So, I am fairly new in the 3D world and all, my ambitions are to self-study with the help of tutorials, communities, visiting and talking to real-world artists in the works.
What I hear a lot, “don’t let the software stand in your way, pick your tools and use it, ignore the rest”. Yet, the loudest and most stubborn artist I met keeps shooting me down that I should always pick the industry standards and go from there if I ever hope to get a 3D related job.
My point basically is, I am thorn between two sides right now. Blender or Maya. I am familiar with both, hate the outdated and cluttered UI of Maya, but it also has a lot of tools to make things easier. I love Blender for the constant development, ease of access and the UI is miles ahead of any other 3D software I ever tried, and I tried quite a few.
Now, this may seem like a Blender VS Maya thread, but I guarantee, it is not. Call it an outcry for a second voice.
There are two issues. One is learning the concepts and workflow of 3d graphic art. The other is specific techniques and workflow of a particular software package. Anyone who hires 3d graphic artists for in-house assignments will look for someone who has experience in whatever software package they use in house, but will gladly train a talented person who is used to some other program. So, while you are learning the concepts and workflow of 3D, you can safely ignore ‘industry standard’ while you develop the skill to make a portfolio that will have commercial firms giving you job offers.
If you have access to Maya, you should build a few portfolio pieces in Maya as well as Blender, both to show prospective employers your training time may not be as high as they fear, also because doing stuff in a different software package will give you insights into workflow and methods you can bring back to your preferred package.
Unless you are looking to hire on as a temp to someone with a tight deadline, a good portfolio will get you past not having X number of years with the in-house software. If it doesn’t, then picking up the hotkeys and peculiarities of a new package is a lot easier if you are not trying to learn the basics of 3D at the same time. Your loud and stubborn critic is simply a Maya fanboy, similar to the Blender fanboys you run into around here.
If you pick up Maya and learn it, truly learn how to use it and go off the resources for it (which there are many of), you will be able to not only pick up 3d much faster but you will build up some good habits in the process. I’m a Maya user, but I use Blender as well. Maya is a very good 3d application (Though Autodesk, which owns it, is NOT a good company). Maya is solid in nearly every area. It trains you to think and approach cg in the most direct fashion. Its control scheme is also felt far and wide in many applications you may encounter (not so with blender’s default control scheme).
This doesnt mean you should give up on Blender though, rather I think you will be a better Blender user when you approach it after working with and building up your skills in Maya first. Blender is not good for someone new to 3d to start off with (in my opinion). With some changes it could be, but currently it will create some bad habits and expectations which are not normal or consistent with the larger cg industry. If you are just a hobbyist, then it probably wont matter, but for those intent on working in the industry and you want bring blender along for the ride… Maya habits and knowledge are the way to go.
Additionally, you can learn to appreciate the things Blender excels in when coming from Maya, which you probably wouldnt see without that parallel being drawn.
Well, part of the issue is the fact that despite the incredible development that Blender has gone through in the past few years, it has such a stigma among art school instructors and big studios (based on what I have read on this forum) that if you even dare to say you built your 3D experience on Blender, they will not hire you, period.
Nowadays, this isn’t even so much because Blender wouldn’t have been able to do the job, but because money is perceived as being synonymous with value and if an app. is free, than it’s seen by default as getting what you pay for, so Blender is seen as being that little app. that’s only for hobbyists and the poor. What also doesn’t help is the fact that Blender has only recently gotten into a position where it can truly have merit compared to professional apps. that have been the industry standard in areas for over a decade (and thus a lot of the studios out there already have an established pipeline that uses the big budget apps. pipelines that would be costly to do a complete overhaul of).
Of course, that’s just the functionality side, the side that Autodesk, Maxon, and most other commercial apps. still have an advantage compared to Blender is complete documentation and paid support services, conversely with Blender, the documentation is lacking in some areas and the main support is the community (which is not what professionals are looking for).
When it comes to heated debate on what packages you should use I recommend this video…
…so being as you are already familiar with Maya and able to do in it what you can in Blender, I honestly would not lose sleep over it.
Afterall, what is to say you will be using Maya when you go professional? What will your “friend” have to say if you end up having to use 3ds max? Houdini? or Lightwave? LOL, I was brow-beaten that nowhere used Blender, back in 2007, and yet the first job I applied for(rather blindly!) was using Blender in the position of junior modeller. Same place, the animators were using Softimage. Sadly didn’t get the gig and had no choice but to take an ordinary day job…but you get the idea.
There is so much more to tell, but I don’t want to bore you. (cue sounds of forum members blowing their brains out!) The point is, ignore your “friend” and use what you feel meets your needs and feel most comfortable with.
Thanks everyone for shedding some light and helping me out, the community is part of the reason I also feel much more comfortable with Blender, however silly the problem I might have, there is always someone to there to help, which I find rather lacking in Maya and there communities.
Since I pretty much started learning 3D and used Maya for quite a while, I still feel Blender fits my needs more, with some modification ofcourse(which is what makes it so great), I might stick to Blender for the time being.
One other thing I’d add to the list here: pick which aspect of 3D you like most and, even if you decide to learn all aspects, concentrate most of your learning efforts on that one aspect (modeling, lighting, animating, texturing, etc.). Get really sh*t-hot at that one thing and you’ll increase your chances considerably.
Whether you are doing graphics or something entirely-different with a computer, there are three “skills that feed the mama and the babies”:
The ability, when faced with a particular problem, to develop an effective and efficient way to solve (or to circumvent) that problem, and to communicate that solution to others on the team.
The ability to learn quickly and to adapt to an existing modus operandi, without attempting to change the world to suit the one-and-only thing that you know and telling everyone how awful everything-else is.
“Humility with competence.”
The odds are excellent that, no matter what tools you know how to use, you’re going to walk into a “shop” that is doing things a different way. Maybe you’ll think it is a hideously awful way, and maybe it is, but you’ve mastered the ability to “land four paws down.”
I think that it would be best to try to become “visibly competent” in one particular aspect-of-interest, using Blender as the tool by which to do it, and make your “pitch” with that. Get inside, even if your first job is tearing pages off a line-printer and shoving it through a slot.