I can only speak from my perspective, but I can’t remember there being a big focus on which software I’m using at any of my job interviews. For a character artists there are many things way more important. As said before, might be different in other departments.
Absolutely, nothing against that. It makes sense to invest in yourself and the best way of doing that is to learn the tools that are most suitable for the many specific cases - and as it stands currently there are many of them.
Depends what you classify as the “industry”. Arguably Blender is the closest to a VFX pipeline tool more than anything else. Clearly it’s not meant to be used for CAD. Even it’s usability in gaming is debatable with tedious baking, ancient UV and limited retopo capabilities.
I think the original point made in the post is valid surely and did not seem to be suggesting to me to only know Blender. Simply use what works best for you.
In the majority of cases as long as it works and fits seamlessly into the pipeline and everyone else’s workflows it normally shouldn’t matter what software it was created in. One of Blenders big advantages and selling points to me in production has been it’s nimble and fluid interlinked workflow. In fact the way I initially trained myself in Blender was to adopt it as my main poly modeller while working in an already established studio pipeline. It quickly became my favoured poly modeller.
Not long ago just before the pandemic I was working as the lead 3D and animation technical director on a new animated show on Netflix. We had an established Maya core animation pipeline but we also used Blender extensively throughout the production for all sorts of things. One of the breakthroughs that made this so possible now was that the Alembic integration had got good enough. And the advantage Blender offered me was again, its incredibly efficient and dependable workflow. I created a lot of the animated 3D effects work in Blender mainly because of it’s speed and ease of use, In one episode I created the entire environment and related 3D effects, moving water and sand etc in Blender. Blenders core tools and the Alembic caching never let me down when up against some very extreme and difficult deadlines. It’s proved itself to me now to be a very solid and dependable production app when really up against it. And it’s aspects like good Alembic integration that allow Blender to fit better into lager multi app studio pipelines.
I digress but that reminds me the lyrics of a french rap
FR
Si tu veux faire des films, t’as juste besoin d’un truc qui filme
Dire “J’ai pas d’matos” ou “pas d’contacts”, c’est un truc de victime
EN
If you want to make movies, you just need a recording thing
Saying,"I don’t have any gear or no contact,"is a victim thing
It might have an interlinked workflow, but it’s not good enough for the professional market in many respects. For instance one can do camera tracking with Blender, but it’s no replacement for something like Syntheyes or PFTrack. It can do editing but nobody in the industry would seriously consider cutting a feature on it. It can do compositing but once again it’s not even close to what Nuke can do. It can do geometry painting but it’s no Mari or Substance Painter. Even Cycles (or the upcoming Cycles X) isn’t up to par with the quality of Arnold, V-Ray or Renderman.
I think Blender is the quintessential jack of all trades, master of none. It can do a lot of stuff well, and even more than well depending on what one’s creative needs are – and for 99% of users out there it’s more than enough for anything they would want to do.
This is also Blenders essential character I think and what gives it it’s own identity. And how good is good enough for a particular project ? It’s evolved through its particular history and circumstance to become a mostly self contained and very nimble mini media production platform. This when combined with it’s open source nature has so many of its own advantages. Especially for small teams and studios and individual freelancers.
Perhaps in threads like this the frames of reference can become a bit too narrow. It seems to me that way Blender has evolved has opened up so many new potentials for very many and it is also finding it’s own niche and path in that way too.
Anyway I think I’ve been on here far too much. I find public forums a bit stressful.
In all honesty Blender has been industry standard for me for the past 5 years. I have never been without a job using Blender. I’ve worked on hundreds of Blender projects over the years at multiple companies. Blender has probably contributed to 75% of my life time earnings.
That’s why I detest the usage of the term “industry standard”.
People pretend like its a solid description and actual standard, like a normed, tested, determined and defined standard created by pedantic and orderly German bureaucrats when in truth a more proper description is simply: The law of the jungle aka survival of the fittest.
You live and are able to tell people about it, so you must do something right - that fact should be proof enough of its feasibility.
