Instance Clone with Instance unchecked and you'll see what I mean. The tool create objects on new layers, so with 4 new layers my performance drops to 25 fps.
I can't reproduce this; that seems like an error with your system. The most important variables would be your modo ver, CPU, GPU and driver set. I use hundreds of layers all the time in modo without issue; they're a core component of a workable scene.
I think Blender needs a way to support better 3rd party plugin, say I can have fumeFX for Blender, or Rayfire, this would be an amazing upgrade. Anyway let's see what happen after 2.8 redesign.
For the moment I will continue to use Blender as my main tool.
ps: I'm really tired about people that know nothing about Blender but tell us what to change to make it a better.
You say that because you have an already configured Blender, made after years of utilization and you are accustomed with its workflow.
Just try to use a vanilla Blender and tell me if it's the way to present a professional software, select something and you'll notice that the tools works in a different way, C it's always active, letting you select different stuff, while B have to be activated every time you want to select something. You don't need to be an experienced user to see that this is an inconsistency between the same kind of tool, there are many of this examples. The software could be polished with very small tweaks, as I said earlier, the tools are there, but I don't see why you would assemble the whole thing like every tools acts as a separate entity, like the Bevel tool, why I need 2 bevels; the software should be smart enough to understand that if I select vertices and want to bevel them, I really meant to bevel those vertices and not that I have to manually instruct it to use the correct Bevel for the mode I'm into. Edit: I want to add that Cinema 4D works like Blender whit and object selected on the viewport, if you click on and empty space and drag, it will move the object in all directions, like Blender does, you can lock the axis with the X, Y, Z key too, like Blender, only that they will be always locked if you don't enable them again, If you hold down SHIFT and drag in the corresponding axis direction, you'll lock the operation on that axis, like when you hold MMB and drag to the axis you want in Blender to lock it. They are pretty similar for this specific task. So is not that what I use is the way it should be and I want to make Blender different because I think it's better, I'm talking about the really weird stuff of Blender.
what can I say? Sure no software out there is perfect, we can talk about specific behavior for hours, but that's not the point.
Maya with out MEL is almost an empty box, without script you can't even move properly the UVs, exactly like Blender you have to customize the software based on what you need. this is a good thing.
3Dsmax needs tons of plugin to work nicely, even external references wont work properly, even that a LOT big studios using it.
So I can't really say that blender is on the wrong path, we have an amazing modeling system, good external reference support, good instances, amazing UV tools, support OSL shaders, good animation system and python+source code.
If we won't to blame Blender instead, we should blame Softimage, Lightwave, Cinema 4D and Modo too.
It seems to be a path of least resistance thing mostly. 3D artists add new stuff to their workflow all the time, if it speeds things up. Things like Substance Painter come out and have no problem getting in for example. Even something quirky like Zbrush people can be up and sculpting/painting in a day, so it fits in easily.
Blender is a different story though. Even if you have 30 years industry experience, Blender will feel like it has a Fort Knox level barrier of entry at first. It takes most people several days/weeks of watching video tutorials before they're comfortable enough to do anything productive with it. If you're already under a tight deadline, you don't have the time to deal with it. Even if you did have the time and patience, it isn't going to be a substantial upgrade; it's basically just a cheaper version of what you already had, so the long downtime in productivity doesn't usually make it worth it.
Ton does want to get Blender into Education more, and seems to understand that in order to do that it needs to be more accessible, so perhaps Blender will wind up being competitive in the near future.
Basically, because: "What we have already works and does everything we need."
That's a HUGE hurdle to overcome. You have to offer an extremely compelling reason for a switch to even be considered.
Exactly. The headache of switching software can be a monumental task and shouldn't be downplayed. Deadlines are tight, retraining takes time and will run into resistance from people who don't want to change. You have to set up a lot of new tools and workflows outside of the software, to do things that are already functioning. Just doing the same thing in a different way will be enough friction all by it's self.
It's like learning to touch type, then having someone switch your keyboard to Dvorak. Yea technically you could learn to use this new layout, to type the exact same sentences but chances are, you're just going to use whatever you are familiar and fastest with already.
Or learning to draw with your feet. "Please make sure you hit Friday's deadline, oh and you can only use your feet from now on, good luck."
Or forcing commuters to use the American Public transportation system. Yea you get from point A to B, sort of maybe, at some point.
That being said, I hope that modern pipelines can support different types of software even open source, so people can use whatever they are good at. But whatever the hurdle, talent always finds a way to shine. Quitters on the other hand, always find an excuse.
a couple points to look into to make Blender a bit more viable for bigger movie creations;
Viewport speed! it crawls @ half a million vertices in edit mode.
Blender tends to struggle with painting on a bunch of 4k or 8k textures.16k or bigger images are currently nearly impossible inside of Blender without waiting many hours till it is loaded from external sources- same for cycles.rendering is fast thou.. but not the bvh building which is before that.
Blender/Cycles needs much better render management options,
we are currently baffled why it doesn´t distribute nor renders baked
simulations (dynamic paint,particle,smoke,smoke+fire) in the big
rendercluster to which we have access to.
Blender really needs quick(er) importers and exporters, currently it lacks at this really basic thing which can currently take easily half an hour per day of waiting since during that time Blender doesn´t even respond. A truly unfortunate sighting if you work with files bigger than 20mb like highpoly meshes from ZBrush.
support.. who to ask from the Blender community/Blender developers for official support if you are from a university??
Maya with out MEL is almost an empty box, without script you can't even move properly the UVs, exactly like Blender you have to customize the software based on what you need. this is a good thing.
That's very much an exaggeration, you can UVs without a script, lol. Sure Maya has alot of MEL, but it's very unfair to suggest that its unusable with scripts. No different to saying the same about Max and plugins.
Ton does want to get Blender into Education more, and seems to understand that in order to do that it needs to be more accessible, so perhaps Blender will wind up being competitive in the near future.
It's a sound idea, although Autodesk have somewhat thrown down a gauntlet in making their entire portfolio entirely free for education, something I wish more commercial vendors would do. And students can have a free 3 year license.
That being said, I hope that modern pipelines can support different types of software even open source, so people can use whatever they are good at. But whatever the hurdle, talent always finds a way to shine. Quitters on the other hand, always find an excuse.
It's all too easy to say allow people to use what they want, but it makes for a messy pipeline and potential messy data. One thing you want in a pipeline in good consistency in where data comes from and where it's going too. And even though formats like obj and fbx can be used, applications can handle them differently. So standardising can be a good thing.
If people want Blender to be taken seriously and be seen to larger VFX studios as a real alternative, then the Blender guys need to get in front of those studios and listen to what they say and what they want. It's this information that really adds value to knowing on what features to work on. Public forums such as this are great, but when people talk privately behind closed doors, you can get a very different picture. Believe it or not, Autodesk and the other vendors do alot of this.
Public forums such as this are great, but when people talk privately behind closed doors, you can get a very different picture. Believe it or not, Autodesk and the other vendors do alot of this.
true... most things i read here are by no means problems in a pipeline where you have to deal whith 50+ artists...
Yes, Blender's modeling tools are excellent. It has attracted a lot of attention from the industry with it's latest release and learned skills can easily be applied in other applications. Can't go wrong with it.
What software would you recommend to learn if person willing to became a 3d modeler, would Blender be an option?
Yes Blender is excellent in many ways and like people discussed in this thread quite some time ago, those big companies jumping on board with its use to actually ship products is happening. Ubisoft has recently jumped on board with Ubisoft Animation studio using it currently for production. Now with the recent release of 2.8 is the time to learn Blender in my opinion.
3DS Max is still a bit of a frankenstein powerhouse in terms of pure modeling. Modo is also strong.
Absolutely. A lot has changed since this thread was originally made. Learning Blender is probably the easiest way to get into 3D modeling atp due to its increasingly large and active community. It's also now being used by most small indie developers, and is starting to gain the support of larger ones as well.
Maya and Houdini are great ones to go with too, both are very commonly used in the games industry, but neither is anywhere near as easy to learn as Blender.
Would not recommend Max or Modo atp for newcomers, as the popularity of both of them seems to be in decline (which is a shame because both of them are great for modeling).
Blender is used a lot in the industry these days for almost everything except large scale VFX. In games you can usually just request an install for your modeling app of choice, most of the time your supervisors wont care what you work in, as long as the final delivered file ends up in a maya or 3ds max file before final submission. Blender is even easier to convince your supervisor to fight for installing because it's free! The places I see adopting blender for professional use the most right now are concept art and advertising(print work or short bumpers and logos).
Basically it's the crowd who already aren't tied to a largescale pipeline built to handle 100+ artists working on everything from Thanos' bicep jiggle to his eye's squinting or widening when he expresses a particular emotion to the 250 thousand strong alien army running across hundreds of miles grasslands in Wakanda. Blender wont be adopted for this anytime soon (if ever.) This is because the large studios that do this work have a relationship with the software companies. Sony Imageworks, MPC, Digital domain, ILM and more all can get on the phone with Autodesk if there is a showstopping bug or feature that they need fixed ASAP. There was actually a guy on the Autodesk payroll who was stationed fulltime at the Sony building. Once you know things like that it's easy to see why software like Maya, Houdini, and Mari and Nuke/Katana are so entrenched in the industry.
That being said... Linux is the gold standard OS for VFX so blender taking over as the main software of choice even though it's open source isn't as crazy of an idea as it first sounds. All you need is one studio to take a chance and produce a largescale VFX commercial using it to tip the scales and get people talking. I know this to be the case because the exact same thing is happening right now in big VFX studios concerning unreal. Nearly every studio is investigating a full real time pipeline with unreal.
I find this to be a fascinating topic right now because there is just SO much going on in our industry! Oculus Medium provides production quality sculpting in VR for those willing to take the plunge into a VR workspace, real-time raytracing is just around the corner, blender has VR support now as well and we're seeing live drive capabilities for near photo real characters in real-time at siggraph. Substance keeps pushing the boundaries of what's possible with procedural materials and with a click of a button you can have scan data from around the world imported to literally any software/renderer of choice with megascans. It's never been a better time to be an artist! (from the tools perspective that is... )
No studio is going to wholesale switch to blender unless they want to go out of business fast and close their doors. The profit margins are too small for that kinda "hey lets switch our entire studio to this unproven software!"
- You are not going to find talent fast enough when you need it.
-To give the studio I work at as an example we have like 20 years worth of tools built on maya and houdini and our own propreitary software in the studio I work at. Maya we use is just a shell to run all the tools we made. I somehow doubt porting all those to blender is going to be worth the savings of maya seat rentals we are paying.
I think it's being used out there. I know, back when I was in film/vfx, on stereoscopic 3D, they had an R&D department that had Blender. They rarely used Maya. This was back in 2011 or 2012. I think they had ideas of using Blender to create some shapes, to add depth, and add it on their own proprietary software. I just remember testing around with Blender for fun around that time, when we had a light schedule.
I went to a SIGGRAPH session last week about this subject, very interesting.
"Using Blender and Open Source in Studio Pipelines"
Some of my notes:
Jeff Bell, co-founder of the Canadian studio Tangent Animation. They used to be 100% Maya, switched over to 100% Blender. They've done 2 feature films in Blender, working on a 3rd.
In 2014 they switched from Maya. 6-7m CAD budget for the film. It grossed 20m worldwide in theaters. 2nd one is now on Netflix, 5x budget of the first. Working on their 3rd production, very large scope, huge landscapes, complex characters. They're in Winnipeg, seen lots of growth in the studio.
Upcoming USD support is much anticipated. They currently use VDB and Alembic to get from Houdini. They extended some of the code to get particle caching, to get it all rendering in cycles. FBX has been terrible, a lot of manual work. Alembic has a couple weird things. Houdini sometimes in way-off coord space. They use Blender and Nuke together all the time.
They're also using Substance Painter, Houdini, and Fume FX. They did some OpenVDB development work to get data back into Blender. They try to get artists to use Blender in every case, then note problems for fixes. Internal developers coordinate with the Blender team.
Q: How was it moving a team from Maya to Blender? Time commitment, difficulties?
Moving from Maya, the API for tools was easy. Artist training a bit harder. 1-2 weeks to get them up to speed. 300 people trained. He was first animator in Maya (!), so all the original hotkeys are actually his. It was hard for him to adapt to Blender ui at first. But he was first to use Blender in house. Did 3 little 1-minute pieces in different styles, prove the case. Everything in Blender, beginning to end, including editing. That was version 2.5 timeframe.
Studio Khara/Project Studio Q - They just joined the development fund a week or two ago. They're working on an Evangelion movie, but I don't think they've said what capacity they're using Blender. The 2d animation features seem like a no-brainer for anime studios, though.
Anyway, still not a lot of studios, but with the popularity of 2.8, I think more studios will add Blender in the next few years. Even if it's just a secondary app in their pipeline.
Right now the biggest thing blocking more studios from switching to Blender is likely performance. I think that should be the #1 priority on Blenders roadmap atp.
@Ruz from what I can tell, Max is not doing so well atm. Everywhere I look people are talking about Blender, and/or switching to Blender. Companies are also apparently dropping Max in favor of Maya at an increasing rate. Autodesk didn't exactly inspire confidence either when they decided that Blender was a big enough threat that it was worth announcing Max indie on the same day as Blender 2.8 was released.
I'm trying to move from max to blender now for a while.
The biggest thing was the ui. But with 2.8 I have to say it's not an issue anymore.
The 2nd biggest thing I have to consider is how to port my maxscript tools over to blender. But after getting into python scripting for blender I have to say it's way more comfortable, better to debug and allows faster iterations (using visual studio code + blender dev extension) I have to say I totally dig it so far.
I'm working from an external ssd and with blender I can simply model and write addons from there, no matter where I plug the ssd in.
The few bastions 3ds max still holds (for my workflow) will fall sooner or later - and if not - I'll write my own tools - in blender.
I just had the pleasure of installing 2 apps today. 3dsmax 2020 and Blender2.8.
Blender 2.8 Download: 83mb Install Time: 10sec Final size: 300mb Temp install files: Where they belong
3dsmax 2020 Download(s): 1) 2gb, 2) 1.96gb. Why two files? Good question... Install Time: ~9min Install Size: 3.75gb Temp install files: 8.17gb in C:\Autodesk, just sitting there with it's smug stupid face.
I should have included the time it took to log into the autodesk site, navigating their nightmare management UI and then finally downloading what you need, but I didn't.
It can take a lot longer if you run into account/auth issues like our studio did 2-3 years ago. We lost several days of production time to Autodesk dragging their feet to fix an issue with our main account. Even after it was fixed, if we auth'ed a sub-user, it would take about an hour before it would show up under their account. What a colossal cluster fuck.
If it is possible for us to switch we would, in a heartbeat.
If you think "oh hey I'll finally get rid of autodesk!" guess what? The uninstall process is 3x the headache that the install is. You might as well take the afternoon off, you're not getting any work done.
90% of my Add/Remove apps are Autodesk garbage and they all take a punishingly long time to uninstall, I think they add a delay just to screw with you. Plus, you never really know if the latest version is using one of those apps or not, I guess you just have to roll the dice and uninstall it to figure it out or just leave it there... mocking you...
This isn't even counting all of the bullshit autodesk apps leave cluttering around in .../Users/AppData and in .../MyDocuments and in the registry. Honestly it would probably be easier and faster to just format the drive and reinstall windows.
Now that it's installed you have to add back all of the useful things (plug-ins, scripts UI customization) that actually make 3dsmax usable.
It's not that I'm in love with blender and learning it because I think it's better than 3dsmax or Maya, it's not quite there yet, but all of this bullshit friction that they put on the process just to use their software, on top of the outrageous price tag for software that barely changes year to year but they force you to upgrade. It is just too fucking annoying to keep dealing with it year after year.
I prefer 3dsmax for modeling, it has some really awesome workflows. I prefer Maya for animating, it has some really amazing tools.
BUT... I'm really close to giving up both, if blender can support what I need to do with a reasonable pipeline, I'll probably switch over in my personal work and advocate for changing it at work too.
I made a commitment to myself a couple of months ago that when i'd finished the current personal project i was uninstalling all autodesk products and moving to Blender.
I've just finished that transition. The biggest thing holding me back from blender was that as a freelancer i needed to do things quickly, learning on the job wasn't an option. Now i'm at Rocksteady i have the freedom to learn blender at home with no drawbacks. And, interestingly, there is a big shift happening at work, a lot of people are learning Blender in their free time and some have started to adopt it at work too. Our final asset export has to go through max, but that could change in the future too.
Most of our max pipeline tools are authored in python and it's a constant wrestling match to keep them working, there are interesting times happening, i think the move to blender will be initially painful on a studio wide level but ultimately it will be a big benefit... if we actually do it, of course.
Well, if I was looking into getting back into a studio environment these days I'd certainly love to just bring in my blender configuration and get going within minutes instead of dealing with shuffling data in and out of Max/Maya again.
Really happy with my move from Max to blender I undertook in 2016 which was motivated by the forced subscription move. Never expected the app I settled on to turn out this popular. Good times!
I'd say 2.8 is not anywhere near the performance required to take over for professional work and managing production scenes though. Viewport/editing speed and animation playback don't look too hot right now. I'm still firmly on 2.79 and am only gradually transitioning and am hopeful that performance issues get sorted in the next few releases.
I've been using Blender for a little over 10 years, and I haven't ever seen it developing as fast as it is now. Just a couple months ago they only had around ~5 full time devs. Due to the success of 2.8, they're now at ~15-20ish. That isn't even including studios like Tangent and Ubisoft Animation pushing their own patches.
Blender has so much stuff coming down the pipe right now, it's difficult to keep track of it all.
- OpenVDB Remesh hit master branch a couple days ago
- I think OpenImageDenoiser landed earlier today.
- I saw a LANPR staging branch earlier today---not sure if that means its close or what. (real-time line drawing btw)
- The Outliner GSoC stuff might be committed next week.
- UDIM, and Mantaflow are still 2.81 targets; I think the Asset Manager and Overrides are as well.
- Eevee and Cycles have several patches in the works.
Max 2018 still had problems with modifying the geometry of an imported FBX, completely fucked all the normals on the model. This ranked in the top 3 reasons for me ditching this shitty software
Looks like the fault of wherever you exported it from.
Not really... as long as it's an FBX import, removing edges can (apparently randomly) destroy the normals on the whole mesh. It doesn't matter where the object was exported from, it can even be from 3dsmax.
It seems to happen most commonly (in my experience) if you have multiple smoothing groups on a mesh, as the FBX import into max doesn't preserve those correctly for some reason.
The writing was on the wall for me when the single thing I was most excited about in a new max version was that they'd removed the stupid big square button in the top left of the application window and re-added the regular "File" menu drop-down.
To play devil's advocate though, the more time you spend with software in general the more you'll realise that on some level all software totally sucks. You've just got to choose the one that ticks the right combination of boxes for what you need. afaik Blender still has some pretty big limitations on the rigging/animation side - it's looking like a better alternative as time goes on but there are still problems with it.
The writing was on the wall for me when the single thing I was most excited about in a new max version was that they'd removed the stupid big square button in the top left of the application window and re-added the regular "File" menu drop-down.
To play devil's advocate though, the more time you spend with software in general the more you'll realise that on some level all software totally sucks. You've just got to choose the one that ticks the right combination of boxes for what you need. afaik Blender still has some pretty big limitations on the rigging/animation side - it's looking like a better alternative as time goes on but there are still problems with it.
I have to admit that blender is out-of-the-box imo better for rigging and animation. For rigging there is a really nice and cheap plugin too.
So from what I've discovered till now this is not a place where blender is lacking that much.. me not a pro though
Well, rigging - I hardly know about that. But skinning - definitely one of the wakeup calls for me when I evaluated alternatives to Max. After years of dealing with that Skin-modifier (or does anyone remember that abomination called Physique?) trying out Blender felt like I was finally using an app not stuck in the 1990's.
What software would you recommend to learn if person willing to became a 3d modeler, would Blender be an option?
As a modeller, specialising in mechanical hard surface. In my humble opinion Blender certainly has the credentials too compete favourably alongside other popular DCC polygonal suites but for the time being at least, if your aim is to pursue an industry career then an ADSK toolset (...either Max or Maya) would be my advice for a core option although on the other hand by all means if your interest leans towards personal work/hobby or even a potential freelance avenue then yeah, Blender is more than capable in fulfilling a raft of requirments especially at the moment with release of the 2.8 trunk update.
EDIT Funny to think when I'd first opened up a 2.4x version, the app was seen wholly as a 'hobbyist' tool, not to be taken seriously...how things have indeed changed, for the better it seems.
I just had the pleasure of installing 2 apps today. 3dsmax 2020 and Blender2.8.
Haha I have the mostly the same stuff installed by default when you get Maya/3DS but it's still funny how they put so many crap in there where you really question its utility..
I mean: ''Autodesk Genuine Service'' ?? Lol wth is that. License service? FBX review? Is that all really necessary??
When I tried Blender 2.79 for the first time it was already felt like solid alternative to many proprietary 3D packages, there is no doubt Blender 2.8 satisfying needs of regular 3D modeler.
Though, here is example why it is still may be important to be familiar with Maya/Max: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/slug/maya-tools "The Animation and Rigging Toolkit is used by Epic for all internal projects, including Fortnite, Paragon, Robo Recall, and Unreal Tournament. Autodesk Maya is required to use the tools (we use Maya 2016 internally), as is a Windows operating system."
When animator sending you .mb file with your character model during rigging, to make few topology fixes for animations.
After learning modeling in Blender, when 3D tools and workflows became familiar, it makes sense to check Maya for example, and look for same 3D tools and workflows. Most of them are very similar in different packages, almost like simply learning new user interface.
@ez5k you need to be able to adopt to any software required - but - the decision which software will be used is often decided by the (lead) artists and this can slowly lead to open source winning against pay-to-rent models.
In the past I once decided in favor for max vs blender. The next time I would choose differently
Looks like the fault of wherever you exported it from.
Not really... as long as it's an FBX import, removing edges can (apparently randomly) destroy the normals on the whole mesh. It doesn't matter where the object was exported from, it can even be from 3dsmax.
It seems to happen most commonly (in my experience) if you have multiple smoothing groups on a mesh, as the FBX import into max doesn't preserve those correctly for some reason.
It looks like you have locked normals on the mesh. Normals are automatically locked when you import from a FBX.
To fix this you need to set the FBX importer to unlock the normals on the mesh when you import it. It's a setting under 'Geometry' in the presets window that pops up when you import it.
I made the choice to give Blender a go during the 2.8 beta phase. I'm at a place professionally where I can take the time to learn new software and not be pressured to deliver assets on time (like when I was freelance) and when I really do open up to freelancing again, I want my Blender speed to be as close to if not faster than where my Maya speed is. I so far think I enjoy modeling in it over Maya, though it's UV toolkit is a touch lacking (I bought a plugin or two to get about 85% there).
I also happen to love Eevee and Cycles.
HOWEVER.
I will likely always have an educational copy of Maya on hand to check my work and keep current. And like it has been pointed out many times, it's either the wrapper for other core tools or the final stop before an external engine.
This monstrosity has been a rant of mine several times on the Max beta over the last few years............. the main targets being the shitty legacy material libraries that you CAN'T disable on install. Some 'stuck in a timewarp, early 2000s Arch-vis nerd' might have projects somewhere around the world that has dependencies on these materials so every other poor bastard HAS to install them....Any self-respecting Arch-Vis studio/artist is either using Substances or Quixel or scans these days, but no.....these ancient and rubbish quality materials are a MANDATORY install EVERY time. The first thing I do after a fresh Max install is uninstall every single one of these legacy wastes of HD space. It has something to do with legacy Max bloatware file dependencies so they CANNOT be disabled.
As for Blender, I jumped on the 2.80 bandwagon myself a few months back. Still on Max day to day for work, 2.80 learning for fun. Modeling in Blender is a lot of fun, with some really refreshing concepts and workflows. However, Max modeling is still a beast and the modifier stack is far superior to Blender's. Also, I miss the incredible Spline tools from Max, and Max viewport raw power.
This is a HUGE red flag for 2.80 at the moment. The edit mode perf is terrible. This should be top priority for the devs and there have been a few commits related to it. Until this is sorted out I won't be leaving Max any time soon.
Blender nightlies is so nice. I haven't actually even downloaded the official 2.80 as I've just kept on with the 2.81 builds. Think of the joy I feel knowing that Blender beta is a 150meg download that doesn't even have to be installed, retains EVERY SINGLE UI customisation, hotkey, and addon, and doesn't disrupt anything at all. It's almost like magic. On the other hand.....deciding to install the latest Max beta has to be very carefully considered, almost planned out. Forget about your heavy UI customisations and custom scripts/plugins, check your HD space, make sure and leave half the f**king day free to install it...... It utterly blows my mind that Blender is so light. It really does. Even after a few months on the nightlies I still have a stupid, smug grin on my face unzipping that 150meg file a few minutes after deciding 'I'm going to try the latest Blender...'
Blender community I used to think were just a weirdo cult, but the more time I've spent on BA, the more I see how fantastic that community is. So active, so much life, and always interesting and involved discussions..............and still some culty weirdos...
I really have no idea what's going to happen over the next few years, but I've no doubt Blender's future is bright and I'm glad I jumped on the hype train. Max development is very exciting at the moment as well, the current dev team are doing great work, but I always have that creeping feeling at the back of my mind that any week now the Adesk corporate goons could kick the door of the Max devs down and knock over the pencil cups and plug out the computers.......
It's just not enough people in studios yet who got enough Blender experience.
I seems a single one who use it for example. Even sometimes it may gives you immediate advantage over Max .
For example we support instances in game engine and had to place hundreds of them along a road. It's spacing tool in Max,right ? Once you place them they are set .
In Blender it's what was "dupli" before and now "instancing" And they stay "live" within the curve/invisible polygon stripe which you could project with shrink wrap to ground surface and stay interactive too. Those instances appear or disappear along a road automatically. The whole scene could stay interactively editable to a level I couldn't ever recreate in Max.
I am sure MAx capable for that too with its Creation Graph they introduced few years ago. I couldn't figure out a thing. Tried it it Houdini and got lost there too, especially with how to keep things exported as instances.
In Blender it's just 2x2 . It's why I prefer Blender. Not because it's better but because it have always been simple and easy.
Well, there are some studio who are beginning to make a shift to Blender. I just read an article citing how the Japanese animation studio behind the recent Neon Evangelion re-boots are switching over to Blender.
You want to know what one of the primary reasons they mentioned for their decision was? Because it made it easier for them to work with 3rd party animation contractors. Smaller studios can't always afford to staff up, even when working on larger projects. Sometimes, for larger efforts, they have to hire out work to contractors. But smaller contractors can't always afford licenses for major software suites like 3DS Max, Maya, etc... But they can afford to download the latest copy of Blender. Switching over to Blender can allow smaller studios to collaborate more efficiently outside of their core team.
Now, that's more of a selling point for smaller studios, and not so much for larger studios. (where a greater degree of work is likely handled in-house) But it is a compelling reason for why some professional animation houses might begin eyeing Blender with more interest.
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Just try to use a vanilla Blender and tell me if it's the way to present a professional software, select something and you'll notice that the tools works in a different way, C it's always active, letting you select different stuff, while B have to be activated every time you want to select something. You don't need to be an experienced user to see that this is an inconsistency between the same kind of tool, there are many of this examples. The software could be polished with very small tweaks, as I said earlier, the tools are there, but I don't see why you would assemble the whole thing like every tools acts as a separate entity, like the Bevel tool, why I need 2 bevels; the software should be smart enough to understand that if I select vertices and want to bevel them, I really meant to bevel those vertices and not that I have to manually instruct it to use the correct Bevel for the mode I'm into.
Edit:
I want to add that Cinema 4D works like Blender whit and object selected on the viewport, if you click on and empty space and drag, it will move the object in all directions, like Blender does, you can lock the axis with the X, Y, Z key too, like Blender, only that they will be always locked if you don't enable them again, If you hold down SHIFT and drag in the corresponding axis direction, you'll lock the operation on that axis, like when you hold MMB and drag to the axis you want in Blender to lock it. They are pretty similar for this specific task. So is not that what I use is the way it should be and I want to make Blender different because I think it's better, I'm talking about the really weird stuff of Blender.
Sure no software out there is perfect, we can talk about specific behavior for hours, but that's not the point.
Maya with out MEL is almost an empty box, without script you can't even move properly the UVs, exactly like Blender you have to customize the software based on what you need. this is a good thing.
3Dsmax needs tons of plugin to work nicely, even external references wont work properly, even that a LOT big studios using it.
So I can't really say that blender is on the wrong path, we have an amazing modeling system, good external reference support, good instances, amazing UV tools, support OSL shaders, good animation system and python+source code.
If we won't to blame Blender instead, we should blame Softimage, Lightwave, Cinema 4D and Modo too.
Why big studios don't use Lightwave !!1! 8P
Blender is a different story though. Even if you have 30 years industry experience, Blender will feel like it has a Fort Knox level barrier of entry at first. It takes most people several days/weeks of watching video tutorials before they're comfortable enough to do anything productive with it. If you're already under a tight deadline, you don't have the time to deal with it. Even if you did have the time and patience, it isn't going to be a substantial upgrade; it's basically just a cheaper version of what you already had, so the long downtime in productivity doesn't usually make it worth it.
Ton does want to get Blender into Education more, and seems to understand that in order to do that it needs to be more accessible, so perhaps Blender will wind up being competitive in the near future.
It's like learning to touch type, then having someone switch your keyboard to Dvorak. Yea technically you could learn to use this new layout, to type the exact same sentences but chances are, you're just going to use whatever you are familiar and fastest with already.
Or learning to draw with your feet. "Please make sure you hit Friday's deadline, oh and you can only use your feet from now on, good luck."
Or forcing commuters to use the American Public transportation system. Yea you get from point A to B, sort of maybe, at some point.
That being said, I hope that modern pipelines can support different types of software even open source, so people can use whatever they are good at. But whatever the hurdle, talent always finds a way to shine. Quitters on the other hand, always find an excuse.
It's all too easy to say allow people to use what they want, but it makes for a messy pipeline and potential messy data. One thing you want in a pipeline in good consistency in where data comes from and where it's going too. And even though formats like obj and fbx can be used, applications can handle them differently. So standardising can be a good thing.
If people want Blender to be taken seriously and be seen to larger VFX studios as a real alternative, then the Blender guys need to get in front of those studios and listen to what they say and what they want. It's this information that really adds value to knowing on what features to work on. Public forums such as this are great, but when people talk privately behind closed doors, you can get a very different picture. Believe it or not, Autodesk and the other vendors do alot of this.
3DS Max is still a bit of a frankenstein powerhouse in terms of pure modeling. Modo is also strong.
Maya and Houdini are great ones to go with too, both are very commonly used in the games industry, but neither is anywhere near as easy to learn as Blender.
Would not recommend Max or Modo atp for newcomers, as the popularity of both of them seems to be in decline (which is a shame because both of them are great for modeling).
Basically it's the crowd who already aren't tied to a largescale pipeline built to handle 100+ artists working on everything from Thanos' bicep jiggle to his eye's squinting or widening when he expresses a particular emotion to the 250 thousand strong alien army running across hundreds of miles grasslands in Wakanda. Blender wont be adopted for this anytime soon (if ever.) This is because the large studios that do this work have a relationship with the software companies. Sony Imageworks, MPC, Digital domain, ILM and more all can get on the phone with Autodesk if there is a showstopping bug or feature that they need fixed ASAP. There was actually a guy on the Autodesk payroll who was stationed fulltime at the Sony building. Once you know things like that it's easy to see why software like Maya, Houdini, and Mari and Nuke/Katana are so entrenched in the industry.
That being said... Linux is the gold standard OS for VFX so blender taking over as the main software of choice even though it's open source isn't as crazy of an idea as it first sounds. All you need is one studio to take a chance and produce a largescale VFX commercial using it to tip the scales and get people talking. I know this to be the case because the exact same thing is happening right now in big VFX studios concerning unreal. Nearly every studio is investigating a full real time pipeline with unreal.
I find this to be a fascinating topic right now because there is just SO much going on in our industry! Oculus Medium provides production quality sculpting in VR for those willing to take the plunge into a VR workspace, real-time raytracing is just around the corner, blender has VR support now as well and we're seeing live drive capabilities for near photo real characters in real-time at siggraph. Substance keeps pushing the boundaries of what's possible with procedural materials and with a click of a button you can have scan data from around the world imported to literally any software/renderer of choice with megascans. It's never been a better time to be an artist! (from the tools perspective that is... )
Some of my notes:
In 2014 they switched from Maya. 6-7m CAD budget for the film. It grossed 20m worldwide in theaters. 2nd one is now on Netflix, 5x budget of the first. Working on their 3rd production, very large scope, huge landscapes, complex characters. They're in Winnipeg, seen lots of growth in the studio.
Blender for modelling
It's already starting to happen.
@Ruz from what I can tell, Max is not doing so well atm. Everywhere I look people are talking about Blender, and/or switching to Blender. Companies are also apparently dropping Max in favor of Maya at an increasing rate. Autodesk didn't exactly inspire confidence either when they decided that Blender was a big enough threat that it was worth announcing Max indie on the same day as Blender 2.8 was released.
The biggest thing was the ui. But with 2.8 I have to say it's not an issue anymore.
The 2nd biggest thing I have to consider is how to port my maxscript tools over to blender. But after getting into python scripting for blender I have to say it's way more comfortable, better to debug and allows faster iterations (using visual studio code + blender dev extension)
I have to say I totally dig it so far.
I'm working from an external ssd and with blender I can simply model and write addons from there, no matter where I plug the ssd in.
The few bastions 3ds max still holds (for my workflow) will fall sooner or later - and if not - I'll write my own tools - in blender.
Blender 2.8
Download: 83mb
Install Time: 10sec
Final size: 300mb
Temp install files: Where they belong
3dsmax 2020
Download(s): 1) 2gb, 2) 1.96gb. Why two files? Good question...
Install Time: ~9min
Install Size: 3.75gb
Temp install files: 8.17gb in C:\Autodesk, just sitting there with it's smug stupid face.
I should have included the time it took to log into the autodesk site, navigating their nightmare management UI and then finally downloading what you need, but I didn't.
It can take a lot longer if you run into account/auth issues like our studio did 2-3 years ago. We lost several days of production time to Autodesk dragging their feet to fix an issue with our main account. Even after it was fixed, if we auth'ed a sub-user, it would take about an hour before it would show up under their account. What a colossal cluster fuck.
If it is possible for us to switch we would, in a heartbeat.
If you think "oh hey I'll finally get rid of autodesk!" guess what? The uninstall process is 3x the headache that the install is. You might as well take the afternoon off, you're not getting any work done.
90% of my Add/Remove apps are Autodesk garbage and they all take a punishingly long time to uninstall, I think they add a delay just to screw with you. Plus, you never really know if the latest version is using one of those apps or not, I guess you just have to roll the dice and uninstall it to figure it out or just leave it there... mocking you...
This isn't even counting all of the bullshit autodesk apps leave cluttering around in .../Users/AppData and in .../MyDocuments and in the registry. Honestly it would probably be easier and faster to just format the drive and reinstall windows.
Now that it's installed you have to add back all of the useful things (plug-ins, scripts UI customization) that actually make 3dsmax usable.
It's not that I'm in love with blender and learning it because I think it's better than 3dsmax or Maya, it's not quite there yet, but all of this bullshit friction that they put on the process just to use their software, on top of the outrageous price tag for software that barely changes year to year but they force you to upgrade. It is just too fucking annoying to keep dealing with it year after year.
I prefer 3dsmax for modeling, it has some really awesome workflows.
I prefer Maya for animating, it has some really amazing tools.
BUT... I'm really close to giving up both, if blender can support what I need to do with a reasonable pipeline, I'll probably switch over in my personal work and advocate for changing it at work too.
I've just finished that transition. The biggest thing holding me back from blender was that as a freelancer i needed to do things quickly, learning on the job wasn't an option. Now i'm at Rocksteady i have the freedom to learn blender at home with no drawbacks. And, interestingly, there is a big shift happening at work, a lot of people are learning Blender in their free time and some have started to adopt it at work too. Our final asset export has to go through max, but that could change in the future too.
Most of our max pipeline tools are authored in python and it's a constant wrestling match to keep them working, there are interesting times happening, i think the move to blender will be initially painful on a studio wide level but ultimately it will be a big benefit... if we actually do it, of course.
This add-on has saved me a lot of headache during the transition personally: https://nevilart.blogspot.com/p/about-bsmax.html
Max 2018 still had problems with modifying the geometry of an imported FBX, completely fucked all the normals on the model. This ranked in the top 3 reasons for me ditching this shitty software
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqAMIl8aS94
It seems to happen most commonly (in my experience) if you have multiple smoothing groups on a mesh, as the FBX import into max doesn't preserve those correctly for some reason.
To play devil's advocate though, the more time you spend with software in general the more you'll realise that on some level all software totally sucks. You've just got to choose the one that ticks the right combination of boxes for what you need. afaik Blender still has some pretty big limitations on the rigging/animation side - it's looking like a better alternative as time goes on but there are still problems with it.
For rigging there is a really nice and cheap plugin too.
So from what I've discovered till now this is not a place where blender is lacking that much.. me not a pro though
ez5k said:
Bump
What software would you recommend to learn if person willing to became a 3d modeler, would Blender be an option?
As a modeller, specialising in mechanical hard surface. In my humble opinion Blender certainly has the credentials too compete favourably alongside other popular DCC polygonal suites but for the time being at least, if your aim is to pursue an industry career then an ADSK toolset (...either Max or Maya) would be my advice for a core option although on the other hand by all means if your interest leans towards personal work/hobby or even a potential freelance avenue then yeah, Blender is more than capable in fulfilling a raft of requirments especially at the moment with release of the 2.8 trunk update.
EDIT
Funny to think when I'd first opened up a 2.4x version, the app was seen wholly as a 'hobbyist' tool, not to be taken seriously...how things have indeed changed, for the better it seems.
I mean:
''Autodesk Genuine Service'' ?? Lol wth is that.
License service? FBX review? Is that all really necessary??
I've never heard of it. Does anyone even use it?
almost everybody uses it, you should as well, otherwise you will be missing out!
Though, here is example why it is still may be important to be familiar with Maya/Max: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/slug/maya-tools
"The Animation and Rigging Toolkit is used by Epic for all internal projects, including Fortnite, Paragon, Robo Recall, and Unreal Tournament. Autodesk Maya is required to use the tools (we use Maya 2016 internally), as is a Windows operating system."
When animator sending you .mb file with your character model during rigging, to make few topology fixes for animations.
After learning modeling in Blender, when 3D tools and workflows became familiar, it makes sense to check Maya for example, and look for same 3D tools and workflows. Most of them are very similar in different packages, almost like simply learning new user interface.
To fix this you need to set the FBX importer to unlock the normals on the mesh when you import it. It's a setting under 'Geometry' in the presets window that pops up when you import it.
I also happen to love Eevee and Cycles.
HOWEVER.
I will likely always have an educational copy of Maya on hand to check my work and keep current. And like it has been pointed out many times, it's either the wrapper for other core tools or the final stop before an external engine.
You want to know what one of the primary reasons they mentioned for their decision was? Because it made it easier for them to work with 3rd party animation contractors. Smaller studios can't always afford to staff up, even when working on larger projects. Sometimes, for larger efforts, they have to hire out work to contractors. But smaller contractors can't always afford licenses for major software suites like 3DS Max, Maya, etc... But they can afford to download the latest copy of Blender. Switching over to Blender can allow smaller studios to collaborate more efficiently outside of their core team.
Now, that's more of a selling point for smaller studios, and not so much for larger studios. (where a greater degree of work is likely handled in-house) But it is a compelling reason for why some professional animation houses might begin eyeing Blender with more interest.