Also it seems like Engineers, Educators, Architects, etc, etc, etc are taking notice of realtime possibilities and are also turning to Blender to fulfill their production needs in combination with game engines. VR, AR, (Datasmith) realtime walkthroughs. I dont think Blender has to worry about its popularity with studios that much.
I have switched to Blender now from a Maya / Max hybrid workflow I had for awhile.
The single biggest problem that will prevent most people from switching is the performance. Once you get into more complex hard surface assets the undo performance is just terrible. We're talking 5-10 seconds per undo stage. The work around is to use the undo history tab but man is it slow.
Fortunately it's currently a high priority item for them to fix. Once that's done it will be much easier to recommend. Right now I am hesitant to suggest any in the studio switch because of the perf.
I jsut tried it and was not too impressed. again transfer uv would have been nice also, but has to be same vertex order
I will look more in to that now
EDIT hey that works now ie shrinkwrap with taget normal project there was no weirdness at all. I will test it a bit further seeif I can break it:)
(this was in version 2.81 beta )
EDIT
well its a 'lot' better with 'target normal project' and 'outside', but still there were still quite a number verts that snapped to the back or front of the mesh. still not really useable
For the same reason companies don't switch to newer technologies or different programs. Support.
Blender is an Open Source project which is supported by the community, there aren't enterprise solutions which make it more costly to maintain in the long run.
You have to think about the fact that switching to new programs and pipelines costs a lot of money and time. I'd like to think that studios wouldn't decide to fire all their employees because they want to use a new program, however the result of this means retraining people and that costs well, money.
There simply isn't enough of an incentive to switch to Blender (even with it being really epic, especially the new 2.80 release) when the company has old or already existing projects which require support and maintenance. Because of the fact it would cost a lot of money to change the pipeline and because support isn't at an enterprise level.
I'd like to think that studios wouldn't decide to fire all their employees because they want to use a new program, however the result of this means retraining people and that costs well, money.
Agreed. It can also cause people to leave, especially if they don't agree with the decision to switch. They where hired to use X, they are an expert in it and they'll probably leave for another job that uses X. Especially if they think they are being forced to use a program they aren't familiar with and don't have an interest in learning. Which is totally fair, they where hired to carry out a specific set of tasks using tools they know. No one really knows how they'll preform when those tools change.
To put it another way...
CEO Says: "we're going to start painting all of our textures by hand, using oil paints (Scatters paint tubes at artists feet). Any sculpting we do will be in clay and scanned in (delivery people wheel in large clay blocks). Make sure we don't miss a deadline. See you Monday (the power goes out)."
Some people will think it's an awesome challenge, others will put their stuff in a box and leave.
What is their resistance to the change? How long will it take them to adapt? What challenges will they face in their workflow? How will the 3rd party scripts, plug-ins, tools and apps interact with this new app? Those are very specific questions that apply to those specific individuals and not easily weighed or mitigated.
It's a gamble, it is risk and it is uncertainty. Which is why business types will tell you, it is about as productive as inviting a tornado to stay at your place for the weekend while you try to clean up. "Sure lets just play chess on an earthquake table..."
Flip switches, dimmer and change... I don't think we'll see a lot of studios bite the bullet and flip the switch. We'll either see it slowly incorporated, like turning on a dimmer slowly over time, or change will have to happen as new studios pop up and people sign on knowing the full scope of the pipeline.
If you where going to replace all of the flip switches with dimmers... You would want to first leave all of the flip switches intact and functional. But install dimmers alongside the flips. Over time you can encourage people to use the dimmer, talk about the benefits and get people to start using the dimmers. Then you leave the flip switches installed but disable them, "the switch doesn't work, try the dimmer. Hey that's nice...".
^ Alongside daily branch build error checking, I'd say the core dev team will sort those issues out for ya in due course and btw dropping some coin is always helpful mitigating the process further as well...jus say'n : )
Well I think its not too complicated...when you're dealing with a free piece of software, there is no guaranteed support when sh*t hits the fan...
If a major film studio is rendering out an insane sequence deep into crunch hours and has to deliver it in 3 days....and they run into some random bug in the render pipeline...can they rely on an open source Blender team to get on the phone and fix it within an hour? With no money incentive at all? Absolutely not...now this is just a random example but when millions of dollars are on the line in fast paced environments, I dont think free software will ever be the preferred choice.
If a major film studio is rendering out an insane sequence deep into
crunch hours and has to deliver it in 3 days....and they run into some
random bug in the render pipeline...can they rely on an open source
Blender team to get on the phone and fix it within an hour?
If bedroom coders can build Blender from source, certainly an expert can do it as well, plus fixing / customizing whatever it is that the studio needs. Studios might keep their own (private) builds of Blender.
Studios dont build there pipelines around one DCC tool anymore. They are build around USD or around there game engine. Blender should be a part of that pipelines for sure.
We should stop those flame fars and start to find creative ways to get the best out of the tools we have.
Gamers dont care what tools we use to create great Art for Games they play.
Well I think its not too complicated...when you're dealing with a free piece of software, there is no guaranteed support when sh*t hits the fan...
If a major film studio is rendering out an insane sequence deep into crunch hours and has to deliver it in 3 days....and they run into some random bug in the render pipeline...can they rely on an open source Blender team to get on the phone and fix it within an hour? With no money incentive at all? Absolutely not...now this is just a random example but when millions of dollars are on the line in fast paced environments, I dont think free software will ever be the preferred choice.
Studios dont build there pipelines around one DCC tool anymore. They are build around USD or around there game engine. Blender should be a part of that pipelines for sure.
Studios dont build there pipelines around one DCC tool anymore. They are build around USD or around there game engine. Blender should be a part of that pipelines for sure.
We should stop those flame fars and start to find creative ways to get the best out of the tools we have.
Gamers dont care what tools we use to create great Art for Games they play.
1) USD as in dollars? That is very true. Which factors heavily into the decision to stick with as few DCC's as possible. Blender being free doesn't mean those costs disappear but the administration and maintenance of another DCC in the pipeline does add to the overhead and overall complexity of the pipeline.
Especially if there are custom tools that the studio uses. Duplicating and maintaining a similar set of tools for each of the pieces of software can eat up a lot of time, money and might lead to adding more technical staff to manage specific lanes of the pipeline. If a blender user also needs a seat of some other software so they can access specific tools then it's not saving. If a blender doesn't handle a particular action well or a feature is missing you will have to divert resources to get it up and functioning.
2) When we're talking about adding another DCC to the pipeline it's really adding another pipe. Sometimes people can cross back and forth but more often people tend to stay in their lane and develop specific workflows and solutions within what they have available to them. Now you have divergent pipelines that cause a number of issues... Is a particular problem coming from a specific pipeline, which one? Who will address it? Not everyone can work on everything. "Oh that's a blender asset, you have to talk to XYZ, sorry I would love to fix it but I can't."
"Universal Scene Description (USD) is the first publicly available software that addresses the need to robustly and scalably interchange and augment arbitrary 3D scenes that may be composed from many elemental assets." https://graphics.pixar.com/usd/docs/index.html
Replies
Also it seems like Engineers, Educators, Architects, etc, etc, etc are taking notice of realtime possibilities and are also turning to Blender to fulfill their production needs in combination with game engines. VR, AR, (Datasmith) realtime walkthroughs. I dont think Blender has to worry about its popularity with studios that much.
An 2.8 rox btw.
The single biggest problem that will prevent most people from switching is the performance. Once you get into more complex hard surface assets the undo performance is just terrible. We're talking 5-10 seconds per undo stage. The work around is to use the undo history tab but man is it slow.
TBH in all intents and purposes, definitely a positive sign of things too come in the realtime space.
Blender is an Open Source project which is supported by the community, there aren't enterprise solutions which make it more costly to maintain in the long run.
You have to think about the fact that switching to new programs and pipelines costs a lot of money and time. I'd like to think that studios wouldn't decide to fire all their employees because they want to use a new program, however the result of this means retraining people and that costs well, money.
There simply isn't enough of an incentive to switch to Blender (even with it being really epic, especially the new 2.80 release) when the company has old or already existing projects which require support and maintenance. Because of the fact it would cost a lot of money to change the pipeline and because support isn't at an enterprise level.
To put it another way...
Any sculpting we do will be in clay and scanned in (delivery people wheel in large clay blocks).
Make sure we don't miss a deadline. See you Monday (the power goes out)."
What is their resistance to the change?
How long will it take them to adapt?
What challenges will they face in their workflow?
How will the 3rd party scripts, plug-ins, tools and apps interact with this new app?
Those are very specific questions that apply to those specific individuals and not easily weighed or mitigated.
It's a gamble, it is risk and it is uncertainty. Which is why business types will tell you, it is about as productive as inviting a tornado to stay at your place for the weekend while you try to clean up. "Sure lets just play chess on an earthquake table..."
Flip switches, dimmer and change...
I don't think we'll see a lot of studios bite the bullet and flip the switch. We'll either see it slowly incorporated, like turning on a dimmer slowly over time, or change will have to happen as new studios pop up and people sign on knowing the full scope of the pipeline.
If you where going to replace all of the flip switches with dimmers...
You would want to first leave all of the flip switches intact and functional. But install dimmers alongside the flips.
Over time you can encourage people to use the dimmer, talk about the benefits and get people to start using the dimmers.
Then you leave the flip switches installed but disable them, "the switch doesn't work, try the dimmer. Hey that's nice...".
If a major film studio is rendering out an insane sequence deep into crunch hours and has to deliver it in 3 days....and they run into some random bug in the render pipeline...can they rely on an open source Blender team to get on the phone and fix it within an hour? With no money incentive at all? Absolutely not...now this is just a random example but when millions of dollars are on the line in fast paced environments, I dont think free software will ever be the preferred choice.
We should stop those flame fars and start to find creative ways to get the best out of the tools we have.
Gamers dont care what tools we use to create great Art for Games they play.
That's some wishful thinking there pal.
Which factors heavily into the decision to stick with as few DCC's as possible. Blender being free doesn't mean those costs disappear but the administration and maintenance of another DCC in the pipeline does add to the overhead and overall complexity of the pipeline.
Especially if there are custom tools that the studio uses. Duplicating and maintaining a similar set of tools for each of the pieces of software can eat up a lot of time, money and might lead to adding more technical staff to manage specific lanes of the pipeline.
If a blender user also needs a seat of some other software so they can access specific tools then it's not saving.
If a blender doesn't handle a particular action well or a feature is missing you will have to divert resources to get it up and functioning.
2) When we're talking about adding another DCC to the pipeline it's really adding another pipe. Sometimes people can cross back and forth but more often people tend to stay in their lane and develop specific workflows and solutions within what they have available to them.
Now you have divergent pipelines that cause a number of issues...
Is a particular problem coming from a specific pipeline, which one? Who will address it?
Not everyone can work on everything. "Oh that's a blender asset, you have to talk to XYZ, sorry I would love to fix it but I can't."
https://graphics.pixar.com/usd/docs/index.html
https://renderman.pixar.com/stories/pixars-usd-pipeline
Last Unreal and Unity versions are able to read those Data.
The core is this USD file format and every DCC is saving those files wich could be layered and Stacked.
You know, for context.
2020 is the year of pipeline building cause of the switch to Python 3. A lot is changing.