswered (Some of these are a bit sad: Maya newbies desperate for help that never comes).
That said, it would still be excellent if someone who has actually used both Maya and Blender could give these guys a more complete answer with details about the differences in how the two programs work.
The Forest Service must be trying to reduce their population.
Since I’ve never used another 3d app I’ll deffer to them that has.
These articles are from people out side the Blender community
Who have compared it with other apps. and given their personal opinion.
Note: these apply to older versions of the software mentioned.
For myself, I like Blender for the app. and because the developers dare to think big! They dare to compare it to the big guys! This has kept them motivated to actively improve it over the last few years.
I’ll definitely agree with RHmd on his #2… the user support and forums available for Blender are amazing… you guys are incredibly helpful.
I’ve not used Maya too much, but I have professional training in Alias Studio. Compared to Studio, Blender has some major functional shortcomings, especially when it comes to complex surface manipulations (we need Surface Trims!!).
Having said that, Blender is free (both ways!) and extremely small, and seems to run on just about anything: Studio requires several thousands of dollars of hardware and costs tens of thousands of dollars for the program.
I found the Blender interface pretty clunky and counterintuitive, but usable. Once you get the hang of the interface, you can be about as productive in blender as you can be in Studio (I still think that Studio’s interface is much faster and more direct in terms of data manipulation), though Blender definitely has it’s own internal language that doesn’t really work like any other 3-d app Of course, Studio is a pretty mature app, and Blender is just getting started, which is pretty exciting in and of itself.
Sorry to butt in. I’ve downloaded a testdrive version 2.29 and I think the interface is much better now for new people. There are a couple of things there that I would like to ask about/report on, but am not sure where I should post to.
e.g. In the background image appears not to be working
2.29/2.3, whatever you want to call it is not a version/prerelease/bugfix whatever. Ton only made it available for us to see what’s going on. In his post(s) on blender.org he stressed that it was a snapshot and not yet complete and that he didn’t want bug reports. That doesn’t mean you can’t discuss it, here or there, it just means that he is too busy doing the codeing to read all kinds of mail about things he is well aware of and busy working on.
Fair enough. I’m not too sure how development in Blender really happens (i.e. in terms of team structure) and wasn’t sure if those versions were “beta” (i.e. to be reported upon) or just daily builds which I know, (being a professional soft engineeer) are mostly broken until they’re done.
No, but I’ve been following (and occasionally contributing to) the discussions about it.
Not having used it, I deliberately did not address the “new” interface elements of 2.3 in my comments. I’m really looking forward to it though.
After the cleaner interface, the next big feature set I would LOVE to see implemented in Blender is more powerful surface manipulations (If you have Trim Surfaces, you don’t need booleans!) but alas, I am not a coder… my training is in product and interface design.
Of course, Studio is a pretty mature app, and Blender is just getting started, which is pretty exciting in and of itself.
