Any chance you will start working for the Blender Foundation ? Not really expecting an answer, just hoping for a some kind of silver lining with these unfortunate news.
If I were to take a random guess based upon what little we know, Iâd say that the switch from Blender to Maya wasnât due to any shortcomings in Blender, theyâve already make two feature length films with it, but due to available talent. Tangent stated they wanted to expand their production, right? Well, the easiest way to do so would be to use a pipeline just about everyone is familiar with, removing the necessity of having to spend time training their new employees. Thatâs what Maya, the industry standard, provides.
The issues arose due to not being able to refocus the entire studio onto a new pipeline quickly enough. The switch cost them more time and money than management first assumed, and they werenât able to turn things around before their investors got antsy. The writing is now on the wall.
I donât think itâs anyoneâs fault. What seemed like a sound decision ended up costing them more in the short term than it gained them in the long term, and now 400 people are without a job. Itâs tragic.
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I think they should have started moving to Maya and Houdini slowly while working on these projects using Blender/ the current pipeline they had.
I can confirm that Blender lacks what it takes in very high end production pipeline where millions of polygons, performance, huge textures, rendering time, simulation is involved.
Houdini has been a proven powerhouse when it comes to these and when deadline and mainstream expectations are required, it has proven to be hassle free and reliable. Houdini is a problem solver and has gotten so much feedback from professional companies over the years.
Blender seems more convenient for the game industry at the moment as the main software used are game engines. For films, it is a whole different ball game.
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Well speculation of course. I can say that I have been teaching people Blender in my Studio for 7 years now.
I can say from my experience that expansion and existing talent was not likely the reason at all.
It is too easy to teach Blender. Give a person a few days or a week to get around in Blender and they are off and running.
It is exponentially scalable too. With senior artists able to teach the newbies.
It would not take long at all to expand with Blender.
It falls apart when you have to wrangle all this data and use Blenderâs faulty linking system. And then how to actually render it allâŚ
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It seems that theyâve been able to address that to some extent, given that theyâre in the process of releasing their 2nd high budget project. That said, Maya probably could do it with far less headaches, so if itâs not a talent issue, then thatâs probably the main impetus for the switch.
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Donât get me started on how Blender not even having light linking for how many years now is an issue as this is used in film production especially for artistic direction and readily available in 3dsmax and Maya. I am sure Houdini has this as well.
According to Stefan Werner, Tangent Animation was still using Blender alongside other software:
So, they did not switch to Maya!
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Well hell. Iâm just gonna say that I donât know then.
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from what i hear, Blender cant do fur or production level cloth sims, the show was called moneky king. As well, heard animation could barely undo, rigging was limited, also heard they had no caching so they left rigs live till lighting. Thatâs like 2004 type pipeline mate. if that is a most connected pipeline you have ever seen? ESH. would have scared the shit outame!
So apparently, the gist of this thread is that Tangent made a huge mistake in putting their trust in Blender. The decisions by the devs. until recently were bad enough that they outright killed a studio.
If this does not ring alarm bells at the foundation, I donât know what will. Quite possible unless 3.x really turns things around as promised, the BF will be back to doing fundraisers to just keep the lights on in 10 years while everyone here is either using Autodesk apps. or a Blender fork. Now it may already have because thereâs now a much higher focus on core issues like performance, not like I am going anywhere at least, but maybe it is time for the BF to just make Blender an app. for Blender users and call it quits on trying to attract studios.
If any studio wants to join, that is fine, but it will be made clear that FOSS is nothing more than a failed concept as far as software for heavy production goes.
Thatâs the narrative you are trying to push forward, which seems to be strongly based on assumptions. As long as there is no clear evidence, this is just speculation. Please donât make it look like you are talking about any kind of facts.
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I donât think thatâs an accurate assessment at all. Rhythm and Hues declared bankruptcy the same week they won an Oscar for best Visual effects for âLife of PIâ. And it wasnât the studios fault. They tried to keep staff employed while the studios kept pushing back projects. And they had a very good Maya/Houdini pipeline. Most of the studios I have worked for have gone under⌠mmmm maybe itâs me?
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Stop. Just stop. Thatâs not even close to whatâs been said here. Youâve been warned before about stating hyperbole based on speculation as if it were fact. Stop.
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Na, it does not help if you draw that many conclusions from above the sky.
Blender actually is an app. Without doubt, it can be improved. As a community we could give feedback, point out problems, or share ideas. Or, we could create. We could push Blender to its limit, and describe the problems we run into.
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No itâs that most animation and effects houses donât get to make a profit. Itâs the publishers and film makers that get to make the moolah while the effects and animation houses get just enough to cover the employee and R&D costs, if that.
Sometimes they outright lose money since a production turned out to be more extensive and complex than originally expected and just get to be âthankfulâ they got any work at all.
This obviously applies more so to the subcontractors than the self sustaining indies like Pixar used to be or Disney-Pixar is now.
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Blender cuts it when it comes to games. Blender helped them get to where they were to land a deal with Netflix but the issue was in how they went about moving pipeline not necessarily Blenderâs fault.
But if Blender was better than its current state for what they needed it for projects going forward where they did not need to change pipeline maybe they wonât be shut down? My suggestion would have been for them to do smaller projects while gradually shifting their pipeline to Maya and Houdini to be able to take on the bigger higher production ones.
I agree the Blender devs really need to have a discussion on Blender for high end production especially in the films industry but that would take time and when that is possible, noone can tell.
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@Ace_Dragon When someone WHO WAS THERE and DIRECTLY INVOLVED tells you that your speculations are entirely wrong. Why continue speculating and base conclusions on your own false assumptions?
You have a tendency to go overboard with your own musings in my opinion.
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There are more and more companies that are offering jobs to people who also know how to use Blender
And this screen shot is meaningful to me
https://renderman.pixar.com/general-faq
A list of jobs for Blender users
Something is happening ILM offer a job for Blender to being implement it in the pipeline Blender https://jobs.jobvite.com/lucascompanies/job/o1MOffwA
Skydance Media https://jobs.lever.co/skydance/bcb115ca-7ecd-43af-93eb-bbb5db64622a
NetFlix https://www.netflixanimation.com/jobs/93173551
Amazon https://www.amazon.jobs/en/jobs/1399271/visual-effects-artist
Warner Bros. Animation https://wbproductions.app.box.com/s/1wbkffhsbcl9m15dcgvwe8l23qs8ggsw
Disney https://jobs.disneycareers.com/job/-/-/391/19596312?codes=INDEED
M74 Italia Roma https://www.m74post.com/
H&M Stockholm, Stockholm County, Sweden https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2623134371
Toyota https://tmm.taleo.net/careersection/10020/jobdetail.ftl?job=CAL0003R&src=JB-12060
and here over 90 jobs where also Blender are a skill required Animation/VFX/Game Industry https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eR2oAXOuflr8CZeGoz3JTrsgNj3KuefbdXJOmNtjEVM/edit#gid=0
To find work for Blender in this board use CRTL+F and search for Blender
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Funny. One of the reason why Renderman failed as commercial 3rd party renderer is that they ignored 3dsMax and Cinema4D market. Maya, Houdini, Katana are the program at ILM and Pixar uses. Thatâs why they make it. But, those market size(even tho you add Blender market) is tiny compare to Max + Cinema4D market.
Corona started from Max and expand to Cinema4D . Redshift quickly learn the lesson and added Max support. Pixar never learns.
I hate to nitpick here, but I donât think anyone can argue that Renderman is a failed 3rd party renderer. Itâs a staple for a lot of VFX houses and one of the leading render engines in the industry. And although Pixar and ILM do use apps like Maya/Houdini/etc, they do a lot of their own application development as well, so I donât think itâs fair to say that theyâre successful because they use those particular apps.
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