I enjoy Autodesk software and I would have stayed with learning it if it were less expensive. Most of my design software is subscription-based, for which I don’t mind paying. I asked because I honestly didn’t know about what what that software did that Blender doesn’t so.
Part of it though was FOSS’ inability to match the usability and the feature set of the big players.
When you had FOSS projects that…
- Didn’t see the UI as a priority
- Ignored user feedback
- Hosted a community that didn’t understand how the industry worked
- Didn’t see intuitive controls as a priority
- Didn’t see performance as a priority (let’s do everything nice and slow)
- Cared more about ticking the feature boxes and leave stuff incomplete
People might hate the big corporations, but getting fleeced was actually the better option compared to trying to deal with FOSS organizations, because they at least had solid priorities.
Fortunately for creatives looking at FOSS, Blender, GIMP, Godot, and Krita are at least changing to be a little less reliant on software ideology and more reliant on what users want. 2.8 actually has left-click selection for instance which no one thought would happen, now we just need the odds and ends cleaned up in areas such as performance, baking, static overrides, and others. GIMP finally ditched the multi-window UI mess in Windows at least, Godot has fostered a rich environment that has led to hundreds of people submitting patches based on what they need, ect…
That’s not to say that Blender 2.8 fixed everything about development, there’s still the oddball priorities such as choosing not to fix baking and editmode performance for the initial release. Though when you developed your way into overly expansive targets and technical debt that required more than half a year to shore up , then your best option might be to just get the release out the door and get master open again for feature, tool, and workflow development (but this time with a better and more iterative plan).
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I think comparing the product of the sweat and tears of dreamers and idealists to the cold, profit driven relentless force that is corporate greed is a little harsh. Surprisingly, the efficiencies of sharing and the lack of a hierarchical reward system, ownership of the Commons has gifted us with software like Blender. The annual revenue for Autodesk was 2.06 billion USD last year, which would fund the Blender Foundation at current levels for 3976.5 years. That revenue would have been better spent on OSS in retrospect… 
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Nope. The features have long been there. And the increasing numbers of users successfully making use of those features is proof of that.
The difference is that Open Source doesn’t get the respect. The unique features it has that proprietary alternatives don’t have are downplayed, and conversely those that are unique to the proprietary products are exaggerated in importance.
It’s because proprietary companies can afford to spend millions on PR campaigns to tell everybody how wonderful they are, and Open Source projects can’t. All we have is word of mouth.
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Net, or after expenses? Is that for the media products, or everything? What about products which straddle the line, like Alias? What about free to use products like Fusion or TrueView? How are the operating budgets divided between the various business units?
There are few drawbacks to open source that get glossed over. Documentation is frequently lacking as its one of the least “cool” parts of development. Development is always threatening to take a radical turn based on the whims of contributors, maybe less so when there is a long term oversight like Blender, but that can always change. There’s also a constant risk of development stopping completely if volunteers or donations disappear i.e. this is no longer “cool” or something even more exciting is happening. Yes, some one could pick up the torch, but most will want something that works now.
I don’t think we need absolute answers to these points of arguments about does Blender have the stuff or not. What is the real reason Blender is not used widely and so on.
Seems everyone wants a simple sound bite. The more dramatic the better. It is that Blender really lacks tools/UI and will “never be adopted” or there is some larger conspiracy, where corporations dominate through some propaganda PR arm.
My opinion is that it comes down to artists - not the corporations. We are the ones that drive this. And I say we collectively as in all industry artists. Not just Blender artists.
We as a group are not as divided as it might appear. We are part of one group, all with the same basic goals and objectives. And we all, each one of us, uses the tools we think are best for the job.
Yes there are absolutely cases where a company might choose a tool that is not your personal favorite. Sure. It happens.
But primarily overall the tools chosen are chosen because they give artists what they need.
And all apps are not created equal. If that were the case, there would be some conspiracy. And you have to make the “created equal” argument before you can state there is a grander bigger more ominous reason that they are not treated equal.
Blender is not on a par with Maya in some areas. Some areas it is better and other areas it is weaker. And so on, from app to app, you will find this.
And it is because there is a wide range of uses and needs is why there are artists who could live only with Blender and other artists who could not give up Maya.
You have to give artists some credit here. They are smart. They know what works best by trial and error. And it results in word of mouth. And it can only be trying a product and using it that will give an artist the answer if it is right for him or her. Nothing, at the end of the day will change that.
So it stands to reason that as Blender gets more usfullness to more people - because it has better and better tools - it grows. Just that simple.
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big corporations are focusing more and more on work focuses where big studios, but even small ones, are able to obtain results of great workload in the shortest possible time (possibly without a hitch), they also focus on assistance in obtaining these results … .
I think that most of all SideFX with Houdini understood this strategic advantage …
just see the strong push with machine learning algorithms to create full-bodied environments in the shortest possible time … this type of tool saves the studios a lot of time and money from the workforce …
it is not good news from the point of view of classic modeler freelancers etc … but from the point of view of economic optimization it is the best card to play.
the big corporations also know well now, it makes no sense to try to compete where “low prince apps” are already working well …so they focus on “useful niches of functional parts of their software” where there is much demand and little competition …
this type of demarcation will be increasingly evident in the near future.
No. Media products is much less.
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100 million.
Autodesk biggest market is the architecture stuff (5x more revenue). Their stock is rising and rising but their Media & Entertainment softwares are not selling that well.
What I can see from their investor relations studd:
Blockquote weak or negative growth in one or more of the industries we serve, including AEC, manufacturing, and digital media and entertainment markets;
Source: http://investors.autodesk.com/static-files/9f788f60-83a0-4aef-80dd-249be90e6ae3
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Philosophy has no place in a production environment. You get the job done quickly and to good quality. The client is happy and you get paid. That is ALL that matters in a production environment. FOSS is great - if it works. If software does the job at hand and allows you to more easily get pictures out of your head and onto a screen, then it’s good software. That is the ONLY consideration in a working studio.
Even if you are a hobbyist, you are wasting your time using substandard software. As a sole artist working on a passion project, apart from finances, your most valuable resource is time. By using substandard software, you are robbing yourself of potentially years worth of work. You use the best software that you can afford to do the job, or you are cheating yourself. Many hobbyists won’t be able to afford a copy of Max, and it’s most likely overkill for what they want to do, but if I weren’t making money from 3D, then I’d still be paying for a Substance and Marmoset licence.
I don’t agree with how both Adobe and Autodesk do business, or even how they support their products. The thing is, that they do the job at hand, and do it well, and consistently. People can depend on them and they allow them to make a lot of money by using them with a minimum amount of hassle.
Blender is a rare beast in the open source world. Very little FOSS is able to stand up to the rigours of a production environment (I know, I’ve tried it). Even with Blender, it’s only recently developed new modelling and rendering tools that allow it to compete with the big boys on a more even footing.
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Well said. Seconded.
I’ve recently acquired Marmoset Toolbag by the way, and really like it. I think it’s better and more user-friendly than Eevee in the realtime rendering area. It’s a pity it doesn’t have procedural textures though.
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it’s not like a studio doesn’t have a choice in the kind of projects it does though. i do projects that can be done with blender. i don’t do projects that require me to use tools with business models i don’t like. the clients are happy and i get paid. the more users use blender the better it gets over time…
usually there isn’t ONLY one consideration…
it’s the same in other businesses. let’s say in farming… if glyphosate allows you to more easily produce vegetables it’s a good chemical. that’s ALL that matters. 
I don’t deny at all that FOSS has come a long way, but we must remember that many of those that did become serious tools only did so in the last decade, and only after the project devs. started taking longtime user complaints more seriously (even if it meant the inclusion of more industry standard workflows at least as an option).
We must not pretend that FOSS is already in a state of perfection and that in reality, there’s still a lot of work that can be done. Do note how the development fund for Blender skyrocketed after 2.8 got left-click select as default, colored wireframes, active tools, better scene management, and other things Maya and Max users took for granted. It definitely was not because people realized the “Blender way” of being different on purpose was superior.
I was able to make that decision because Blender 2.79 was more than capable for a gaming pipeline with of course a few minor annoyances but to say blender would make me lose years compare to 3ds max that i have use and teach for 17 years is ridiculous!
In max just before i switch to blender i was crashing almost every 15 min simply doing modeling and doing the same modeling job in blender i can work without any crash at all!
Blender have many issues but in the modeling department with someone knowing his shortcuts it beat the hell out of 3ds max and maya in pure modeling.
Also keep in mind that i am not solely working with blender since to make my life less hell i had to get a bunch of other apps like 3d coat, substance suite, Quixel, Photoshop,Xnormal etc.
Corporations are not the model of the future this is my own personal prediction.
Any indie gaming developer can make the same choice right now so yes it’s also a question of choice!
Other branch of the CG industry can probably do the same but i am only experience in gaming pipeline.
Blender was a “serious tool” from day 1. Remember that it originated as in-house software at a 3D company that was making a living from it for many years.
And the artists are increasingly finding that Autodesk’s tools are falling short.
uh another pointless topic
So Blender was ready for prime-time just because it was used by the developers?
Back then, Blender didn’t have GI or Ngons, nor sculpting, nor bevel, knife, loopcut, raytracing, ect…, it didn’t even have undo. By these standards, an app. where you can place a sphere on a cube and rotate around it is enough to make it ready for the workload of large studios.
There are even behemoths doing that. I´ve seen Blender used in the car industry more and more. Of course not as a CAD replacement for the engineers but the car industry has vizualisation departments and Blender (among other apps) is used there more and more. At one car giant I even whitnessed how a new department was founded and their whole pipeline was based on Blender.
I wouldn´t be surprised if it is similar in other industrial branches.
NaN wasn’t a “large” studio, remember. It was small and agile. And smart enough to develop its own tools.