Blender 2.8, Have you made the switch?
polycounter lvl 18
Curious here, not sure if there was already a thread on this, but since blender's big 2.80 release, how many of you have started to try it, or switched over to it? How many of you used to use blender, then stopped for something else possibly more feature-full, and now returning? Do you guys think its now a big contender for people to take more seriously for either both industry or hobbyists?
If not, what is stopping you from switching or using it?
For me back in the day it was mostly user interface, and workflow, and how easy it was to get things into games at the time like half life. There also seemed to have been more community support for it at the time with great people creating powerful scripts and plugins. I always liked 3ds Max for that. I have tried Maya as well, and preferred that to blender back in the day. But i still liked Max over Maya. I am starting to like and use blender a bit more though.
If not, what is stopping you from switching or using it?
For me back in the day it was mostly user interface, and workflow, and how easy it was to get things into games at the time like half life. There also seemed to have been more community support for it at the time with great people creating powerful scripts and plugins. I always liked 3ds Max for that. I have tried Maya as well, and preferred that to blender back in the day. But i still liked Max over Maya. I am starting to like and use blender a bit more though.
Replies
iam loving it.
Yes, it has some performance issues. Yes, it's not perfect(what DCC is?) Yes, it has a few unique concepts to get used to(some of which are a great strength) Personally, I haven't regretted it one bit and am glad I put in the time to learn it. I am still using Max and am still active in the beta, but it remains to be seen if I will fully adopt Blender for most of what I do. I will still probably use Max for Tyflow/PhoenixFD/Arnold/Ornatrix, but who knows what will happen in the next year or 2.
Here's a Blender 2.80 for Max users tutorial series I did last year that may or may not be useful to you.
The 2.8 interface certainly seems easier to pick up than previous versions, and there's some nice modern elements (like the viewport) which are noticeable upgrades since Softimage has been practically untouched for 12 years. At the moment I mostly just need to break some old habits; I need to stop hitting the space bar constantly when trying to deselect things, and I have to get used to right-click selection, the idea of switching to an Edit mode before being able to select any components, and how certain actions (move/scale/rotate, extrude, etc) are instantly attached to the mouse movement instead of offering a gizmo.
Switching to modes is a core workflow of Blender: object, component, sculpting, weight painting, bone(armature) edit, etc.
As for the gizmo, initially ferlt the same way coming from Max, but once you get used to it it's fantastic. There is also a feature when you activate the translate tools where you can click MMB and axis is picked up based on mouse direction. I use this all the time now and it saves a ton of time over traditional gizmo movement. Also, you can still use gizmos if you prefer.
Since posting yesterday, I have discovered that I can enable gizmos to appear whenever I make any kind of selection, and toggle them with Ctrl `. So while it's not as ideal as what I would prefer (having a key like 'S' work more like its Shift+Space+S counterpart), I still find this to be better.
I've also discovered how to use object.mode_set_with_submode keymaps so that I can still use 1,2,3 to access components without having to manually switch out of Object Mode.
UV mapping in Blender 2.82a is pretty good right now, it does a decent work with simple assets and specific tasks, but not so much compared to other tools i use. Its use is a bit tedious though, and the results are horrible with certain models.
If you want to learn the basics: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1F2ddGya_-UvuAqHAksYnB0qL9yWDO6
Too many things have changed with 2.82a and newer betas, but it's almost the same. You can learn Blender in a few afternoons, all is very well explained, shorcuts included (too many things that are not included in the blender help for my surprise). Don't forget to write the most important shortcuts on a txt file, and try to remember them. And if you want to learn more advanced aspects, blendermarket has great paid tutorials, for rigging, shading, lighting, etc.