Recently, I was in a fanfilms IRC channel and I mentioned my short R2-D2 vs. Yoda (plug plug plug). Some people said they thought it was very good, for something made in Blender. Which is just not true. My lighting, texturing, and often modeling are pretty crappy (though I think I am pretty good at animation and editing). I pointed that out, and gave them a link to @ndy’s Mindfields. They were blown away just by the picture of the grass on the front page, they never thought that was possible with Blender.
So I think a lot of the people who haven’t used Blender don’t realize that Blender is actually capable of doing anything significant, and just assume it’s a simplistic toy.
I’m not sure what can be done about this, but I felt like ranting a bit about it.
there was a few other thread about this in the past…
I think the best way would that everytime someone make something good, post it on other 3d boards, so more people get interested into it…and also recently I,ve seen banner announcing the blender all around the net on some 3d site, that is a very good way to get people interested.
but I don’t think there is much to do…for most of the people, when it’s free…it isn’t so good…THAT’S NOT TRUE!!!
heh…I post all my work at like, 6 forums…I’ve had NUMEROUS lightwavers, maxers, or Maya users MAD at me. I’ve been cussed out before because my works equaled their own (ok, so they wern’t the bst artist in the world, if they took the time to learn their program, my works WOULDN"T equal their own. but i think people have come to respect blender a bit more.
Part of this comes from the fact the most professionals don’t use blender; most of us are non-pro. which means: we lack formal training, have school or day jobs unrelated to cg, or perhaps can affort to be less perfectionist about it.
As a result, the work we do is of a different quality than that of the pros. In my mind this is OK, though. The vast majority of pro-cg artists are commercial artists, not fine artists, so they don’t get to be totally free at their work. While the polish of the blenderers is not as good, there are many blender animations/project the show beautifully the artistic vision of the artists. As time goes by, both the program and the artists are improving towards a critical mass where both will be taken more seriously by the cg community at large.
That being said, there are many pros using blender, and there are quite a few pros I’ve met who never questioned my choice of app- they simply didn’t care about what application I used, and all the commentary/critique/praise focused on my actual work. A2597: Those are truly nice planetary renders you produced. I’m not surprised people like them
Most people who spend thousands of dollars for a program don’t want to hear about or believe there is a program that is free that can do anything close to what they spent money on. This also follows human nature where if you own a certain type of product (say a car or a game system) then you think what you have is the best and the other brands are inferiour.
I think people’s opinions on Blender are already changing. I’ve seen several works on CG Talk by Blender users where people say they didn’t realize Blender was capable of that. And alot of people on CGTalk and other professionals don’t care what tool you used but what the end product is like.
Just keep putting out and posting good Blender works and people will notice.
Paradox
Yes, I’ve seen similar things… Most of this comes from the popular assumption “If something costs money, it is good. If something is free, it is crap”.
You cannot blame those people for thinking like that, though. They are poor victims of capitalism and evil take-over-the-world marketing strategies developed by capitalist leaders.
I remember my guest father (or however you call that) in Bolivia being all like “Here, look! This is Microsoft! Good software!”, and I was like “Well, you can do all that with free software…”. His only answer was “No, that’s free, it must be shit!”
Of course, Blender also has a problem with its userbase and how it represents to the outside. I don’t know if it’s similar to other communities, but the amount of “simple-minded” people here is simply amazing.
What’s over-proportionally big here is the amount of “Ghetto” users (Yo d00d teh blenduh rulez muh nigguh around da cornah). And I think this comes mainly from the fact that Blender is free - a person spending $5000 on a program doesn’t often come from the ghetto.
That said, being free is probably one of Blender’s (and Ton’s) worst problems
sometimes there comes someone who says just the right thing : you’re so right there are artists who are free and others who are not. Art in general these days and CG the most lacks painfully of the former. Blender might just be the occasion to remedy somewhat to that being itself free (as in freedom, French…)
Intrr :
can you read my mind right now ? It should be quite simple.
I’m sorry but I don’t quite buy the first bit here. %|
I hear a lot from pros in the industry that the price of any given app dosnt bother them since it usually more than pays for itself with the first job they complete.
Getting back to Hat’s original post however, I would have to say the reason people usually react with suprise to good blender work is they simply lack understanding about what the application can do. Granted blender lags behind the ‘big’ apps in many respects it still has plenty of functionality that makes it adequate for creating great imagrey. People are creatures of habit and don’t understand how anything gets done unless it’s done their way. These same people probably wouldn’t understand how people made anything nice with old copies of sculpt3d or alias poweranimator. I’m reminded right now of how some of the CGI for ‘Tron’ was done and how so much was accomplished with so little.
Another reason blender dosn’t get respect, I am sorry to say, is that some users have a habit of popping up in general CG forums and saying stuff like ‘maya/lw/XSI sux0rs, your such an idiot for paying money for 3d when blender does it all for free, MUWHAHAHAHHA!’
Although this dosn’t objectivly say anything about the app itself, I have seen it happen and what it usually does is cause the attacked party to raise defenses and poke at blender mentioning what it lacks/what is wrong with it. It’s a lose/lose situation.
I think people have to see the art. If eye candy is produced it will get attention which in turn leads to blender. I know that when I see some of the skillful renderings it inspires me to continue to learn. Is this idea too simplistic? Documentation matters a lot also. There’s no getting around these issues.
Actually I know a little story about an Alias|Wavefront vendor visiting a top post-production house (who shall remain nameless).
Basically the vendor says “So why are you going to buy Maya?” and the response “Well,” (3D pro talking) “Maya is crap, but for what we want to do on this project, it’s the least crap”.
That’s the attitude of the people near and at the top. No 3D tool is actually that good anyway. In fact, when you think about it they’re pretty awful, and a lot of us forget how long it takes before these flat planes on screen we internally perceive as 3D form. (And anyone making a move to Maya knows how hard it is to pick up that viewpoint movement system.) These tools we work with are far from ideal.
You can learn what the imperfections are, and learn how to work with and around them to get the results you need. That takes talent, time, invention, and a lot of blind luck. Blender has more imperfections than most, but you can learn to work around them fairly easily, and get top notch results. Most of the problem is it’s such a black art that once you work out how to do something you’re reluctant to pass it on, since it’s what separates you from everyone else.
Because of the way I am, I actually like the working around it thing. It’s part of the fun of it all. Pushing Blender’s limits is something we can all do, but pushing Maya, Renderman and Shake in combo to the edge and you’ll need to assemble a team better than WETA.
Lots of really stunningly good art, exposed in the right places, and solid documentation pretty much sums it up. It’s all it takes.
Since a lot (a truckload actually) of people have some sort of automatic reaction of dislike towards Blender (just read the comments from some people every time there’s some news about Blender at slashdot…) it will take even more good art, reliable documentation, online help systems and a more consistent GUI paradigm etcetera than it would for any other brand of 3D suite to get general acceptance. The alternative is rebranding, and that’s not a good option.
It’s good to look at other 3d artist work even better if they offer you their files to study. In fact it’s more useful. A topical appreciation of others artwork has very little bearing on ones own ability to master a similar type of talent or skill. The only answer to getting skilled in any 3d app is to put your effort into it. That’s it. With any demo of 3d software or app that I buy, etc. I practice my same method of approaching a project in the style that I learned way back with Ray Dream Studio. All of the basic elements that help me to produce a render are available in every 3d software app that I have used.
Blender is no different, and neither is Yafray. But I get more pleasure out of using these because I feel better about the process in which I do work with the opensource app. I think of the community based efforts that go into the software and the power of pure innovation and a desire to succeed on personal levels that drive such efforts. And when a Blender or Yafray render is as good or better than a render from any app out there I know that there is a difference. A home grown from the ground up difference. Ohhhhhhh Yeahhhhhhh! Are you feeling me folks? And it’s all organically grown, or so I assume, hehehe.
Jamesk, as a user of another 3d app, how did you react to your new “Chair”? When you first sat at mission control in your new app didn’t you first look for the same old familiar type of 3d tools that you have learned to use beforehand every time you practiced your 3d craft?
As an experienced Blender artist had you gained a grip on enough 3d knowledge to make your transition easier? Did you only have to adjust to your new environment and carry on as you always did with Blender?
WeirdHat, you may not know it but many of us Blender character animation wannabe artist were inspired by your amazing efforts to explain the Blender process of rigging. I was considering switching to another app for 3d character animation. I have my pick from Maya to Lightwave. I love working with Blender so much that I tried every tutorial that I could find on the subject of Blender character animation. It was not until I started to study your rigs that the process became clear to me. Thanks man.
Blender is the right tool for me, whether others agree or not. If WETA Digital would switch to Blender tomorrow, would that change anything to you? Would you be more motivated? Would you blend better?
I love Blender, I love elYsiun, I love the coders. Period. Good night.
