Industry have accepted modo, houdini, Zbrush, substance, topogun,… in few years. Blender have twenty years.
If you need to go from A to B you could:
- Go on foot
- Ask for a ride
- Use rollerblades
- Use a bike
- Use a motorbike
- Use a car
- Take bus
- Take a train
- Take a transatlantic
- Take a submarine
- Take an elicopter
- Take the airplain
- Take a shuttle
What’s the best option to go from A to B?
Not engaging a debate, but simply noting that I am happy to see in our studio 10%* of people use Blender, others are max, maya guys. No Houdini (except me), no modo that I know of. Generally when max, maya guys see how you can work in Blender they are sincerely impressed.
@20 years- I have been with blender ~3-4*. Back then viewport was very slow. Today we have debate of showing 10k objects in view without slowdown. There was no Alembic, there still is no OpenVDB. The point is that Blender has matured very rapidly only in recent years and I hope tides will turn soon.
@Free. Randomly guessing 50% of ADSK users are pirates so all is free to them. Artists can simply use the best tools(tool+10 plugins) on market to do best works with least effort. However sharing is far less popular than it was back then so if trend continues it will only level up the playing field.
In general though I think users that have discovered Blender after other software and stuck around, as have I, see the clear benefits and only have a few things to nag about (most of which can be addressed with python). We all know it’s a beast and see the impressive roadmap ahead us.
It’s true that blender have matured rapidly the last years. But the same with maya, that in few years have a good modeling solution.
Talking about the GPL is pointless, blender will never change that.
Studios can make codes and keep it for them, they have no obligation to share it, even if it’s GPL.
I agree with bsavery, support is important and there is no plan to add it.
Blender lack performances right now and needs to keep working on his current features to finish them.
Some part hasn’t been worked since years, it’s like they will never have improvement until a dev will want to work on.
I hope when the 2.8 will be ok, they will work on the core features more.
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The question in the thread is about why the studios and AAA projects don’t use blender, if the license will never change then the problem will never change. And any talk about other things is pointless.
You cannot change it, nor TON or anyone else.
Read my message one time in your life.
The GPL is not an issue.
We’re here to discuss the problem, whether it’s fixable or not is another issue you just want to address. Try to respect my opinion, or somebody opinion, by one time in your life.
I didn’t know that the problem that blender have with industry is your constant comparison with Maya perfomance and the tools that you want.
Like usually you’re ridiculous!
Maya is the one used in those studios, you want to compare blender with what if not Maya?
And on big productions you need performances, the license is not an issue, they can keep their codes if they want.
And the tools I talk are the ones you said needed to be worked on your posts, not the one I want, I use zbrush.
Arguing with you is pointless, it’s like talking to a dumb child.
Will not respond, it’s pointless.
You are incapable of responding without disrespect.
Maya is used in the studios, but not because the perfomance. 3DsMax, Modo, Houdini,… are also industry standard, specially houdini, but don’t have better perfomance than Blender, nobody have a problem with it because the best performance of the maya viewport is recent.
I think another point that not many people have talked about, is that because it is free loads of amateur artists get it. and produce images of pretty average work and share it. Because of this, many people feel like blender just isn’t up to the same quality level as many other applications.
Blender is used both in AAA games and big budget movies.
Its polygon tools are second to none.
There is also nothing stopping any artist from using Blender together with other 3d apps. Many formats exist to facilitate the exchange of assets.
Blender’s popularity is the usual case of “old habits die hard”. Maya still dominates the films, 3ds dominates the game industry for AAA games and Blender dominates low budget movies and indy games.
Each app comes with its own pros and cons and has its own loyal following especially if its was the first in the field or got an early start.
Maya for example was not the first on the field but it did offer a more complete 3d app which movie studios saw with a more favorable eye.
While 3ds probably inspired but its big brother Autocad, always favored low poly workflows.
Judging from the magazine specials, online blog posts, interviews, podcasts and of course reviews in steam , Blender has been for years now a very highly praised 3d app , especially after version 2.5 .
The same cannot be said on the other hand for the Autodesk products that have been a target for a lot of criticism for their lack of new features and outdated workflows and guis.
On the other hand Blender has also its own big shortcomings. especially the viewport has been Blender’s tragedy for quite some time which 2.8 will try to improve but to get to a stable release its going to be a long road , especially one that is competitive to Maya’s viewport may take even years.
Being free is not a disadvantage, its a large advantage. For us developers free software has become the norm and industry standard for a big variety of reasons, foremost customisability. Pretty much anything nowdays is based to a large degree on free software.
The most recent example being Windows with Microsoft open sourcing the backbone of its OS, .NET which is the official way of making software for Windows and the most well supported.
Unless applying commercially, then sharing the sole source without further control, power over it, is what hurts most :ba: people doubt, yet this act is simply to stimulate trust and goes against betrayal
Disclaimer: But it can’t & doesn’t prevent disappointments, it’s alike currency. Artists, users, consumers… gives it value.
It will take time… maybe even life time.
FX & big studios keep their tools in-house most of the time or in the current state, work with BF to add patches and features.
Addons and commercial plugins are indeed limited and because of the licence, big companies cannot add their tools on Blender.
We already talked about that and the devs responded on why it will not change.
I can talk about Zbrush personally because I was one of the early customers. Zbrush released in 1999 and I bought it in 2002. At the time I belonged to a tiny minority as most people did not see the point of sculpting compared to subdivision surfaces which was gaining a lot of ground at the time.
ZBrush struggled in oblivion for at least 10 years till it became an industry standard and all that without any competition at all. It’s main competitor appeared 8 years after, in 2007, 3DCoat. A time that Zbrush had already established itself as the default sculpt app.
I was always and still I am very surprised how much time it took Zbrush to become this popular. I presume that this can be because its was very specialized tool or its radical different workflow.
But not only Zbrush is a bad example, Houdini is a worse example to use against Blender. Houdini is 21 years old and it definitely never became that popular, while currently I highly doubt its more popular than Blender or even remotely as popular.
No point discussing substance and topgun, as popular they may be for their highly specialised usage they disappear in front of the popularity of Blender for general usage.
Modo is the only solid example. A 3D app that quickly gained ground and has been quite popular and with a very loyal following. But even here can be easily explained. MODO carries the legacy of Lightwave, a 3D app that dominated 3d graphics way before Maya and 3d studio max gained ground. Lightwave stagnated for a decade and then some devs left to create MODO. So MODO did "steal " a sizable userbase from Lightwave. Which explains why it was big news from day 1, something that cannot be said for any of your other examples.
Of course the dark side of the moon, is the 3d apps that did not make it. Lightwave (still exists last time I checked but nowhere near as popular as used to be), Amapi, Hexagon, Truespace, Strata, Softimage and many many others not only they did not share Blender’s of continuous increase of popularity but many of them just disappeared. Other lost much of their popularity like Bryce, Poser and Rhino.
If Ton did not manage to open source Blender, Blender would have shared a similar fate. Fortunately Ton was quite a visionary and brought a revolution not only to 3d but software in general.
I remember than in 2004-2005 Zbrush was very popular and the standard sculpting app, and three, four years is not contrary to my affirmation. It’s true that old artist have problems to accept the new tool, but since Zbrush2 I don’t remember any doubt about it, and the first versions of Zbrush was really basic. I never seen mudbox or 3Dcoat like a competitor.
I can not share that opinion about Houdini popularity. It’s a technical software, but a standard in FX since a lot of years and used in big productions since year 2000
At the end, you have talked about apps with less history than blender, but all that software are industry standards today and since near two decades ago. So, clearly if you have a free tool and it’s not a standard today when is a great tool and competent is because you have other problem and the price and Open Source is not the answer. And Maybe the Open Source could save Blender before, two decades ago, but it have nothing to do with the question of the thread.
The question is easy, if after two decades of free software and open source Blender is not a standard when other tools cost thousand of euros each year, what is the problem? why do people prefer the propietary solutions?
Zbrush in 2004 was kinda popular, in the sense that we were seeing many artists use it but still nowhere near the popularity its nowdays. It was the standard sculpting app because it was the only sculpting app, at least 3dcoat and mudbox did not exist for another 3 years and I think this is evidence enough of how unpopular Zbrush still was.
To claim Mudbox or 3DCoat are not exclusively ZBrush competitors is laughable if not a desperate effort to prove a point.
Until 2004 Zbrush failed to gain mementum because it lacked a feature that has become probably the most used feature in Zbrush even currently. Zsphere. Without them Zbrush was unable to work as standalone as it needed at least a base mesh to have adequate topology for proper sculpting that did not overstretched polygons.
That back and forth was the big turn off.
ZBrush 2 and especially Zbrush 3 focused a lot on clean topolofy and this when subdivision surfaces could no longer compete with Zbrush. So its no surprise that after ZBrush 3 which must have been around early 2005 was the time that Zbrush started turning head and it was at least considered a serious solution for organic modeling by a majority of artists.
After Zbrush 3 (2006-2007) it just took off with a wealth of new features that started overlapping with existing 3d apps and without competition it was easy to establish itself.
Unfortunately ZBrush has failed to penetrate further, the big issue it faces right now is the terrible GUI which makes it impractical for anything other than organic modeling. It has the tools to do it, which is something that mainly claimed as impossibility, but without an elegant UI it remains an organic modeling focused tool.
Blender on the other hand has managed to do what ZBrush failed to do but from the opposite side. Blender got sculpting tools without compromising on its top quality polygon tools and since then I stopped using ZBrush altogether. I tried recently to go back but the UI is unacceptably bad.
People dont prefer propietary solutions, pros do. Blender has one of the largest user communities with millions of downloads each year. Essentially if other apps are used for 3d graphics, Blender is used everywhere.
Currently together with Maya and 3ds Max , Blender dominates the 3d graphics industry mainly because of indy game developers where Blender is super popular and with the majority of games being indy nowdays , thanks to ease of releasing and promotion via steam , Blender generates millions in profits.
Proof of course how fast it reaches it goals for funding full time development of 2.8 which is unthinkable without using existing crowdfunding websites.
The problem with Blender is that it does nearly zero promotion. Companies like the one that makes Houdini pay big bucks to have artists from movies , clearly state how they used the application in the movie.
We discover the use of Blende out of accident in a video of how something was made. So its impossible to know how popular Blender is among pro artists.
On the other hand 3d apps have stagnate from features and found it since 2.5 very hard to compete with Blender.
The question is easy , if an app charges a ton of money its users why it lags so far behind in new features in each release compared to Blender ? And how a free software app with close to zero funding , evidence being the extremely small amount of full time developers and yet Blender is considered one of the top 3d apps out there, by pro 3d artists.
Blender has been also the standard for quite some time, it was the one to put Physical modeling based render engines on the map. It was the first to add a wide variety of tools in a time that using specialised tools was the norm and that is no longer the case.
It was the first to use Python as its official scripting language, Python is now the defacto programming language for almost every big player 3d app.
It was the first to integrate its own personal game engine at a time that was unthinkable for a 3d app.
It was the first to completely redesign its UI and rewrite a lot of code in 2.5 , again unthinkable for 3d app.
It was the first to establish its own movie projects and actively involve the community in the introduction of new features.
It was the first to allow user access not only to the code but the discussion of developers, unthinkable even for open source projects which prefer to keep users at a distance even more so for commercial products.
Its the only 3d app I know that takes responsibility for the maintance of third party addons even when their authors abandon them.
And the list goes on and on and on, Blender is and remains at the very top of innovation when it comes to 3d asset creation.
People seem to have missed my earlier point.
The pipeline in the big studios relies on hundreds of bespoke python scripts. The big studios use python 2.7 because Houdini, Maya, Clarisse, etc. use python version 2.7 . Blender uses python version 3.x .
A big studio has little incentive to rewrite/alter hundreds of python scripts, especially when rewriting or altering those scripts will break them for the established software. Add on to that re-training staff and/or hiring new staff.
The GPL issue is an extra annoyance that shouldn’t be a factor but unfortunately the people at the big studios who make pipeline decisions, think it is an issue.
I think that for those who are familiar with how companies, especially large companies operate, it’s probably no surprise that few are willing to make a change in the software they use. Maybe for a new startup it’s easier, but changing software is a big deal.
First of all, you need an IT group/department who is familiar with the software and can support it. Which means the IT dept needs someone they can call for immediate 24/7 support, especially for companies whose lives depend on their software to meet tight schedules. Does that exist for Blender?
Second, I assume that when it comes to multiple artists working in some sort of pipeline, the software needs to be designed for collaboration, and having many users hand off stuff to the next guy. Does Blender have that, compared to say Maya? I don’t know, but I’m guessing Maya is designed for big companies.
Third, companies are generally willing to invest in software if they can have maintenance agreements, and have direct contact with developers, and maybe even have some say in future development in the areas they need for their production. Does Blender have that?
Fourth, it is often extremely difficult for a company to change its base software. Just think about everything that is involved in getting rid of some software and changing over to something else. All of those custom scripts you wrote are useless, and you have to re-do that with the new software. The IT guys have to test the new software to make sure it doesn’t mess up their corporate systems and shut the company down. The IT guys have to become experts in the new software, and support the employees when suddenly it crashes and shuts down production in the middle of a tight deadline.
Fifth, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. If Maya or whatever is working, they have many years experience and have it all working smoothly, why bother messing with a good thing? Doesn’t make sense. And no, Blender is NOT free for those companies. The cost to change to a different software is astronomical, and can take a very long time, during which time your IT guys are booked doing the evaluations and tests. And you have to locate and hire the same excellent class of artists who can work with Blender instead of the old software, or else hope the existing guys can figure out Blender quick enough to meet the schedules. And when you think of how long it took YOU to figure out Blender, your realize it’s not an easy task.
And on and on. Oh, and don’t forget to add in healthy amounts of ego and politics, which generally are a significant factor in any decisions made by us humans…
Don’t think for a minute that Blender is a cheaper option, or is just as good as what they already have. Because at the end of the day, when you really have to figure out the REAL costs vs. benefits, it’s a lot more of a challenge than you might think. And for those who think it’s just a matter of cost and features, um, no. Most of the other stuff far outweighs cost and features for a real life company.
A point to point response to all of this
- A major reason for Blender’s huge userbase is because it is free, meaning a lot of hobbyists, young people, and even children who otherwise can’t afford to have a 3D hobby can do that. Blender has a lot of pros too, but not as many as the commercial apps.
- Blender is popular as an indie tool, but it’s not enough to dominate the industry. Blender is making waves among small to medium sized studios, but it’s the big VFX houses that determine which apps. become the dominating force.
- It’s not the number of features, it’s the quality of the features. Blender has some features which are not much more than a hack or a black box that has trouble interacting with anything else. Others have been hastily designed and are full of bugs (hence all of the overhauls going on or proposed with 2.8).
- Blender one of the top apps. for pros? I would love to believe that, but we need a citation from a source outside of the Blender community.
- Commercial app. stagnation is more the result of the Autodesk monopoly than being unable to keep up. Look at Side Effects to see an example of a company pouring its resources into development (Houdini’s development rate is actually a bit faster than Blender’s).
- The part about close to zero funding is becoming false, the BF (together with the Institute) is generating well over 100,000 Euros annually right now (that is great funding for something free and open source).
- Indigo, Maxwell, Fryrender, and other path tracers put physically-based rendering out there for all to see before Cycles was even born.
- The game engine part is correct, but the BGE failed to keep up with the rest of Blender and is now a pile of junk (the only thing that can save it is having UPBGE as the drop-in replacement and there’s no solid roadmap agreed by that team and the BF).
- Partial UI redesigns at least are common among commercial apps. (though a total UI change in one go is indeed uncommon).
- Autodesk and friends don’t need Open Movie Projects, they have studios using their software and they are able to influence the direction they are developed (because they are the biggest customers).
- User/Dev discussion is becoming far more common among the communities of commercial software houses (though results are a little mixed). Don’t forget that most Blender devs. do not like BA so much because of constant rancor in things like feedback threads.
- The BF won’t take in large and very complex addons, the idea is to make sure an addon won’t create too much of an addition to Blender’s filesize.
I do love Blender, but we should choose honesty over exaggeration if we want to see its propagation continue to grow.