CG software survey results
interpolator
this is the results to a survey done on the cg industry to find out which software developers are really meeting their customers needs.
http://www.cgenie.com/cgenie-content/104-cg-community-survey-upgrades-09.html
Have you guys seen this surveys results? do you think it realisticly portrays the state of software in the 3D industry?
http://www.cgenie.com/cgenie-content/104-cg-community-survey-upgrades-09.html
Have you guys seen this surveys results? do you think it realisticly portrays the state of software in the 3D industry?
Replies
i´m sure this will make things ... bettöör
-> my 2nd sentence was referring to the first one
oh i see :P sorry hehe
zwebbie its still worth learning maya as it is industry standard it just doesnt have the customer support/attention that you might be getting with blender according to this info.
Personally I dont think this survey is too accurate cause blenders features or updates are what might be very old features in apps like maya - like for example a decent interface design and people cant tell me blender is the best at meeting customers needs when it still has an aweful interface
HAHAHAHA!
I think surveys like this are typically bogus. It is all just a bunch of opinions and not really solid proof of anything. Out of 2022 responses? Come on man, that is probably a fraction of a precentage of the people that use this kind of software. That is like taking a little over 16% of the opinions of members here on Polycount alone. By no means is that any number to base a survey on for a medium such as this.
Also, IMO, Blender shouldn't even be on the list. Updates? Support? It is Open Source software! It is FREE! And from my experience, their tutorials and interface are hands down awful. How that program got to the top of the list is beyond me. It is continually developing software, which is cool and a big plus over other software, but like Ged said, those features have been around in other packages for a long time.
http://www.blender.org/development/current-projects/blender-25-project/
and then eye through this:
http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/
to see how far it has come.
Regardless, I never heard of this survey either, and for the most part, it looks like a publicity stunt if anything.
Modo and Houdini, they should be over Blender IMO. Maya and 3DS will never go anywhere since the destruction and annihilation of Discreet and Alias.
God bless you Max, you much used, much hated bastard.
Autodesk is no different than the number 1 ranked person/company in anything I follow. They take shit for everything they do, good or bad.
I'm just happy Carrara and TrueSpace are never going to be on that list, or any real list.
i guess you know something about statistics and sample size?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_size
in fact you could tell a lot about the software usage and "how do you like..."-stuff, if you take randomly 2022 (aktive) forum user from polycount & Co.
that internet surveys are generally not very strong concerning the validity of the data is another story
OUCH man! That was a hardcore bitchslap! :poly114:
No matter what bug they choose to fix, some will feel left out in the cold.
No matter what feature they implement next year, some users will say 'that's just what I need', and other users will say 'this new stuff is useless, they will never add things I actually need'.
The software is used by so many people, in so many different areas, you can't really plan out the next year of work and please everyone with your efforts.
If they change a large, fundamental aspect of the program, a lot of people will have to be retrained, possibly at great expense. Might not sit well with someone whose got 30,000 licenses of the software and is working on a tight budget or time restraints.
Then you have all this newer software. They have smaller userbases of people with different mindsets. These guys can rock the boat frequently without upsetting too much, and their users will look forward to adapting to the new changes.
Anyone who ends up in Autodesk's position will end up with the same troubles.
lol
The survey was polling user opinion. Max or Maya users may think think that Blender's UI is terrible but Blender users almost universally love it, and thats all that was counted in the poll.
You can also see the numbers of users for each software that responded to the survey in the first question that was asked. 5% using Blender sounds about accurate to me...
I'm mostly neutral about it, I will accept any of the future changes that will come with 2.50, but I still have the most uber uwmapping tools out of the box without having to install plugins
lscm-unwrapping rocks my world.
ps, rightclick is always select.
Stop defending material things so viciously, just gives a weird impression.
Constant wars over people who cling to languages or methodologies in those languages, all over nothing. People will refuse to learn or accept certain techniques because someone once said that it was bad, or it had a problem that was solved years ago. People badmouth certain languages because of unwarranted or outdated reputations, etc..,etc...
It turns into a holy war, and everyone is pretty much full of shit.
--
lmao. I actually sat through that exact fight when someone didn't want to use pastels instead of his pencil for an assignment.
but what you said about the first impression was true though, when looking back at the earlier versions of blender when I started using it, early 2000, it's night and day kind of difference.
ohh, where's silo here? hexagon?
I use too many programs too.
Blender. Is made by Kitchen-Aid.
I think the only thing this survey proves is that the number of users an app has is inversely proportionate to the percentage of them who obsess over it.
And for the record, I am a blenderhead.
Of course even if Im not imagining this, the damage has already been done and Blender's reputation for zelotry will be around for years to come.
I don't see too much zealotry on the Blender Artist forums. Just a few outspoken freetards, and the rest are just having fun using Blender.
As for the part of the survey about how close you feel to the developers. It seems to add up. Ton > Autodesk it seems. Everyone hates Autodesk. They are the big evil. Ton is a cool guy.
This is not true- Autodesk has many more people who obsess over their software than Blender does. The main difference is, the Autodesk people are professionals and paid for their obsession- they are called 'marketing and sales.' And they weld much more professional power than all the blenderheads do, unfortunately. So yeah, it is easy to say, 'oh these Blender people are just rabid fanboys' (not what you are saying, others are though)... don't forget Autodesk- how many billions in revenue did they have last year, compared to these other apps- spends MILLIONS of dollars on marketing and sales every year. Autodesk spends more on marketing 3ds Max in a year than Blender has ever spent in development over its lifetime.
That is a completely unfair comparison. Just because people may defend tools irrationally or unfairly does not mean all defenses or comparisons of tools is unfair or irrational. Especially on the technical level, there are fundamental issues and differences between software that does not make one the same as the other in any realistic sense. I'm tired of being told this- yes they all have problems, but in no way, shape, or form, are they all equal. Max especially is fundamentally worse from a larger pipeline perspective than the other programs. And the consistently bad ratings of Max and Maya clearly demonstrate that this isn't an arbitrary distinction but is a real and tangible trend and difference.
I know it sounds really progressive and open-minded and thoughtful to say 'whatever dude they are just tools, all the same', but they are not all the same. The companies are screwing you over, and when you take this perspective you are just opening up your cornhole for their gapermaker.
But nowdays, its being used more and more professionally, so there's not as much need for the holy defenders to defend it anymore, and more focus can be put on teaching the community, working on a better blender, and make art.
I mean, when polycount started there were no blender'ers here, but now there are quite a few around.
I guess instead of just wanting to hear that something sucks about the application, it would be even better to get the feedback the program needs, in constructive form, on the main forums..
others would love to hear what could open up blender more to more people, which is essentially what blender lives on, its users.
And because of that, I no longer uninstall the late 2.4x builds in disgust. :thumbup:
although I have something I'm working on, as a realtime scene, that I will release as a .blend later on, all for the sake of blender.
Yea no doubt. Though if I ever mention that its my primary software potential employers act like I have leprosy.
I can't remember if I mentioned I was a blenderuser, but I think it didn't matter that much, as long as I could learn the application of the company pipeline,..
even this day, having learned max, and sitting with dozens of tools, I still use blender for modelling.
Blender is no additional cost for the company
Some seem to assume something is wrong with you if you don't use what they use, like you couldn't figure it out so had to get some obscure program. Some also think that there is no way you could transition to a new program before they hire you, like their artists have X number of years using it and its just impossible to catch up. It may take months for you to find the extrude tool. DON'T GET ME STARTED I AM ABOUT TO HULK OUUUUUTTT!! hehe
EDIT: Though I should make it clear this is only some studios. I've seen some like Vigil who actually say in their job ads what modeling app you use doesn't matter.
http://www.cgenie.com/cgenie-content/107-cost-versus-value.html
happy
And the Houdini one I missed.
The inverse is also true. Max and Maya both scored pretty low in each category. But they are also some of the most expensive software packages on that list. It's a little obvious. Uber-expensive upgrades to uber-expensive packages don't seem as good a value as budget-priced and free software.
This actually speaks to something I've been thinking about for a while now. What is the point in having super-packages like 3DS Max and Maya? With the increased specialization within the indutry, it doesn't make as much sense to have do-absolutely-everything packages like that. At some point, they become so dense and feature-bloated that no one can use all of their features without years of training and practice. And if all you want is to make a single character model, do you really need all of the other stuff? A lot of the smaller apps are a lot less feature-rich, but are also a lot more focused. (and as a result, are even better at their chosen specialty)
If anything, this survey definitely has me more interested in Houdini. I know fairly little about this software, but its results in this survey were quite telling. The customer support was especially surprising. I'm a confirmed Blender-head, but the nature of Blender has always made the documentation a bit on the spotty side. (it's what comes from having a community-driven piece of software who's specs and features are constantly in flux) The Houdini team sounds like they are really doing right by their community in terms of support and documentation. There's a lot to be said for that.
The problem is that moving data around between apps is not ideal. All the apps have different internal representations of things, and you can't convert them to basic types like obj which are limited and 2 decades out of date, and get the same thing in the other app.
Collada is better, but not a silver bullet. A lot of stuff has a standardized representation that can be converted back and forth, but you will always lose application specific stuff.
If everyone agreed on everything 100% and made an 100% file to interchange data, innovation would stagnate pretty badly, or you'd end up in the same situation as now, with files everyone can load, but that can't possibly transfer things that other programs have no concept of, or have a very different concept of.
When a program does everything, you get the same interface, documentation in one place, and all features are aware of all other features. Not every user needs to use every feature of a program.
This is why a lot of people are beginning to go for more of a pick-and-choose approach to acquiring software packages. It's also why the market for smaller, more focused packages is expanding. Silo 3D is a very specialized package. But if you're exporting a model from it, you don't generally have anything to worry about. Silo 3D is all about straight-up modeling, and doesn't support animation. So as long as you can export a static model format that another software package can read, you're good to go.
Model it in your modeling program, then kick it out and animate it in your animation package. More competitively priced focused packages are more economic when the tasks you are working on are equally focused in scope.
Getting 100% compatibility for a format isn't going to happen as long as the industry is divided over software packages. And if Autodesk is any example, removing competition from the industry is the last thing we want to happen.