You should scroll back up and hit the like button so this can spread to more people! Get Blender Kit Here - www.blenderkit.com/r/filmstop * IMPORTANT NOTE - This video is not sponsored by Blender Kit. I use it and I get a small percentage of each sale through this link. Everything said in this video about them is my own opinion.
I think your perspective is slightly skewed, like you said, one app for modeling, one for animation, etc. This is a production pipeline, and Blender is becoming a part of that. Just look at Across the spider-verse, Blender became part of the pipeline because of Grease Pencil. While Blender isn't being used in every pipeline, at every major VFX studio, it is being widely used across the world to make CGI, VFX, and animations for TV shows and commercials. Add to this, that it's a tool that anyone with a computer that meets the specs, a tool to learn. Blender is in a great place, and will only become a bigger threat to the market, as time goes on.
One other major thing of note is after 2.8 Blender is being stuffed with half-baked and half-thought through features. Yes, now it's feature-rich, but it will take years if not decades to make these features work as intended or even design them properly. Most of those look cool on paper, but when they start working not as 'advertised', an artist has nowhere to go unless studio also rewrites parts of Blender for itself. Also, some of these features are inconsistent between Blender versions, being changed drastically or even cut. Obviously, when you plan out your production, this is a big issue.
@@ShadeAKAhayate Blender isn't alone here. Many software have this problem, add to that, Blender is one of the more stable programs. Usually only crashing if you do something silly, like subdivide one to many times.
Studios dont hate blender, no one has time to throw away 10-20 years of pipeline and start over learning a new software from scratch to rebuild it unless you start with blender
This. Exactly this. Although I did know of a studio (Tangent Animation) that switched almost completely over to Blender with some Houdini and produced excellent work. They were a relatively small studio and introduced Blender bit by bit over time. Ironically they went bankrupt after the higher-ups forced them to switch to Maya after they started on a major production already using their Blender pipeline.
@Xero_Wolf it was not much "higher ups wanted to use Maya". Higher ups only care about production output, deadlines and budget. AFAIK Maya was introduced per supervisor AND artists working at tangent, and they wanted to glue it all back at Blender using USD. Did not work. Production stalled, scene translation was not seamless, and Blender showed it was not capable to be the centralized hub they thought it could using USD. Maybe not entirely Blender's fault, but it certainly did not meet the specs needed to tie in everything.
I work as a Senior Art Producer in a professional video game art studio, and I can say without problems that Blender is part of our work pipeline, in the same way as other commercial software is also part of our work pipeline. I think when people say "Why do Studios Hate Blender?" it's because they naively think that Blender should be the only software they should use and throw away all the others. But reality doesn't work like that. We use the right tools for the right job. Sometimes it's Blender, sometimes it's Maya, and sometimes it's Houdini.
Blender is bad at texturing, so I texture in Substance Painter, the people that say "use blender for everything" are kids, new to 3D or don´t value their time.
@@TheOrijinalPajeet Depends what you're doing. For professional quality on some projects, sure, but industry standard levels of quality takes time. If you're a hobbyist, kitbashing, creating free content for fun, you'd save a lot more time by just using something like adobe stock and importing materials, megascans for some spare parts, and using some noise nodes and whatever else to make some quick masks, rather than spend all that extra time dealing with substance painter. "use blender for everything" is a completely honest phrase to say as someone experienced with 3D that values their time enough to not want to burn out from doing the first sketch > blockout model, sketch over > simple 3D modeling, sketch over again and final 3D model process that you will be using in a studio, which takes much more time than hobbyist creation. In fact, you save so much time by cutting those corners that you won't have to cut in a studio, that it sounds more like the kid is you.
@@translatedbird I make characters that are rigged and imported into unreal, with their props, haircards, the works. Use blender for everything is not a correct phase, use whatever is most efficient for you is the correct thing to do. substance is a 5 click bake machine thats good at texturing, blender is none of these things. You´re that kid, noob.
@@TheOrijinalPajeet "You´re that kid, noob." summarizes your type perfectly. I wouldn't need to add anything else under normal circumstances, except the correction that the "5 clicks" is a gross simplification. With a blender addon you'd actually be baking close to the 5 clicks advertised, the big deal is that you won't have to bother exporting and importing to and from substance, and you won't need to have multiple apps open at once (just blender) That's besides the point anyway, if you're trying to save on time, you wouldn't be using substance or blender to make the materials, you'd be importing materials and make masks to get the look you want. Guess what program you rigged in, that's right. You probably animated it in it too. That's called a time saver. What's the phrase? Git. Gud.
@@translatedbird "With a blender addon" What if the addon breaks and the dev stops giving a sheeet?. What if the addon stops working in newer versions?. What if the support ends? What then? As a COMPANY you have to ask these questions. I know addons exist, man, I prefer Substance for ease of use, simple. Works out of the box. >you'd be importing materials I´m texturing IN SUBSTANCE. All the brushes I need. I´m not importing jack besides color IDs from the sculpt. Git good indeed.
We don't need Blender to be industry standard, the beauty in blender is it's versatility, the accessibility and price. It's good for everybody. Blender is not trash. It's just not for big studios.
I'm happy blender is not industry standard, in that case blender would be forced to become a mature boring corporate software with many restrains in its feature development. The best part of blender is that since is not tied to any standard it have the freedom to be fun and going some steps ahead with its own ideas. Blender needs to exist and have its place not only because is free, but because it have a diferent role for a different target (mainly amateurish but majoritary), it fills a gap that has been becoming more noticeable since industry software became more prohibitive, closed and started to adopt the suscription model crap. If you are working on a studio none of that is a problem, but what about the other 90% of people who are students of hobbyst, they should be alienated until becoming worthy of touching a proper serious 3D software only aimed for high end industry productions? People forget that industry is only a portion of the 3D world, software don't need to be "validated" by the high budget hollywood industry to be worth of being used, there are many other industries where blender have its place, not all studios work with huge pipelines with thousands of people. We have jobs in printable figures industry, advertising, visualization, indie content creation, videogames, etc...
Blender flexibility reminds me of another industry standard: Softimage, which was quite extended, especially in Japan. The industry uses what most people say they use, regardless of the actual functionality. Blender quality is industry grade, just, not the most published by "profesionals". Something I'm most grateful because keeps Blender away from their pressure.
If blender were industry standard amateurs wouldn't use it for their hobbies. Professional features are overwhelming for basic users and not fun to learn
If blender ever got to the point where it COULD replace C4D, Maya and Houdini, you would want for it to become industry standard. It would mean that all your years learning it, could branch out into massive studios seamlessly, which isn't the case atm. Being industry standard is a great thing for its users. And as much as it's probably never gonna happen -and that doesn't take away from how awesome blender is- it would still be great for the community.
I can tell you. You are young. I started with Cinema 4D back in 1998. I got it from a friend, had to print out a 1000-page manual with my home printer and started to learn 3D. There were no UA-cam Channels or anything that helped me out. Through the years, I got invested into the C4D community. But I struggled to get a job in Germany. Every big company was using 3dsmax. I finally found my first job after over 150 tries and was able to use C4D. During that time, I started to use 3dsmax at home, learning. In my second job, I started with 3dsmax and moved forward. Today, my main tools in the game company I work for are Cinema 4D and 3dsmax, while all other artists use Blender. Most of them are juniors. It's totally fine. I learned to use Blender as well over the years, but are still blazing faster as a Senior Artist by using the tools I am used to for over 26 years. It might be easy for young people to say: Oh, just spend a couple of weeks with Blender, but there is much more to it. Blender in my perspective wants to be a Jack of all trades and combines some strength of 3dsmax, C4D, Maya and other apps. But you will never get the modularity of Cinema 4D in Blender or even 3dsmax when working with modifiers, and how they interact with objects in the outliner because is it a complete different approach on using modifiers on an object directly. Every app has its strengths and weakness. 3dsmax is excellent with exporting capabilities and I found it way easier to export from C4D to 3dsmax and then to Unreal Engine and not directly exporting from C4D to Unreal, since the FBX exporter works different. I don't think Studios hate Blender. There is more to it. First: You have customers and other companies surrounding you. I can give a simple example why it's the same with Gimp and Photoshop. If I used Gimp and exported in Photoshop Format, there is a chance of error. If the customer gets these files, and they are either not working or print different outcomes that would not happen if the files come from native Photoshop, I get into BIG trouble. We are talking in $10k+ trouble here. Blender in direct comparison had (or still has) horrible FBX export and maybe plenty of issues on other ends that other companies like Autodesk or Maxon don't have. Second: Pipelines. You can't just use Blender when you have a complete Redshift or Houdini-Vex driven pipeline. Nobody cares that it's free when it can't do what the existing pipelines are capable of. There might be a day when all of this is possible, but that does not change overnight. I want to be honest: I tried Blender many times in my life… since 1998. And many times I regret the time I spent on version 2.49 and earlier. Try it. It was horrible. With version 2.5 and up, it slowly started to evolve and got a lot more attention. And definitely, there are many artists who do excellent work with it. I bow my head to the people who create stunning art and animations with it. It is capable of doing a lot, and probably the same that other applications can do. But you also can't just delete 30+ years of existing knowledge. Older artists in small to big companies may know a couple of tricks in 3dsmax, Houdini, Maya and C4D that a youngster with Blender would never expect to exist. Blender is cool. I love Blender! But I also learned what it can't do. Suggestion for young artists: Definitely stick with Blender! This is what Cinema 4D was for me when I was young. However, also… keep your eyes open. Be open to try every 3D app. Try 3DCoat. Try Modo, Lightwave, 3dsmax, Houdini Indie/Free, C4D, Plasticity, ZBrush, Marvelous. -- And then… stick to the apps that YOU like, not that others tell you It's cool and swag and fresh to use. XO 3D Boomer Dad
@@cjacobs627 Thank you! I feel humbled that somebody actually read through it. I could probably talk for hours on these topics, even about AI and how it is actually changing my workflow today.
That's a really good inspiration to young artists like me and yeah I do know how to use 3ds max but still I use blender as I really like modelling and sculpting in it. and for 3ds max I kinda make interiors in it for fun. but still I was worried if I could get selected in any small studio, if I just know blender?... I'm thinking its possible since i'm not reaching for the top fruit in the tree just yet haha
I agree but this is a general problem on UA-cam. If you don't click-bait the title you don't get any views. It sucks for viewers but creators have no choice. There is a great video by Veritasium "Clickbait is Unreasonably Effective" that explains the problem.
You missed a huge reason why studios wouldn’t use Blender in the early days. Not because it was slow (EVERY program back then was slow.) Blender’s open source EULA back in 2002 required users to release their source project files along with their movie, huge no from studios with licensed IP. Glad that changed.
I don't think he meant "slow" compared to today's software - obviously all were slow compared to today - but slow compared to the other alternatives. Which is very often the case with graphical acceleration for smaller software companies, especially starting out. And this is a much bigger reason the some might think. Things taking just 10-20% longer to do due to graphical performance is a HUGE waste of time and money. Not to mention a source of frustration for users.
Wow, that was a really harsh EULA. I am a passionated animator, who's working on his first episode of a very elaborate animated channel - and even for me, it would not to be considered just throwing my project files out there. I'd happily made ads for Blender, showing all my work with the program, but giving these files to other people to mess around with them and potetionally abuse my many handmade assets, I wouldn't.
I remember using blender back in 2002. It was also an inscrutable mess that nobody would consider using for anything serious. Very different from blender today.
@@marcfuchs6938Yes no way I would publish blend files of my characters and original acenes for my animations/series, not even for money. And if I wanna post something I wanna decide to monetize it or not. Very good they got rid of that eventually.
Are you sure about that? I remember there was a huge misconception for years about Blender's license, but I don't think it ever obliged people to release the project files along a film. But I might be wrong.
@@STRIDER_503 exactly, the "industry standard" is the only reason windows is even used, it comes preinstalled on everything, so people don't even consider linux, windows continues being the norm, and the cycle continues
You didn't mention the most important thing: Blender does not have multimillion contracts with education institutions that push it onto students as part of their courses.
Fifteen years ago, I worked for a large international private institute focused on video and media education. They made massive amounts of money from students, but it seemed to me that there wasn’t much profit to be made from the software side. However, I must assume they had some kind of deal with Apple, as they suddenly started giving out iBooks to every new student. They claimed these laptops were "free" for students-right after raising tuition by $1,200, which was exactly the cost of those laptops. In other words, they effectively forced every new student to buy an entry-level Mac. This was some type of big deal between an educational institute and a tech company. But I know something else: they definitely never had any “get paid to use our software” deals, beyond the standard price discounts available to educational institutions. Amusingly, they were also involved in a conflict with Adobe because Adobe refused to sell them educational licenses. I will not talk about the reasons, but Adobe really had good reasons not to do Business with that institute. As a result, the institute had to pay full price (!) for every Creative Suite (CS) version. This situation led them to encourage us, the teachers, to switch to “free” software to save on licensing costs. It was embarrassing since we, as teachers, wanted to equip students with the skills needed to secure well-paying jobs, which meant using industry-standard software, not saving the institute a few dollars or euros by switching to free alternatives. Nowadays, though, I feel differently about that last point. “Free” software has become a very good alternative, and I personally use Blender.
Reminds me of an art achool in San Francisco that over time turned into essentially a massive real (erm, um fake) estate company that shuttered or got acquired by another art campus. I knew of or read about said school (maybe 2010-2014) compelling students to buy Mac laptops when many or some students already had art machines but just wanted formalization of their skills. Sadly, probably half or 3/4 of the students were foreign nationals whose parents wasted $50k to >$100k only to see their diplomas from that school mean next to nothing. I don't know what software they used, or whether students resorted to piracy. IIUC/IIRC, major software titles sometimes enrolled undercover students to determine what and how much piracy existed. Not sure if any findings led to implosion of the school, or if it collapsed under the weight of SF fining it for tax evasion/code violations, and acquiring unregistered wink-wink residences/biz sites run as biz sites/residences. Buying up and removing SROs from the housing market super-irritates the City and residents. But, SF is regarded by some as corrupt beyond even NYC, so, maybe that's how tons of SROs got removed from access to non-art students moving to SF? Well, til the house of card fell down. But, a number of moving parts led to its demise. Its competitor is still around, but seems like a shell of its former self given how few of its student/staff limo vans can be seen. I knew maybe 8 people who attended the now-long-ago imploded school. I make it a point to read the credits of 90% of anything I watch. I've never seen names of people I knew. Did see companies, but not people I knew maybe they went home and worked outside of the industry, or toiled in it unrecognized? @@schnittmagier5515
@@3dbob891the university I went to openly admitted to accepting money from Microsoft to use the Windows NT kernel as the main reference in their OS design course.
I have worked in the industry for over 5 years, my longest experience was at Outpost VFX. I worked with people that worked at ILM, Digital Domain, Rodeo Fx, and Legion VFX and can confidently say that we don't "hate" Blender. At Outpost, we did have Blender downloaded (I did not use it as I was the Lighting Artist) but it was probably most likely for one thing. Modeling. Yes, we used 3DS Max and Maya for modeling a lot of the assets, but for smaller things you can use Blender because at the end of the day you can export it as an FBX or OBJ to the Texture artist to get it UVed and then so on and so forth. Blender can be a part of the pipeline like every other software in the industry, but I do not know why people think it has to be able to replace everything in the pipeline just because it can do everything decently. I use blender as my main modeling software for my personal projects, then I bring it into maya to UV and texture with Substance. I personally like lighting in Arnold, so I light and render in Arnold, and I composite in Nuke. For studios like Pixar, it won't replace it because it has in house software like how some game studios don't use Unreal because it has an in-house game engine. But if it doesn't become industry standard, so what! Continue making cool stuff with Blender! Why do you care? Cause you won't get a job? That is not true, because the workflow translates over software. Keep making art and stop worrying about things you don't need to worry about.
For studio, switching is almost always out of the question. They can add blender into their tool set, but cannot ditch the old tools, else they can't open their old asset.
Nothing to do with not being able to open their assets. This is ridiculous. With the money they save from licenses they could hire someone to convert the assets. Blender is horrible for production of any important assets in a high end professional pipeline. Maya and 3dsmax are professional tools designed specifically for professional pipelines and Blender is not, and everything else is nonsense.
@@keelfly Conversion may not be perfect. It is a risk studio won't take. Business continuation is priority. Asset, other than data/model/drawing, also include pipeline, plug-in, filters, custom tools, etc.
@@keelfly "3dsmax are professional tools designed specifically"- it used to be a poors man Softimage, used mostly to model furniture and packaging. It wasn't better, it was cheaper. Then, with time, it became more professional and now is "industry standard". With blender might happen the same - more features and (more importantly) growing user base might elevate it to the "industry standard" role. 5yrs ago there wasn't even discussion, now people are making animations on it.
@@artephank Not true. 3dsmax was used for full pipelinestuff in game development around 96-2006 I would say that for gamedev it was THE goto software around 2000. Softimage lost traction and the new version came to late and was never truly adopted (sadly) - softimage was big in Japan during the whole period tho. Maya started really to rise in game dev from around 2000. So no it was not used to do furniture, that max became more of an arcviz software is something that happened after mid 2000s
In Morocco Blender is becoming industry standard for architecture renders but it depends if it's a small studio or freelancers, some bigger studios still use other software but it's starting to change a lot
As someone who has used blender for years that has worked with industry professionals, the main problem Blender has (according to studios) is that it just does things differently sometimes that cause it to not work well with other programs. As someone in vfx, one of its biggest flaws I have found is the lack of native ACEs support. Sure you can manually set it up it but it creates problems with lots of adddons and renderfarms. It’s kind of frustrating that they recently pushed the whole “AGX” profile when it doesn’t really get used outside of blender. Another big development that blender hasn’t jumped on is USD and MaterialX, which other programs and productions are now becoming fully dependent on.
There is a survey on the blender website until October 22, about the direction of development and new functions. The questions also include a point about full support of USD
That's not actually true about Blender not having native ACES support. Blender does have ACES colour management, just not in the render settings. You need to set the colour management to Raw (in the render settings) and then in the compositor use a Convert Colourspace node to convert the render output from linear to either ACEScg or ACES2065 - 1, whichever you prefer/need. And now that Blender has the viewport compositor up and running on the GPU, you can work in ACES right from the outset, rather than just rendering in ACES at the end.
You didnt mention a few things here 1 - Pipeline tools : Large studios have their pipeline tools built with Maya, Max etc which makes them efficient in what they are doing. Be it Scanline or Weta, no one uses the softwares in its default state. Even in games industry it is like that. So their pipeline being built with these softwares makes them the most efficient in what they do. 2 - Educational License : Autodesk caught the market by giving away their softwares for free to learn for students and universities. This will make every student learning vfx workflows or game den workfllows already well adopted to the software, be it maya, max, etc, before they go job hunting so there is no need for VFX houses to hire someone and train them, they are already well versed in the software like animators knowing Maya, etc. This is the move that I feel made the Autodesk softwares entrenched in media and entertainment pipelines.
3ds Max is not just a software specialized in modeling; it is used for designing interior architecture, environments, industrial products, and for creating animations in games. In fact, I use many different software, and sometimes I combine both Blender and 3ds Max because there are things that Blender can do that 3ds Max or ZBrush can't. I feel that this is a very impartial video, not biased towards any software. I hope that one day Blender will soon find its place in the CG industry
@@RodneyKimbangu In my architecture school everyone hates 3ds max. it supposed to be the best for modelling, but in reality both blender, rhino, c4d is equivalent or better, except 3ds max is ugly and inconvenient. And crashes way more than all the other softwares listed.
Blender is like that one superhero which doesn't gets sponsors, TV interviews, bright and shiny cape and suit. Blender helps EVERYONE in need (not only president's daughter) without asking for anything.
@@saynapolygons Overhyped, maybe, but why would you say it's overrated? An insanely powerful software, whose competitors are only available for serious money, yet which is able to compete with them in every visual means, how is that overrated? I think it absolutely deserves any bit of fame it receives.
First time I see not a "Blender Guru ultra hype - let's make a world in 3 minutes" video about Blender. There is another reason why Blender is not a replacement / standard in the CGI industry. It is pipeline stability. As for maya - it is highly dependent on python. Next version of maya can have different python version included which might lead to rewriting some tools to be compatible again. Not a big deal but usually those tools are developed in-house so there is always someone who will keep them up to date. Writing tools for max, houdini things are kinda better. Those two programs have excellent backwards compatibility. You write tools nearly "once" and later there is almost no maintenance caused by changing program to newer version. As an example tools / scripts written for max 2007 version work flawlessly on max 2025. In Blender you have LTS versions, which ( I hope ) keep this compatibility but it is also python related software. Also Blender API is also something which is evolving with "cutting tails" in mind. Which is a good thing as they do not create their technical debt too long. So from my semi personal experience, our tech pipeline team wrote custom exporter for Blender 2.81. Then Blender 2.82 came out and exporter stopped working. So they fixed it. Then Blender 3.0 came out. Guess what ? And then 3.2 and so on... Another bad thing is "3$" Blender addons. They work as long as their author has any reason to keep them on par with Blender progression. If big studio will buy them ( cheap !! ) and rely on them in their pipeline, they are sitting on a ticking bomb. Each move to newer Blender version will be a potential risk that those plugins they rely on, will not work AND their author will not support them anymore. Then you have to keep your internal tools updated AND those external written bu God-knows-who. Very GOOD and grounding video.
If you write in MEL, as I did for 20 years, you can still run complex code in Maya from 1998! Yes, you can. For code that old, you might need to tweak one or two parameters, but MEL is to CG apps what Windows is to OS's.
@@thehandleiwantedwasntavailable but isn't mel as macro based scripting ? mimicking player input ? but even if is like that, that's great. I'm not a Maya clicker so sorry for my shortcut in this regard :)
Probably the best video I've seen on this topic. So many videos seem to ignore that even the most junior artists cost at minimum 10x as much as a maya licence.
I think you're missing an important aspect and it is that blender devs are full of shit sometimes. People would report that really important features you'd have in maya or maybe another big 3d software aren't available in blender, or it can't be done, and they would tell you "that's intended" and close your thread. Let's not forget how they thought making right click select the only option was a good idea for like 15 years... if it weren't for Andrew Price we would still have another unusable piece of shit FOSS program. Which is sad because blender has a lot of potential to become industry standard, even more with addons created by its community, often for free or really cheap.
Agree with you on the Dev stuff. they do fix bugs pretty fast. Texture paint is a prime example of ignoring user feedback for a long time. The right click select was conceptually a good idea but in the end i'm glad they finally let it die. Lets hope they don't eliminate the 3d cursor to placate the masses. Its keyboard shortcut heavy workflow and infinitely configurable UI are things i miss in every other program. Oh and pie menus!
@@thedarkmatterplanet wait there are people who don't like the 3D cursor? I can understand wanting to hide it sometimes but the rotate tool is barely usable without it!
Exactly, i made a feature for free and guess what they did? They bashed me, and made everything to make it look bad, even tho most users supported it. They are backwards.
People that keep repeating this idea that studios don't like and don't use blender are people that have no experience in working in medium to big studios. Stop making assumptions of things you don't know.
They had no idea how frustating to make Blender work with other softwares in BIG STUDIO environment. Maintaining the pipeline connectivity and data ingesting process to make it compatible with the rest of softwares the artist using ARE LITERAL HELL 1. You don't get visibility key attribute on Alembic import/export 2. Your geometry considered as non-existent if it's hidden for just 1 frame throughout the cache process 3. No namespace, any linked library objects just forcefully get new name when there is an existing object with same name 4. Holy crap library linking is messy and has non-existent reliable manager 5. No keyable visibility attribute on Collection? 6. Spline IK is way way too basic 7. No live blendshape method with good performace 8. No per-object viewport subdivision shortcut Freelancers and Generalist don't give a sh*t about animation scene cleanliness. But when you work with other 100 people that way, you'll get kicked out of the house.
@gemilangrahmandhika7509 not every big studio needs to do what you need, thats the point of my original post, don't assume that others do exactly what you do with the same software, the reason integrating blender with other softwares is hard is most likely because the same people that created your software of choice also created the ones that you want to integrate, they created the ecosystem you ended up using and now after years of building solutions for it any transition to any software is going to be hard. The words you used imply to me that you are using autodesk products and you expect the same types of solutions that they offer. I don't see you complaining about a specific type of geometry node for example, and the reason is simple, you are not using them, it's simply not a strong feature in autodesk products. I don't expect every big company to move to blender, there's just too much money at stake and redoing solutions that have been used for years is too much of an investment, but SOME companies are doing it, some more slowly than others but they are doing it. The appeal of an open environment where you can change anything to cater to your company needs is a very sweet candy, some can do that long term investment and the pros outweigh the cons.
Blender is not trash being open source, free, versatile and popular helps blender be accessible to someone like me i could never get used to 3ds max or maya
i started with 3ds max and used it until autodesk screwed over individual user like me. started using blender 4 years ago when the pandemic started and 3ds max went the way of the dodo for me
You make decent points, however you missed the mark on the real reason- studios don’t use off the shelf versions of software. There is decades of internal development of their tools that may run from something like Maya or Houdini in the film industry but the custom tools that make the movies you watch carry more weight than anything like software deals. Every studio I work for as a compositor has a different bespoke pipeline, each using the standards in film production differently- I think it’s crazy in certain ways, but it works for them and as an freelance artist I have to roll with it and get my job done.
Rhythm and Hues had a completely bespoke pipeline. They used Maya for modeling, but they also used Blender, and ZBrush. But I'll tell you this: if Blender had had Eevee working ten years ago we'd have been using that extensively. Blender's capabilities in some areas are making Maya look a bit crusty. They have improvements they can make in rigging and animation, but these are fairly minor and Blender development is moving a lot faster than Maya is, since Autodesk has no particular incentive to hit the gas on new features. By Blender 2.6, Blender will surpass Maya in crucial areas. The need for plugins lessens with each iteration as well, as features that used to require plugins are written into the main code base.
Honestly, too much importance is given to VFX studios. There are many artists who don't care about working in these environments and live decently using Blender. People must learn to not care about commercial decisions especially if they come from studios with conflicts of interest with Autodesk. Personally, I am of the opinion that today's cinema has terribly worsened. Blockbusters can appeal to a young audience, but an adult interested in the story and well-woven dialogues, doesn't care about explosions or super-realistic monsters.... so no, this statement makes absolutely no sense.
Thing is, even those small adult interested movies with well-woven dialogue for audience who doesn't care about explosions still uses insane amount of VFX, unless if it took place entirely in room in modern time.
Well, for realistic monsters, I have an example that comes to my mind, but I wonder... Did they need special effects to picture Hanibal Lecter ? And as far as "realism" goes, I find 90s or early 2000 better than most of what is made today. But then again, story telling is more important than visuals. I remember a story teller, standing alone in a corner of the room, no makeup or special clothes, just speaking to his public. He gave the 21 years old me two nights of nightmares, because immersed in good storytelling, your brains will do the best 3D rendering even from an utterly different picture, whereas with ill performed storytelling, the least significant visual defect of your 4K 60fps monster will collapse the narrative quality even lower. I will gladly watch Jurassic Park again, but don"t bother me with more recent Jurassic craps that got much more vfx and rendering power at their disposal., unless you want me to fall asleep due to boredom
The Gen Z will argue as big studios today is barely surviving. In fact most jobs are now outsourced to small studios. and USD pipeline is making its way to make CG, software agnostic. Big studios put their names on the table, give some supervision and distribute the load to smaller studios. Another fact is new gen artists are training themselves with Blender. My gen was trained with 3Ds Max. We will be obsolete by 15 years. It's an industry for young people. Our old pipeline, plugins are being replaced with something new everyday.
Yes for sure. still 15 years is a looong time. Especially now when things are happening in the fields of generative AI content. Also a player that many seems to miss is actually Unreal engine. It is step by step getting more and more content creating tools in it. Just check the change made the last 2 years. I would not surprise that for gameplay / game needs unreal will be the content generation package of choice. When it comes to more advances simulations then it will be Houdini, unless Blender steps up there but it has looong way to go there. When I look at Blender today I actually see its biggest strenght as a free sculpting software. Maybe its there it can find itself.
i wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment. in vfx for film atleast most jobs still go to big studios. usd isnt making much things software agnostic, if anything its actually benefiting houdini, as solaris is by far the best implementation of usd anywhere. as for your last point they dont need to adapt to what new artists train themselves on, theres so many students graduating each year that come from schools where they are taught industry standard softwares. pipelines are incredibly expensive and risky to change, especially when there is no reasons to do so; houdini is miles better than blender for fx/env, maya is equal if not better for animation, rigging and modeling, etc. no point
@@luansmn For Volume: VDB For Surface: ABC For Texture: PBR For Procedural Shader: Material X For Hierarchy Description: USD For Render: Omniverse These are the pipeline studios now are focusing on. And it will continue to emerge. The concept of capitalizing a feature is obsolete. Industry will change after us the old and rust. We used to make MEL script for rigging, now we have developed node based procedural rigging. It will be changed to a AI template soon. So yeah, we could disagree but it doesn't even matter.
@@fahadhasn i honestly dont see how thats even relevant because you still need softwares to create those assets and blender isnt one of them apart from (maybe) some hardsurface at this point. also i have never heard of a single studio transitioning to omniverse lol thats just simply not true. i agree with you that the industry is continuously changing but it would take a while for blender to get there
I've been a plugin developer for 3ds Max and Maya for 11 years and in this video I hear something that I've thought before, but which later changed: I thought we needed to make big studios switch to our software. This DID happen, but very slowly, very little. But through the years, new studios popped up and gained momentum while using my software from the beginning. And this was an "aha!" moment for me :) I was around as these folks grew and got better and it was a great pleasure to see them become big. So with Blender, it might be something with delayed effect that kicks in after 5-10 years. Through which the software needs to survive, though. And there's one more thing - with Blender, I, personally, never managed to do the things I tried to do - I wanted some averagely complicated things, and I always hit a wall of bugs or missing implementation. And since people lived through the same disappointment with my software and we managed to change it, I know for sure this is also just a matter of time, but also - of good prioritization and motivation.
youtube being used as an example for "tons of support" is a stab in the back for those looking for tutorials only to find people using older versions and plugins they didnt tell us about xD (good vid btw)
A bit click baity title. Studios don't "hate" Blender. Blender just doesn't come into their equations for the reasons outlined. Blender is for use by small studios with tight budgets and individuals. I don't see anything wrong with any of this setup. One day it may change, with each succeeding generation having used Blender more in their spare time. But big software companies aren't going away any time soon.
As for the price, it's also worth adding that key software must have support purchased anyway. At the business level, this is quite important to show that the project has safeguards. This is also the reason why the share of open-source or free software is much smaller in large companies. Those software tend to sit in R&D departments, and when they are going to be one of the key parts of a project then either support is bought in or a team has to be delegated to maintain the tool.
I've heard anecdotally that Blender is now being taught in art, animation, and VFX schools. If we start getting sufficient numbers professionally trained students who want to enter the studio workforce, then Blender could become more main stream. I've also heard that many (mostly indie) studios already allow their artists to use Blender if that's their preference. I've noticed it being used in various behind-the-scenes footage for game studios. And I believe it's also a popular tool for some very high level concept artists who don't necessarily need to slot into the full pipeline with proprietary file formats.
You're right! Blender is way behind right now at the highest level of production, but in 10-20 years, or maybe even sooner, we very well could see it begin to become industry standard.
Tbh, using only Blender in academic will stunt your growth and limit you, Blender Hotkey and workflow is a bit different, some of blender of doing stuff is very incompatible with other software, to the point that you basically learn everything from scratch again if you someday decided to use the real deal program like Maya or Houdini in the future. i know, the Industry Standard Hotkey is a thing in Blender, but, if you learn blender as your first 3d editor, you probably won't change your hotkey scheme, and if you use Industry Standard hotkey as a newbie, you'll get alienated from thousands of Tutorial out there. in term of Heavy Duty, Blender is not there yet, Maya, Zbrush and Houdini is extremely Heavy Duty, you can throw super big stuff at it, and it will handle it with grace, and the Export import support is very good, it can handle a lot of file format. Blender is good for modeling, rendering, and tweaking stuff here and there, but other than that, if you want to do Production level of Rigging, VFX, Animation, Procedural, Sculpting, you have no choice but to reach the big boy stuff. majority of Blender user never use any other software outside of blender, they don't know what they don't know. i use blender daily for like a Notepad equivalent of 3d Editor. and i pretty much a 3d Program Agnostic, use the right tool for the right job
It is for almost a decade. Leftist teachers promote it and schools like it because they do not have to deal with licensing even free one. There are thousands who are taught with Blender. Their work is not up to par with people who are seeing their profession more seriously and professionally. More seriously dedicated and more methodical. Blender is a tool that not only it is preferred by amateurs, but also produces amateurs. And yes there are of course great artists working with Blender but they are the exception, and not the rule.
I feel like Blender is good for amateurs and hobbyist, but the program honestly leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of the modules are denied. Sure, they're getting better, but very very slowly. Animation tools, texturing tools, even the modeling tools. Lately, they've seemed to only focus on geometry nodes, which might be great if you're into motion graphics, but it's a big learning curve and most likely not the reason people use Blender. The deeper you dive into Blender, the more you realize how lacking the tools are. Blender is still a great tool, but the biggest reason people use it is cause it's free.
Mhm and geometry nodes, when you try it as an experienced Houdini TD, are pretty terrible. Same goes for simulation -- Everything is black boxed, bolted on based on some whitepaper, different sim engines dont talk to eachother, and the performance is not good. Blender is great for a treat but sucks as a meal. Great for making a cool smaller thing very easily, but falls apart under load.
did you ever work in a vfx company? did you ever talk about this topic with someone who works in vfx? vfx companies don't hate blender, and many use them to some extent. and many of the experienced 3d artists like it, it has it's strong points. some of your assumptions are right like bulk licensing, jack of all trades master of none, missing support (although autodesk support is pretty bad :) ) but you miss the big picture: production means many steps, pipeline, integration, developing scripts and plug-ins, finding blender users with production experience. also, last time i checked the docs it was missing a lot (maybe it's better now, i dont know). in short it's a totally different world compared to a one (-2-3) man team doing some nice stuff at home. everyone sees that blender develops insanely fast, has some great features and in my experience many people in vfx like it. i'm not a pipeline td but what i saw and heard blender has some inherent problems which are hard, maybe impossible to fix, but it's tools are getting better all the time.
@@Dr.W.Krueger your standard for what? you spoke but didn't say anything apart from scolding me, moron. :D it's a stupid and childish "answer" from someone hwo is probably smart (if your name is not a lie)
I work in a huge game development studio. We use Blender, but only 2D artists use it to quickly build perspective. The reason why we will never switch to Blender is that we have a huge number of our own software tools and developments made for Maya. This took a huge amount of time and the transition to Blender will cost us VERY much, even by the standards of huge studios. And yes, one of the reasons why you can't find a job is that 3D Max or Maya is used almost everywhere instead of Blender. You can say as much as you want that Blender will soon become an industry standard, but I've been hearing this "soon" for years.
Everything I heard so far tells me professionals are already using it at home, thus minimizing that 'learning curve'. Studios are already using it for Pre-Vis since it is faster and easier to pump out prelims when all the tools are available in the same box. Schools are beginning to teach it. It's biggest deterrent right now is its limited capacity for handling millions of poly's, but there are people poking at it under the hood to optimize that code so in the near future that may be a non issue as well. I don't think it'll ever become an industry 'standard', since they all use a variety of tools to begin with, but I do see it as being added to the pipeline more and more.
The Blender community has been saying for over 10 years that Blender will soon become the standard, and today it's not even close to become one, Blender is cool, but only for small projects that don't require any advanced VFX!
I wouldn't say Studio's hate blender, but other 3D companies definitely do. Imagine you're renting out your software for thousands of dollars a year. And a company comes along and provides an alternative to your software that is FREE growing bigger and better all the time and is getting a bigger percentage of users over your software? I've seen a lot of users moving from Max and Maya to Blender, as a graphic designer vfx artist myself.... I find Blender does what I need it to do. Let's face it Maya and Max crash as well, all software is prone to crashing at times. The future of software isn't Subscription based! It's Open Source. The majority of users don't want to be locked into software based on how much you pay a month to use it. Unless you get hold of the software some other way.... (Argh Jim lad) The problem with software like Maya and Max is that it's Closed Source, in Blender as part of the GNU General Public License. I can create anything and sell it on etc I make a full blown movie and make millions out of it and wouldn't have to give a penny to Blender if I didn't want to. However if I wanted to do that in Maya or Max because of there licensing, you technically don't own what you create. If you use the Indie version of Maya, I think you can earn up to like 100,000 USD. Which is a lot, but if you make more than that with the software. You then have to spend money to upgrade the license. The difference for me with Blender I own the tools to create, whilst with Maya it's like renting someone else's to do what I want to create. This is why Blender is hugely popular and when you read reviews from people. More and more studio's are investing and using Blender alternative nowadays, especially out of house studio's and it will continue to grow. So in a way it has become a studio standard. I think there will come a point, where these 3D studio's are going to have to adjust their pricing and licensing laws to stay relevant in the future. Film companies are going to have to force themselves into using Blender more as part of the workflow. Because as more and more people use Blender over Maya and Max they will need to understand the tide is changing. Maya is harder to learn. Subscription models for software DON'T WORK in this day and age. Most people outside of a multimillion dollar company, ain't going to spend thousands dollars a year to rent software it's not a viable option unless you get the other way. A lot of people that have got into 3D design have done because of Blender, not Maya or Max and with a lot of companies investing in the foundation of Blender, it's only going to get better and better. You have to remember software can only go so far... Change is coming...
Studios don't hate Blender, on the contrary, it's a slow process for certain industries to adapt their workflow, and Blender still needs a bit to be on par with some of its competitors like Maya or 3dsMax. For example, for handling VERY large scenes, Blender is still behind, it can become chaotic. The real problem I see is that a large part of the Blender community has become very toxic, lately there is a slight rejection or mockery of those who do not work in Blender, and that is very bad. For my part, I have received criticism from Blender users when I tell them that I work in ArchViz and use 3dsMax, and on the contrary, every time I see a comment in the forums and groups about someone using Blender for ArchViz, what I see are comments about how it could be improved, that it is good that it is being included in that industry and the excellent results that are achieved.
This is an EXCELLENT video that shows you why... I don't like the title (a bit click-bait-ish) but it makes 100% sense - and REALLY well done in the way the video (and narrator) explain this. Kudos!
I think hobbyists might not understand how many features are missing from Blender that will cause a you to hit a brick wall in professional production. I'm a compositor and the lack of AOV options and deep pixel rendering makes Cycles kinda just... Dead in the water. I'm talking about features that you might not use every day, but then one day you REALLY need it. Deep is an example one of those things, sometimes there isn't really an alternative without massively sacrificing efficiency and/or quality. There are HUNDREDS of these seemingly little pitfalls that Blender has, that a hobbyist probably doesn't even know is a thing, but they'll trip up professional production.
@@carlomdlf No, deep data is data used in compositing (with Nuke) to simplify complex layering. A normal render might have a zDepth pass which tells you the depth of that one pixel, but it can only describe the depth of the whole pixel (it's aliased, when the RGB is anti aliased). You can't use AA on a zDepth, because it'll give you incorrect depth on anti aliased edges. Deep images however, store multiple depth samples per pixel, containing information about each samples opacity, colour and depth. The deep engine in Nuke will automatically layer these samples when you merge multiple deep images together. Nuke can create deep data for comp stuff like projections and 2d elements (smoke, fire for example) on 3d cards, and then seamlessly layer them with deep renders from CG software. It really simplifies complex layering in compositing. It originated at Weta and is now extensively used in VFX. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_image_compositing
Also a lot of people not understand how an Open Source system should work. They like to point out the missing things in a software but they never do anything for the 3d community by helping themselves to integrate it. If more people helped Blender, we would have the best 3d software for free and open source.
@@nosirve9458 That's because the Venn diagram intersection for people who are: professional artists, good developers and are willing to work on it in their free time for free, is very very tiny. FOSS also isn't friendly, if someone as a non-develoiper suggests improving the workflow they get hit back with the "it's open source, you're free to contribute"
"Support" is absolutely a huge reason for large companies purchasing expensive software licenses. On the surface, it doesn't make a lot of sense to blow money like this when you might not ever even need the support, but when every day of missed work due to technical problems can cost a company hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of dollars, the support fee seems miniscule in comparison to what it promises. Every big-business-company I've worked for dumps mind-blowing levels of cash to secure a support license even when extremely good free options are available and this at least _seems_ to apply to every industry if the company is large enough.
For modelling I think it's really the best tool right now. it's regular modelling tools, hard surface addons, subd and the easy switch between modelling and sculpting makes it superior to the competition in this area. personally I think the biggest obstacle is that the internet is flooded with very good, but not top tier professional works done in blender and that makes pros think that it's because of blender's limited capabilities. in reality, it's because professionals get good by doing professional jobs in professional studios...and as a consecquence, they use other softwares. but ofc simulations, animations, rigging and texturing has better tools are the job of houdini, maya, and mari/substance.
@@FutureRulesat least it would still way cheaper than subscribe to Maya or similar here while those blender add-on only need to buy one time (check the video that compare the cost between blender with needed add-on and other software, then try to scale it for each computer your company need to use, and you will see how damn costly it is both short and long term. Of course that doesn’t mean you need to thrown out all the other tool, just one or two with Maya or similar so they at least can open or convert old projects -customer file there)
I jumped into Blender wagon as a completely new person to 3D. I was quite a rough start, as it was a bit overwhelming and I couldn't find the type of tutorials I'd want to use results from and I'd be able to keep up with at that time. But I have to say, the amount of overall progress since 2.8 is absolutely amazing. I work extensively with geometry nodes and with each update, I get more and more excited about new possibilities and optimisations. Most recently, I ended up "stealing" workflows from various AAA studios and just applying them to Blender environment. Nuts.
As a Blender fan, this is a very well-reasoned take, and I agree with it. I still believe it's the future of 3d software, but there won't be the paradigm shift I'm hoping for in the immediate future.
Korea still using 3ds max and rigging using biped not even CAT bro.... thats like 15 years old system?. But they make the most addicting games. So basically Blender is not needed so far when u can get away with a 15 years old workflow and still make money. However that said i started to notice small indies studios are shifting towards open source softwares to avoid big Oopsies!~ like Unity did and some other like cough cough ado..
In the game development scene the answer can be simple: - 3D modeling: what ever the artists want to use, but usually Zbrush and Substance Painter are mandatory, then come Blender, Maya, or 3DsMax to complete the production pack. - Animation: animators and technical animators will dictate the animation system used, simple as that. If there are a few Blender animators and tech animators (riggers, etc.), the art director/producer will decide to follow a more secured path: Maya.
That remark @8:00 is just bs. I mean, those assets they all made them themselves out bought them. Same as you ca buy or make them for blender. Its just an awkard intro for the sponsor
We are working with Blender in different ways like visualisation, prototyping, design and concept and also fpr animation. The exchange between programs is hardly a problem anymore. A problem can be that things are changed in Blender (e.g. geo-nodes) and you can no longer edit scenes with the latest version, or settings are suddenly in a different location. This is quite unreliable and annoying at times. So you should always have an older version installed. But I'm not an absolute pro in Blender... still learning!
Bender is a "Jack Of All Trade And A Master Of None" For texturing: Substance Painter, Mari, 3D coat Animation: Maya, Effect: Houdini, 3dsmax and plugins
Its a master of just pure modeling. Its leagues better than maya and comparable to max only faster. Also UVing in blender is much better than in either max or maya
@@ttmayor You know nothing about "Uving" if you think Blender is better than Max or Maya. As a matter of fact UVing inBlender is worse than it is in any other 3D program. Saying Blender is comparable to Max is another sign of your incompetence. It may be faster but it isn't comparable - Leagues better than Maya? Another lie - you probably have never modeleld in Maya. Stop it with your bullshit, it makes you look like an ignorant fanboy who is suffering from delusions.
@@teneesh3376having made the switch, blender crashed more on me than Maya, the main reason i switched is because modeling and rigging is easier to learn and do in blender but for animation I still believe Maya is better
@@ASchnackyI don’t know what your point is especially with the lol but 3d coat is still mostly used for hand painted texture, I don’t think they mentioned Mari for game assets and Marmoset is still a bit worse for texturing than substance and 3d coat but great for render tho
This is a different industry entirely, but when I worked as a manager in logistics, our contract with our freight company gave us an 82% discount in exchange for exclusivity. I imagine these big vfx houses get similar insane discounts.
The problem I have with Blender isn't that it is unintuitive, but that it feels unintuitive. When you've worked in-depth with an industry standard, student license or otherwise, it's a lot harder to transition or make sense of Blender. I see this as a form of payment through watching countless youtube videos and digging through reddit threads to try to understand something that industry standards document perfectly, and often with less hoops to jump through. Blender might technically be capable of the same results... but the industry standards have methodical thought out approaches to these problems. I really wanted to like Blender. It may technically be free, but you pay for it one way or another.
Nice clickbait, not even bother watching the video because of that hideous thumbnail. Not a Blender fanboy though. I can use any software that the studios require. But this software wars content is disgusting tbh.
@@macycollier4542 I judge a book by its intention and the thumbnail photo plus the name of this video together are clear enough signs of what I stated in the first comment.
Great video! I've been in Blender now for roughly 3 years as well. I remember tinkering around with it back in the late 2000s and I've seen it come a long way. I also got a taste of Maya this year on my first professional CG gig. The production company got me a license to use it and it took me a few days to start animating in it. I definitely love the functionality of Blender and the general navigational tools better than Maya but I would say after getting used to it's graph editor, I found myself doing much better animating.
3:44 Hasty generalization. Despite being the "swiss army knife" of 3D software, Blender is the clear winner for 3D modeling in particular. If you look at any surveys or polls on the matter, it's not even close. And calling it "garbage" for professional use is an insult to those who create stunning artwork with it.
I'm primarily a blender user. I've used it both professionally and privately and it's awesome; it can do everything I need it to. But the shear size of the blender community will skew any public pole in its favor. But I do appreciate your feedback!
Maybe because there are more blender users than any other software?? Blender is great but in modeling it’s not much better than Maya imo I just prefer the workflow but that’s a biased opinion not an objective fact
Yes only issue is who is making those polls and who is answering them. Its a good modeler for sure it just have a bit performance problems with larger polysets
@LEDs , Blender even for its strongest suit being 3D modeling isn’t the best program at doing it while still very good for most people’s general use. I’ve heard that a lot of companies will port things from Maya into stuff like z-brush if they want super hyper realistic detailing and cloth work for games like overwatch 2 and even the new street fighter games as some general examples which is a real strong suit of that program before moving it back into Maya. The other potential reason why pro companies might not want to use it may depend on file type as well, if the file type doesn’t match or causes issues when switching between programs and makes the pipeline more complicated than the software wouldn’t be a good candidate in their eyes. The other issue is when it comes to training employees who already know a specific software already. Most companies don’t want to spend millions of dollars trying to train their workers on a new program and find it easier to simply have new students learn the programs they already use before they enter the industry. While there are many parts of the pipeline where you can get away with maybe using a different than conventional program, it largely depends on the production but also whether the software can still integrate back into the full pipeline and the onus is on the individual to know the software and troubleshoot it on their own in their free time. I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with what Filmstop is saying here and don’t think it’s really productive to shoot the messenger so to speak, take it up with the companies themselves if you have an issue. All he’s doing is nicely explaining the situation as it stands so that the rest of us can understand it, not that he somehow thinks blender is the worst program in the world (he’s literally stated it himself that he loves to work in the program despite the drawbacks for pros in the industry)
Best tool for Indie 3D and also 2D games, I render 3D Isometric models to then put them into a 2D Isometric game. I just love the accessibility of these tools. Also the skills that one learns with one 3D modeling program are transferable, even real pros say so all the time, so learning 3D with Blender is still really good.
Workflow and their pipeline come first. Blender, while getting better all the time, is not worth restarting the process as you stated. The good news is that smaller studios are using Blender for a specific reason, such as price! Future generations are learning it and eventually, there is a good chance that eventually it will be used more!
I think the biggest factor is probably customer support for Blender to which there isn't. With a license with the other software, you get technical support from the developer. But with Blender, you have to ask the community and even then, you may not find what you're looking for. But still I think Blender serves a purpose, allowing anyone with a computer to get their start in 3D modeling and animation and it don't cost you a dime.
I rarely consider myelf a fan of a company or product these days, because corporations are evil. But I proudly express myself as a Blender fan. Because when it is NOT about tackling a serious career but to just play and tinker in the 3D world without worrying about insanely expensive licences, Blender is the way to go. I love them for their approach - give you this insanely awesome tool for free, no questions asked. Without Blender, I wouldn't have built up meaningful 3D skills, because I could simply do it in a pace I prefer. Having to pay big sums for some professional 3D software, nobody would do that just because of personal interest without the intent of getting in the industry. Right now I am working on the first episode of my very elaborated animated channel, which would probably not happen without Blender. So to show some respect, my character is gonna wear a shirt with the Blender logo, custom design by me. Also, as soon as this show hopefully starts generating money, it is intended to donate a portion of that income to the Blender foundation. And if this channel would grow really big with merchandise and stuff, I'd happily offer this shirt from episode 1 so that it can be worn by people on the streets. Frankly, I don't think the Blender logo is a very beautiful thing, but at least it's unique and everybody knowing it, knows what it stands for. There simply is no way around liking those Blender people. Because there simply is no incentive to maximize profits, they truely just want to bless the world with something, people normally don't get the chance to just try without huge commitments. These people want to improve Blender further and further without always having one eye on your wallet. Bless those people.
i'm an ex-3dsmax user who worked with an AAA studio, i've been using blender for these past 8 years, and i agree with what you said. however with the increasing number of indie game and animation companies lately that couldn't afford autodesk, i bet blender's popularity will increase significantly.
It's barely intuitive. I dunno what you talking about. As example, in 3dsmax if you select object than instanced, it's name will be in bold font. In Blender to understand if object is instanced, you need search specific tab, that will contain some kinda text field that have index number, if object have index number it's mean that it instance, you need to search that, it didn't marked in any way in object browser. (at least when I've checked last time) Also when you select object, it wont scroll object browser at all, you need to scroll it yourself, to search which entry is highlighted to understand which entry is object you selected. To make Pan Rotate work as it in 3dsmax, you need to do complicated re-configuration of keymapping, which key should be pressed and which released to do that and that, so you will able to rotate while you pan, and pan while you rotate, like in normal program, in default Blender you need to release pan at first, and only then you can rotate. Why they can make it normal? How many years should pass? It's intuitive if you never used normal soft. I'm sorry. it's have nice features, and now it's much better than that old version from the past, and it's free. But it still suffers from same stuff as Gimp as example, which NEVER will replace Photoshop by functionality, and it's doesn't look like anyone even tries to do that.
@@beetledjuice3062 latest one, this year. I'm whole my life used 3dsmax, and after that I can't just easily migrate to this, it missing bunch of basic stuff, and very clunky. I dont say that it's inheartly bad program, it obviously not for me, I'm too rigid to lean something new, I guess.
I imagine the majority of people who find Blender intuitive just don't know any better. It's the free option after all. And it's understandable why people might think that, because technically, Blender can produce the most results as an industry standard (and like you mentioned, this is like comparing gimp to photoshop, it CAN technically be done but... but what about efficiency/creative process?). Early on in my journey, C4D won me over almost right out of the gate because of it's UX, things just worked straight up. The UI is fully customizable and the controls feel great and are extremely customizable. Once I left the studio I worked at, I wanted a free option so I tried Blender. It sounded great. I was relieved to hear you could also change keybinds, which I made sure mostly my camera controls were great. But as I continued learning how to use it, I found myself getting frustrated at the mentions of "Oh yeah, you can do that in Blender too". But the way to do it took 8x more steps than C4D, and was nowhere near as flexible or malleable. It's not like I can complain right? It's free after all. Well, I argue no. After tasting a fine wine like C4D, Blender tastes like bud lite. And hey, some people like a cheap beer.
@@alectriciti I really don't think it's a case of "not knowing any better". I started with 3DSMax and I felt it was a lot easier to work with Blender. It took a bit to get used to the old ways of "right click-selection" but after the initial hurdle everything clicked and my workflow went miles faster than when I used 3DSM, granted I'm not a big studio doing gigantic work. But (almost) every command and keyboard shortcut in Blender made much more sense in it's context (that means more intuitive for me). I learned Blender as Blender, not trying to match it's bindings to what I was used to. It sounds like you didn't get used to it or it's just not the right tool for your type of work. So that must mean it's bad and people who use it are dummies, I guess? Truth is there's a tool for everything, if what you do is easier in C4D, stick with it, that's fine. That's not everyone's case, though.
Blender is growing fast. The biggest crutch it has is its renderer, is not production ready (and also arguably its community rampant cringe). I can see blender taking over the modeling stuff really fast. For everything else, not so much. Its so refreshing to see an actual self aware blender user, lmao.
This is another important point. I really love Blender, but it's being developed too quickly. More than once, the options you've worked with for years are completely thrown out the window and you have to rework most of your projects.
In certain areas sure. In some other areas I have tutorials in blender from 10 years ago and still get comments saying "this still works today". Equally lots of other software is like that like Maya. Hot damn I swear every year Maya was flipping moving around all it's tools.
Beyond the big studios - as a personal or freelance user, ideas + the final results are more important than which software you use, so if you are not forced to use specific software based on your workplace , use whatever you can create with good results.
I worked in a Studio for 4 years before quitting to do youtube... The Biggest Reason we didn't touch blender was, we didn't use vanilla Maya. Over the course of 10 years, the studio made and bought plugins, that what was important for the pipeline. Just moving that to blender would cost SO MUCH more money. FYI no one hates Blender, everyone actually loves it, and the Studio always has a someone from every department testing what can we switch, how easy it would be to write a particular plugin for it. It's not that studios don't switch softwares or are stuck on Maya. Mid project we switched to houdini as the sims just looked batter, behaved better and there was so much control. And maya or Max with Fume Fx where no where near the Fidelity. We were being paid our full salaries while we learned Houdini It was the same with Nuke
A VFX artist here. As already pointed out by a few people the primary reason why companies haven't switched to Blender is due to studios already having stablished pipelines that have been built over many years and while they are always making changes and improvements all the time because they have teams dedicated to it. the changes take place gradually to avoid making disruptions on existing shows and because there are already well stablished workflows and work arounds in place that are well understood. Another main reason is that the leading major studios adopted the popular software's that were available at the time and these led smaller studios doing the same and therefore universities and art schools also followed the same as well as the surge of video tutorials and later online courses that focused on training artists on the software's that would allow them to get a job in the industry at the top studios that many of us growing up aspired to reach. So all of this has created a larger user base of artists who are proficient on using the popular 3D packages like Maya, Houdini, Zbrush etc. that studios could more easily hire new talent. I can confirm that over the past 4 years I have seen Blender available at my former and current job. (Although not part of the pipeline). Not only because it is free, but because over the past few years Blender has gotten considerably better and in my opinion, also has exceeded famous 3D packages from big corporations. (We all know who they are XD ). But that's not all, many new artists from the past few years have learned 3D in Blender and are now pushing what can be done using Blender. Also many of the artists who are now being promoted to supervisor or are now in positions of making decisions at studios are more open minded in having Blender available due to all of the above reasons and also likely due to them having some experience using Blender on their spare time. Something that wasn't the case many years ago. Studios will continue to use what already works for them with their existing pipeline but as the industry continues to change over the years, Blender stride into the vfx and animation studios will continue to grow as it's user base continues to do so. Over the past 4 years I have noticed the shift of a lot of Maya centric positions shifting toward Houdini and also the increased popularity to use Unreal as well. Since Blender in a way has many similarities to both of them and is making improvements faster than most other 3D packages. Blender inroads into animation and VFX studios will continue to grow as does it's user base and pool of artists.
Pro Studios have their systems in place with the major 3d software. They don't want to spend money or change that system that could cause slowdown to get the job done.
Don't forget the custom tooling that a lot of studios have in place for each application; their staff includes a robust team (or teams) of software developers building tools that are often specific both for the studio and the software that studio uses. Some of those are pipeline tools; replacing Maya or 3DSMax with Blender would require, in addition to the artists' retraining time, developers and TDs to spend time updating and adapting their custom tooling for things like version management, backups, renderfarm integration, and so on. No matter how fast Cycles is on your PC with its bigass nVidia GPU, even Arnold will run circles around it when it's scaled out to a thousand processors.
They use these softwares primarily because they have contracts that they respect. Additionally, they have a customized version of, for example, Maya, which is significantly different from the default one. It has been tailored by a team to meet the specific needs of the studio. "Now this: For a teenager who is only 3 years old, using Blender, and who probably still lives in their parents' house, calling Blender "garbage" is quite arrogant."
Another important point is that companies like autodesk put a lot of effort into ensuring college courses train students on their software. So when the big studios go to hire they're getting artists trained in maya, max, houdini etc. This mechanism is likely to lose importance as colleges lose importance though.
You should scroll back up and hit the like button so this can spread to more people!
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I think your perspective is slightly skewed, like you said, one app for modeling, one for animation, etc.
This is a production pipeline, and Blender is becoming a part of that.
Just look at Across the spider-verse, Blender became part of the pipeline because of Grease Pencil.
While Blender isn't being used in every pipeline, at every major VFX studio, it is being widely used across the world to make CGI, VFX, and animations for TV shows and commercials.
Add to this, that it's a tool that anyone with a computer that meets the specs, a tool to learn.
Blender is in a great place, and will only become a bigger threat to the market, as time goes on.
@@akuunreach I agree entirely. In retrospect I should have emphasized that more
@@filmstop7828 All good, you covered a good amount of why Blender isn't standard in pipelines.
One other major thing of note is after 2.8 Blender is being stuffed with half-baked and half-thought through features. Yes, now it's feature-rich, but it will take years if not decades to make these features work as intended or even design them properly. Most of those look cool on paper, but when they start working not as 'advertised', an artist has nowhere to go unless studio also rewrites parts of Blender for itself. Also, some of these features are inconsistent between Blender versions, being changed drastically or even cut. Obviously, when you plan out your production, this is a big issue.
@@ShadeAKAhayate Blender isn't alone here. Many software have this problem, add to that, Blender is one of the more stable programs. Usually only crashing if you do something silly, like subdivide one to many times.
Studios dont hate blender, no one has time to throw away 10-20 years of pipeline and start over learning a new software from scratch to rebuild it unless you start with blender
This. Exactly this. Although I did know of a studio (Tangent Animation) that switched almost completely over to Blender with some Houdini and produced excellent work. They were a relatively small studio and introduced Blender bit by bit over time. Ironically they went bankrupt after the higher-ups forced them to switch to Maya after they started on a major production already using their Blender pipeline.
@@Xero_Wolf Oh, my... what a step back ...
@Xero_Wolf it was not much "higher ups wanted to use Maya". Higher ups only care about production output, deadlines and budget. AFAIK Maya was introduced per supervisor AND artists working at tangent, and they wanted to glue it all back at Blender using USD.
Did not work. Production stalled, scene translation was not seamless, and Blender showed it was not capable to be the centralized hub they thought it could using USD. Maybe not entirely Blender's fault, but it certainly did not meet the specs needed to tie in everything.
bingo
Enjoy using 3DS Max forever, then.
I work as a Senior Art Producer in a professional video game art studio, and I can say without problems that Blender is part of our work pipeline, in the same way as other commercial software is also part of our work pipeline.
I think when people say "Why do Studios Hate Blender?" it's because they naively think that Blender should be the only software they should use and throw away all the others. But reality doesn't work like that. We use the right tools for the right job. Sometimes it's Blender, sometimes it's Maya, and sometimes it's Houdini.
Blender is bad at texturing, so I texture in Substance Painter, the people that say "use blender for everything" are kids, new to 3D or don´t value their time.
@@TheOrijinalPajeet Depends what you're doing. For professional quality on some projects, sure, but industry standard levels of quality takes time. If you're a hobbyist, kitbashing, creating free content for fun, you'd save a lot more time by just using something like adobe stock and importing materials, megascans for some spare parts, and using some noise nodes and whatever else to make some quick masks, rather than spend all that extra time dealing with substance painter.
"use blender for everything" is a completely honest phrase to say as someone experienced with 3D that values their time enough to not want to burn out from doing the first sketch > blockout model, sketch over > simple 3D modeling, sketch over again and final 3D model process that you will be using in a studio, which takes much more time than hobbyist creation.
In fact, you save so much time by cutting those corners that you won't have to cut in a studio, that it sounds more like the kid is you.
@@translatedbird I make characters that are rigged and imported into unreal, with their props, haircards, the works.
Use blender for everything is not a correct phase, use whatever is most efficient for you is the correct thing to do. substance is a 5 click bake machine thats good at texturing, blender is none of these things.
You´re that kid, noob.
@@TheOrijinalPajeet
"You´re that kid, noob." summarizes your type perfectly. I wouldn't need to add anything else under normal circumstances, except the correction that the "5 clicks" is a gross simplification. With a blender addon you'd actually be baking close to the 5 clicks advertised, the big deal is that you won't have to bother exporting and importing to and from substance, and you won't need to have multiple apps open at once (just blender)
That's besides the point anyway, if you're trying to save on time, you wouldn't be using substance or blender to make the materials, you'd be importing materials and make masks to get the look you want.
Guess what program you rigged in, that's right. You probably animated it in it too. That's called a time saver.
What's the phrase?
Git. Gud.
@@translatedbird "With a blender addon"
What if the addon breaks and the dev stops giving a sheeet?.
What if the addon stops working in newer versions?.
What if the support ends? What then?
As a COMPANY you have to ask these questions.
I know addons exist, man, I prefer Substance for ease of use, simple.
Works out of the box.
>you'd be importing materials
I´m texturing IN SUBSTANCE. All the brushes I need.
I´m not importing jack besides color IDs from the sculpt.
Git good indeed.
We don't need Blender to be industry standard, the beauty in blender is it's versatility, the accessibility and price. It's good for everybody. Blender is not trash. It's just not for big studios.
I'm happy blender is not industry standard, in that case blender would be forced to become a mature boring corporate software with many restrains in its feature development. The best part of blender is that since is not tied to any standard it have the freedom to be fun and going some steps ahead with its own ideas.
Blender needs to exist and have its place not only because is free, but because it have a diferent role for a different target (mainly amateurish but majoritary), it fills a gap that has been becoming more noticeable since industry software became more prohibitive, closed and started to adopt the suscription model crap. If you are working on a studio none of that is a problem, but what about the other 90% of people who are students of hobbyst, they should be alienated until becoming worthy of touching a proper serious 3D software only aimed for high end industry productions?
People forget that industry is only a portion of the 3D world, software don't need to be "validated" by the high budget hollywood industry to be worth of being used, there are many other industries where blender have its place, not all studios work with huge pipelines with thousands of people. We have jobs in printable figures industry, advertising, visualization, indie content creation, videogames, etc...
Blender flexibility reminds me of another industry standard: Softimage, which was quite extended, especially in Japan. The industry uses what most people say they use, regardless of the actual functionality. Blender quality is industry grade, just, not the most published by "profesionals". Something I'm most grateful because keeps Blender away from their pressure.
If blender were industry standard amateurs wouldn't use it for their hobbies. Professional features are overwhelming for basic users and not fun to learn
ding ding ding ding ding
If blender ever got to the point where it COULD replace C4D, Maya and Houdini, you would want for it to become industry standard. It would mean that all your years learning it, could branch out into massive studios seamlessly, which isn't the case atm. Being industry standard is a great thing for its users. And as much as it's probably never gonna happen -and that doesn't take away from how awesome blender is- it would still be great for the community.
I can tell you. You are young. I started with Cinema 4D back in 1998. I got it from a friend, had to print out a 1000-page manual with my home printer and started to learn 3D. There were no UA-cam Channels or anything that helped me out. Through the years, I got invested into the C4D community. But I struggled to get a job in Germany. Every big company was using 3dsmax. I finally found my first job after over 150 tries and was able to use C4D. During that time, I started to use 3dsmax at home, learning. In my second job, I started with 3dsmax and moved forward.
Today, my main tools in the game company I work for are Cinema 4D and 3dsmax, while all other artists use Blender. Most of them are juniors. It's totally fine. I learned to use Blender as well over the years, but are still blazing faster as a Senior Artist by using the tools I am used to for over 26 years. It might be easy for young people to say: Oh, just spend a couple of weeks with Blender, but there is much more to it.
Blender in my perspective wants to be a Jack of all trades and combines some strength of 3dsmax, C4D, Maya and other apps. But you will never get the modularity of Cinema 4D in Blender or even 3dsmax when working with modifiers, and how they interact with objects in the outliner because is it a complete different approach on using modifiers on an object directly.
Every app has its strengths and weakness. 3dsmax is excellent with exporting capabilities and I found it way easier to export from C4D to 3dsmax and then to Unreal Engine and not directly exporting from C4D to Unreal, since the FBX exporter works different.
I don't think Studios hate Blender. There is more to it.
First: You have customers and other companies surrounding you. I can give a simple example why it's the same with Gimp and Photoshop. If I used Gimp and exported in Photoshop Format, there is a chance of error. If the customer gets these files, and they are either not working or print different outcomes that would not happen if the files come from native Photoshop, I get into BIG trouble. We are talking in $10k+ trouble here. Blender in direct comparison had (or still has) horrible FBX export and maybe plenty of issues on other ends that other companies like Autodesk or Maxon don't have.
Second: Pipelines. You can't just use Blender when you have a complete Redshift or Houdini-Vex driven pipeline. Nobody cares that it's free when it can't do what the existing pipelines are capable of. There might be a day when all of this is possible, but that does not change overnight.
I want to be honest: I tried Blender many times in my life… since 1998. And many times I regret the time I spent on version 2.49 and earlier. Try it. It was horrible. With version 2.5 and up, it slowly started to evolve and got a lot more attention. And definitely, there are many artists who do excellent work with it. I bow my head to the people who create stunning art and animations with it.
It is capable of doing a lot, and probably the same that other applications can do. But you also can't just delete 30+ years of existing knowledge. Older artists in small to big companies may know a couple of tricks in 3dsmax, Houdini, Maya and C4D that a youngster with Blender would never expect to exist. Blender is cool. I love Blender! But I also learned what it can't do.
Suggestion for young artists: Definitely stick with Blender! This is what Cinema 4D was for me when I was young. However, also… keep your eyes open. Be open to try every 3D app. Try 3DCoat. Try Modo, Lightwave, 3dsmax, Houdini Indie/Free, C4D, Plasticity, ZBrush, Marvelous. -- And then… stick to the apps that YOU like, not that others tell you It's cool and swag and fresh to use.
XO
3D Boomer Dad
Wow!! F*****g fantastic! This is a PERFECT reply to this video. Well done.
@@cjacobs627 Thank you! I feel humbled that somebody actually read through it. I could probably talk for hours on these topics, even about AI and how it is actually changing my workflow today.
That's a really good inspiration to young artists like me and yeah I do know how to use 3ds max but still I use blender as I really like modelling and sculpting in it. and for 3ds max I kinda make interiors in it for fun. but still I was worried if I could get selected in any small studio, if I just know blender?... I'm thinking its possible since i'm not reaching for the top fruit in the tree just yet haha
Very informative! Thank you sm
This is one of the best comments I’ve seen in a while! Thanks for your explanation, and suggestions, definitely helpful and useful!
Why the click bait title? no Studio HATE any software, they might not USE it but that is far from hating it...
I agree but this is a general problem on UA-cam. If you don't click-bait the title you don't get any views. It sucks for viewers but creators have no choice.
There is a great video by Veritasium "Clickbait is Unreasonably Effective" that explains the problem.
@@MemeticOnline yeah for sure it’s like this. And yeah sadly it works. Same as fake game ads.
It got you to click and comment, raising engagement, meaning the video gets pushed more by the algorithm :)
@@MaakaSakuranbo Yeah but we are engaging for the wrong reason. I like the content of this video but here we are talking trashy video titles.
@@MemeticOnline True, but Engagement is Engagement. Heck, if the title had been different you might not even have commented, lowering engagement
You missed a huge reason why studios wouldn’t use Blender in the early days. Not because it was slow (EVERY program back then was slow.) Blender’s open source EULA back in 2002 required users to release their source project files along with their movie, huge no from studios with licensed IP. Glad that changed.
I don't think he meant "slow" compared to today's software - obviously all were slow compared to today - but slow compared to the other alternatives. Which is very often the case with graphical acceleration for smaller software companies, especially starting out. And this is a much bigger reason the some might think. Things taking just 10-20% longer to do due to graphical performance is a HUGE waste of time and money. Not to mention a source of frustration for users.
Wow, that was a really harsh EULA. I am a passionated animator, who's working on his first episode of a very elaborate animated channel - and even for me, it would not to be considered just throwing my project files out there. I'd happily made ads for Blender, showing all my work with the program, but giving these files to other people to mess around with them and potetionally abuse my many handmade assets, I wouldn't.
I remember using blender back in 2002. It was also an inscrutable mess that nobody would consider using for anything serious. Very different from blender today.
@@marcfuchs6938Yes no way I would publish blend files of my characters and original acenes for my animations/series, not even for money. And if I wanna post something I wanna decide to monetize it or not. Very good they got rid of that eventually.
Are you sure about that? I remember there was a huge misconception for years about Blender's license, but I don't think it ever obliged people to release the project files along a film. But I might be wrong.
"It's fast and intuitive" ok I laughed at this one. Good one mate
The fact that it’s not “industry standard” makes all the better. Means that new people can discover the world of 3D without the steep price tag.
Sometimes their so-called "industry standard" translates into "unusable piece of sh!t"
@@STRIDER_503 exactly, the "industry standard" is the only reason windows is even used, it comes preinstalled on everything, so people don't even consider linux, windows continues being the norm, and the cycle continues
You didn't mention the most important thing: Blender does not have multimillion contracts with education institutions that push it onto students as part of their courses.
Fifteen years ago, I worked for a large international private institute focused on video and media education. They made massive amounts of money from students, but it seemed to me that there wasn’t much profit to be made from the software side. However, I must assume they had some kind of deal with Apple, as they suddenly started giving out iBooks to every new student. They claimed these laptops were "free" for students-right after raising tuition by $1,200, which was exactly the cost of those laptops. In other words, they effectively forced every new student to buy an entry-level Mac.
This was some type of big deal between an educational institute and a tech company. But I know something else: they definitely never had any “get paid to use our software” deals, beyond the standard price discounts available to educational institutions. Amusingly, they were also involved in a conflict with Adobe because Adobe refused to sell them educational licenses. I will not talk about the reasons, but Adobe really had good reasons not to do Business with that institute. As a result, the institute had to pay full price (!) for every Creative Suite (CS) version.
This situation led them to encourage us, the teachers, to switch to “free” software to save on licensing costs. It was embarrassing since we, as teachers, wanted to equip students with the skills needed to secure well-paying jobs, which meant using industry-standard software, not saving the institute a few dollars or euros by switching to free alternatives.
Nowadays, though, I feel differently about that last point. “Free” software has become a very good alternative, and I personally use Blender.
educatuion doesn't have that as well. It's just educators who learned the software and still the standard software in the industry.
Reminds me of an art achool in San Francisco that over time turned into essentially a massive real (erm, um fake) estate company that shuttered or got acquired by another art campus. I knew of or read about said school (maybe 2010-2014) compelling students to buy Mac laptops when many or some students already had art machines but just wanted formalization of their skills. Sadly, probably half or 3/4 of the students were foreign nationals whose parents wasted $50k to >$100k only to see their diplomas from that school mean next to nothing. I don't know what software they used, or whether students resorted to piracy. IIUC/IIRC, major software titles sometimes enrolled undercover students to determine what and how much piracy existed. Not sure if any findings led to implosion of the school, or if it collapsed under the weight of SF fining it for tax evasion/code violations, and acquiring unregistered wink-wink residences/biz sites run as biz sites/residences. Buying up and removing SROs from the housing market super-irritates the City and residents. But, SF is regarded by some as corrupt beyond even NYC, so, maybe that's how tons of SROs got removed from access to non-art students moving to SF? Well, til the house of card fell down.
But, a number of moving parts led to its demise. Its competitor is still around, but seems like a shell of its former self given how few of its student/staff limo vans can be seen.
I knew maybe 8 people who attended the now-long-ago imploded school. I make it a point to read the credits of 90% of anything I watch. I've never seen names of people I knew. Did see companies, but not people I knew maybe they went home and worked outside of the industry, or toiled in it unrecognized?
@@schnittmagier5515
@@3dbob891the university I went to openly admitted to accepting money from Microsoft to use the Windows NT kernel as the main reference in their OS design course.
This is nonsense.
I have worked in the industry for over 5 years, my longest experience was at Outpost VFX. I worked with people that worked at ILM, Digital Domain, Rodeo Fx, and Legion VFX and can confidently say that we don't "hate" Blender. At Outpost, we did have Blender downloaded (I did not use it as I was the Lighting Artist) but it was probably most likely for one thing. Modeling. Yes, we used 3DS Max and Maya for modeling a lot of the assets, but for smaller things you can use Blender because at the end of the day you can export it as an FBX or OBJ to the Texture artist to get it UVed and then so on and so forth. Blender can be a part of the pipeline like every other software in the industry, but I do not know why people think it has to be able to replace everything in the pipeline just because it can do everything decently.
I use blender as my main modeling software for my personal projects, then I bring it into maya to UV and texture with Substance. I personally like lighting in Arnold, so I light and render in Arnold, and I composite in Nuke.
For studios like Pixar, it won't replace it because it has in house software like how some game studios don't use Unreal because it has an in-house game engine. But if it doesn't become industry standard, so what! Continue making cool stuff with Blender! Why do you care? Cause you won't get a job? That is not true, because the workflow translates over software. Keep making art and stop worrying about things you don't need to worry about.
FACTS
For studio, switching is almost always out of the question. They can add blender into their tool set, but cannot ditch the old tools, else they can't open their old asset.
Nothing to do with not being able to open their assets. This is ridiculous. With the money they save from licenses they could hire someone to convert the assets. Blender is horrible for production of any important assets in a high end professional pipeline. Maya and 3dsmax are professional tools designed specifically for professional pipelines and Blender is not, and everything else is nonsense.
@@keelfly Conversion may not be perfect. It is a risk studio won't take. Business continuation is priority. Asset, other than data/model/drawing, also include pipeline, plug-in, filters, custom tools, etc.
@@keelfly "3dsmax are professional tools designed specifically"- it used to be a poors man Softimage, used mostly to model furniture and packaging. It wasn't better, it was cheaper. Then, with time, it became more professional and now is "industry standard".
With blender might happen the same - more features and (more importantly) growing user base might elevate it to the "industry standard" role. 5yrs ago there wasn't even discussion, now people are making animations on it.
@@keelfly sad but true
@@artephank Not true. 3dsmax was used for full pipelinestuff in game development around 96-2006 I would say that for gamedev it was THE goto software around 2000. Softimage lost traction and the new version came to late and was never truly adopted (sadly) - softimage was big in Japan during the whole period tho. Maya started really to rise in game dev from around 2000.
So no it was not used to do furniture, that max became more of an arcviz software is something that happened after mid 2000s
blender's grease pencil was actually a big part of hand drawn smears and various other effects for across the spider-verse
In Morocco Blender is becoming industry standard for architecture renders but it depends if it's a small studio or freelancers, some bigger studios still use other software but it's starting to change a lot
As someone who has used blender for years that has worked with industry professionals, the main problem Blender has (according to studios) is that it just does things differently sometimes that cause it to not work well with other programs.
As someone in vfx, one of its biggest flaws I have found is the lack of native ACEs support. Sure you can manually set it up it but it creates problems with lots of adddons and renderfarms. It’s kind of frustrating that they recently pushed the whole “AGX” profile when it doesn’t really get used outside of blender.
Another big development that blender hasn’t jumped on is USD and MaterialX, which other programs and productions are now becoming fully dependent on.
Using Blender in USD pipeline is pain as it will disrupt your scene graph and didn't support USD features like referencing and variations
There is a survey on the blender website until October 22, about the direction of development and new functions. The questions also include a point about full support of USD
For my application I needed the FBX importer and exporter to be very accurate and blender kind of messed that up.
That's not actually true about Blender not having native ACES support. Blender does have ACES colour management, just not in the render settings. You need to set the colour management to Raw (in the render settings) and then in the compositor use a Convert Colourspace node to convert the render output from linear to either ACEScg or ACES2065 - 1, whichever you prefer/need. And now that Blender has the viewport compositor up and running on the GPU, you can work in ACES right from the outset, rather than just rendering in ACES at the end.
You didnt mention a few things here
1 - Pipeline tools : Large studios have their pipeline tools built with Maya, Max etc which makes them efficient in what they are doing. Be it Scanline or Weta, no one uses the softwares in its default state. Even in games industry it is like that. So their pipeline being built with these softwares makes them the most efficient in what they do.
2 - Educational License : Autodesk caught the market by giving away their softwares for free to learn for students and universities. This will make every student learning vfx workflows or game den workfllows already well adopted to the software, be it maya, max, etc, before they go job hunting so there is no need for VFX houses to hire someone and train them, they are already well versed in the software like animators knowing Maya, etc. This is the move that I feel made the Autodesk softwares entrenched in media and entertainment pipelines.
3ds Max is not just a software specialized in modeling; it is used for designing interior architecture, environments, industrial products, and for creating animations in games. In fact, I use many different software, and sometimes I combine both Blender and 3ds Max because there are things that Blender can do that 3ds Max or ZBrush can't. I feel that this is a very impartial video, not biased towards any software. I hope that one day Blender will soon find its place in the CG industry
I'm ngl 3ds Max is probably the worst and most unnecessary software. It's just an ali express version of Maya
Max is supposed to be really good for architecture modeling, not just general modeling like Maya!
@RodneyKimbangu but architecture modeling is the same as normal modeling. Just much less detail and simple shapes...
@@RodneyKimbangu In my architecture school everyone hates 3ds max. it supposed to be the best for modelling, but in reality both blender, rhino, c4d is equivalent or better, except 3ds max is ugly and inconvenient. And crashes way more than all the other softwares listed.
@@ajtatosmano2 They hate 3dsmax, because they cant use it. You need to invest so many years for learning and its one of the harderst 3D softwares.
Blender is like that one superhero which doesn't gets sponsors, TV interviews, bright and shiny cape and suit. Blender helps EVERYONE in need (not only president's daughter) without asking for anything.
I’d say the opposite, I hear more about blender than any other software so it does have more exposure than anything else
What are you talking about ?? Blender have the biggest buzz in the 3d industry right now. Its super overrated and overhyped
@@saynapolygons Overhyped, maybe, but why would you say it's overrated? An insanely powerful software, whose competitors are only available for serious money, yet which is able to compete with them in every visual means, how is that overrated? I think it absolutely deserves any bit of fame it receives.
The borderline ret*rded, non-industry standard UI/UX asks for your sanity.
they do have sponsors such as Nvidia, AMD, EPIC, Adobe, Intel, Meta... there's a whole page about it on the official website.
First time I see not a "Blender Guru ultra hype - let's make a world in 3 minutes" video about Blender.
There is another reason why Blender is not a replacement / standard in the CGI industry.
It is pipeline stability.
As for maya - it is highly dependent on python. Next version of maya can have different python version included which might lead to rewriting some tools to be compatible again.
Not a big deal but usually those tools are developed in-house so there is always someone who will keep them up to date.
Writing tools for max, houdini things are kinda better. Those two programs have excellent backwards compatibility. You write tools nearly "once" and later there is almost no maintenance caused by changing program to newer version. As an example tools / scripts written for max 2007 version work flawlessly on max 2025.
In Blender you have LTS versions, which ( I hope ) keep this compatibility but it is also python related software.
Also Blender API is also something which is evolving with "cutting tails" in mind. Which is a good thing as they do not create their technical debt too long.
So from my semi personal experience, our tech pipeline team wrote custom exporter for Blender 2.81. Then Blender 2.82 came out and exporter stopped working.
So they fixed it. Then Blender 3.0 came out. Guess what ? And then 3.2 and so on...
Another bad thing is "3$" Blender addons. They work as long as their author has any reason to keep them on par with Blender progression.
If big studio will buy them ( cheap !! ) and rely on them in their pipeline, they are sitting on a ticking bomb.
Each move to newer Blender version will be a potential risk that those plugins they rely on, will not work AND their author will not support them anymore.
Then you have to keep your internal tools updated AND those external written bu God-knows-who.
Very GOOD and grounding video.
If you write in MEL, as I did for 20 years, you can still run complex code in Maya from 1998! Yes, you can. For code that old, you might need to tweak one or two parameters, but MEL is to CG apps what Windows is to OS's.
@@thehandleiwantedwasntavailable but isn't mel as macro based scripting ? mimicking player input ? but even if is like that, that's great. I'm not a Maya clicker so sorry for my shortcut in this regard :)
Probably the best video I've seen on this topic. So many videos seem to ignore that even the most junior artists cost at minimum 10x as much as a maya licence.
I think you're missing an important aspect and it is that blender devs are full of shit sometimes. People would report that really important features you'd have in maya or maybe another big 3d software aren't available in blender, or it can't be done, and they would tell you "that's intended" and close your thread.
Let's not forget how they thought making right click select the only option was a good idea for like 15 years... if it weren't for Andrew Price we would still have another unusable piece of shit FOSS program. Which is sad because blender has a lot of potential to become industry standard, even more with addons created by its community, often for free or really cheap.
Agree with you on the Dev stuff. they do fix bugs pretty fast. Texture paint is a prime example of ignoring user feedback for a long time. The right click select was conceptually a good idea but in the end i'm glad they finally let it die. Lets hope they don't eliminate the 3d cursor to placate the masses. Its keyboard shortcut heavy workflow and infinitely configurable UI are things i miss in every other program. Oh and pie menus!
@@thedarkmatterplanet wait there are people who don't like the 3D cursor? I can understand wanting to hide it sometimes but the rotate tool is barely usable without it!
Exactly, i made a feature for free and guess what they did? They bashed me, and made everything to make it look bad, even tho most users supported it. They are backwards.
People that keep repeating this idea that studios don't like and don't use blender are people that have no experience in working in medium to big studios. Stop making assumptions of things you don't know.
They had no idea how frustating to make Blender work with other softwares in BIG STUDIO environment. Maintaining the pipeline connectivity and data ingesting process to make it compatible with the rest of softwares the artist using ARE LITERAL HELL
1. You don't get visibility key attribute on Alembic import/export
2. Your geometry considered as non-existent if it's hidden for just 1 frame throughout the cache process
3. No namespace, any linked library objects just forcefully get new name when there is an existing object with same name
4. Holy crap library linking is messy and has non-existent reliable manager
5. No keyable visibility attribute on Collection?
6. Spline IK is way way too basic
7. No live blendshape method with good performace
8. No per-object viewport subdivision shortcut
Freelancers and Generalist don't give a sh*t about animation scene cleanliness. But when you work with other 100 people that way, you'll get kicked out of the house.
@gemilangrahmandhika7509 not every big studio needs to do what you need, thats the point of my original post, don't assume that others do exactly what you do with the same software, the reason integrating blender with other softwares is hard is most likely because the same people that created your software of choice also created the ones that you want to integrate, they created the ecosystem you ended up using and now after years of building solutions for it any transition to any software is going to be hard.
The words you used imply to me that you are using autodesk products and you expect the same types of solutions that they offer. I don't see you complaining about a specific type of geometry node for example, and the reason is simple, you are not using them, it's simply not a strong feature in autodesk products.
I don't expect every big company to move to blender, there's just too much money at stake and redoing solutions that have been used for years is too much of an investment, but SOME companies are doing it, some more slowly than others but they are doing it. The appeal of an open environment where you can change anything to cater to your company needs is a very sweet candy, some can do that long term investment and the pros outweigh the cons.
Blender is not trash
being open source, free, versatile and popular helps blender be accessible to someone like me
i could never get used to 3ds max or maya
i started with 3ds max and used it until autodesk screwed over individual user like me. started using blender 4 years ago when the pandemic started and 3ds max went the way of the dodo for me
You make decent points, however you missed the mark on the real reason- studios don’t use off the shelf versions of software. There is decades of internal development of their tools that may run from something like Maya or Houdini in the film industry but the custom tools that make the movies you watch carry more weight than anything like software deals. Every studio I work for as a compositor has a different bespoke pipeline, each using the standards in film production differently- I think it’s crazy in certain ways, but it works for them and as an freelance artist I have to roll with it and get my job done.
Rhythm and Hues had a completely bespoke pipeline. They used Maya for modeling, but they also used Blender, and ZBrush. But I'll tell you this: if Blender had had Eevee working ten years ago we'd have been using that extensively. Blender's capabilities in some areas are making Maya look a bit crusty. They have improvements they can make in rigging and animation, but these are fairly minor and Blender development is moving a lot faster than Maya is, since Autodesk has no particular incentive to hit the gas on new features. By Blender 2.6, Blender will surpass Maya in crucial areas.
The need for plugins lessens with each iteration as well, as features that used to require plugins are written into the main code base.
For an open source software of this type, it is an enormous success to be even considered a veritable alternative to the industry standard software.
We use to be a big 3DS Max user, but we transitioned to Blender at my studio without hesitation and never looked back.
Fanboy detected
I love this and will always support those who adapted to open source (and blender). Great stuffs.
Honestly, too much importance is given to VFX studios.
There are many artists who don't care about working in these environments and live decently using Blender.
People must learn to not care about commercial decisions especially if they come from studios with conflicts of interest with Autodesk. Personally, I am of the opinion that today's cinema has terribly worsened. Blockbusters can appeal to a young audience, but an adult interested in the story and well-woven dialogues, doesn't care about explosions or super-realistic monsters.... so no, this statement makes absolutely no sense.
Thing is, even those small adult interested movies with well-woven dialogue for audience who doesn't care about explosions still uses insane amount of VFX, unless if it took place entirely in room in modern time.
Well, for realistic monsters, I have an example that comes to my mind, but I wonder...
Did they need special effects to picture Hanibal Lecter ?
And as far as "realism" goes, I find 90s or early 2000 better than most of what is made today. But then again, story telling is more important than visuals. I remember a story teller, standing alone in a corner of the room, no makeup or special clothes, just speaking to his public. He gave the 21 years old me two nights of nightmares, because immersed in good storytelling, your brains will do the best 3D rendering even from an utterly different picture, whereas with ill performed storytelling, the least significant visual defect of your 4K 60fps monster will collapse the narrative quality even lower.
I will gladly watch Jurassic Park again, but don"t bother me with more recent Jurassic craps that got much more vfx and rendering power at their disposal., unless you want me to fall asleep due to boredom
The Gen Z will argue as big studios today is barely surviving. In fact most jobs are now outsourced to small studios. and USD pipeline is making its way to make CG, software agnostic.
Big studios put their names on the table, give some supervision and distribute the load to smaller studios.
Another fact is new gen artists are training themselves with Blender. My gen was trained with 3Ds Max. We will be obsolete by 15 years. It's an industry for young people.
Our old pipeline, plugins are being replaced with something new everyday.
Yes for sure. still 15 years is a looong time. Especially now when things are happening in the fields of generative AI content.
Also a player that many seems to miss is actually Unreal engine. It is step by step getting more and more content creating tools in it. Just check the change made the last 2 years. I would not surprise that for gameplay / game needs unreal will be the content generation package of choice.
When it comes to more advances simulations then it will be Houdini, unless Blender steps up there but it has looong way to go there. When I look at Blender today I actually see its biggest strenght as a free sculpting software. Maybe its there it can find itself.
i wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment. in vfx for film atleast most jobs still go to big studios. usd isnt making much things software agnostic, if anything its actually benefiting houdini, as solaris is by far the best implementation of usd anywhere. as for your last point they dont need to adapt to what new artists train themselves on, theres so many students graduating each year that come from schools where they are taught industry standard softwares. pipelines are incredibly expensive and risky to change, especially when there is no reasons to do so; houdini is miles better than blender for fx/env, maya is equal if not better for animation, rigging and modeling, etc. no point
@@luansmn
For Volume: VDB
For Surface: ABC
For Texture: PBR
For Procedural Shader: Material X
For Hierarchy Description: USD
For Render: Omniverse
These are the pipeline studios now are focusing on. And it will continue to emerge. The concept of capitalizing a feature is obsolete. Industry will change after us the old and rust. We used to make MEL script for rigging, now we have developed node based procedural rigging. It will be changed to a AI template soon.
So yeah, we could disagree but it doesn't even matter.
@@fahadhasn i honestly dont see how thats even relevant because you still need softwares to create those assets and blender isnt one of them apart from (maybe) some hardsurface at this point. also i have never heard of a single studio transitioning to omniverse lol thats just simply not true. i agree with you that the industry is continuously changing but it would take a while for blender to get there
@@luansmn Just be happy with yourself. It doesn't matter.
I've been a plugin developer for 3ds Max and Maya for 11 years and in this video I hear something that I've thought before, but which later changed: I thought we needed to make big studios switch to our software. This DID happen, but very slowly, very little. But through the years, new studios popped up and gained momentum while using my software from the beginning. And this was an "aha!" moment for me :) I was around as these folks grew and got better and it was a great pleasure to see them become big. So with Blender, it might be something with delayed effect that kicks in after 5-10 years. Through which the software needs to survive, though.
And there's one more thing - with Blender, I, personally, never managed to do the things I tried to do - I wanted some averagely complicated things, and I always hit a wall of bugs or missing implementation. And since people lived through the same disappointment with my software and we managed to change it, I know for sure this is also just a matter of time, but also - of good prioritization and motivation.
Blender's default keymap is as "intuitive" as vim
I really liked the way this video was made it was educational, informative and was not boring at the same time
Studios also spent a lot of money in custom tooling that they don't want to rewrite.
And they will have to rewrite in every new version. Blender compatibility is horrible
youtube being used as an example for "tons of support" is a stab in the back for those looking for tutorials only to find people using older versions and plugins they didnt tell us about xD (good vid btw)
It is not conjecture, it is a very real and very common practice to make those sort of commercial deals for client retention purposes.
this video needs more views. Its such an interesting topic
clickbait title. we all know why, plus many studios incorporate blender and many other softwares.
Glad your back to posting 👍
2:15 -- I hear what you did there.
Honest, thank you.
I really appreciate it!
A bit click baity title. Studios don't "hate" Blender. Blender just doesn't come into their equations for the reasons outlined. Blender is for use by small studios with tight budgets and individuals. I don't see anything wrong with any of this setup. One day it may change, with each succeeding generation having used Blender more in their spare time. But big software companies aren't going away any time soon.
As for the price, it's also worth adding that key software must have support purchased anyway. At the business level, this is quite important to show that the project has safeguards. This is also the reason why the share of open-source or free software is much smaller in large companies. Those software tend to sit in R&D departments, and when they are going to be one of the key parts of a project then either support is bought in or a team has to be delegated to maintain the tool.
6:00 yes this is the only real reason , support and stability + well planned roadmap
brilliant video
Thank you! I really appreciate that
I've heard anecdotally that Blender is now being taught in art, animation, and VFX schools. If we start getting sufficient numbers professionally trained students who want to enter the studio workforce, then Blender could become more main stream. I've also heard that many (mostly indie) studios already allow their artists to use Blender if that's their preference. I've noticed it being used in various behind-the-scenes footage for game studios. And I believe it's also a popular tool for some very high level concept artists who don't necessarily need to slot into the full pipeline with proprietary file formats.
You're right! Blender is way behind right now at the highest level of production, but in 10-20 years, or maybe even sooner, we very well could see it begin to become industry standard.
In fact, in my school blender was the ONLY 3D software they taught us. It has become super useful software, even if its not quite 100% there yet.
you absolute dame right....😅😅
Tbh, using only Blender in academic will stunt your growth and limit you,
Blender Hotkey and workflow is a bit different, some of blender of doing stuff is very incompatible with other software,
to the point that you basically learn everything from scratch again if you someday decided to use the real deal program like Maya or Houdini in the future.
i know, the Industry Standard Hotkey is a thing in Blender, but,
if you learn blender as your first 3d editor, you probably won't change your hotkey scheme,
and if you use Industry Standard hotkey as a newbie, you'll get alienated from thousands of Tutorial out there.
in term of Heavy Duty, Blender is not there yet,
Maya, Zbrush and Houdini is extremely Heavy Duty, you can throw super big stuff at it, and it will handle it with grace,
and the Export import support is very good, it can handle a lot of file format.
Blender is good for modeling, rendering, and tweaking stuff here and there,
but other than that, if you want to do Production level of Rigging, VFX, Animation, Procedural, Sculpting,
you have no choice but to reach the big boy stuff.
majority of Blender user never use any other software outside of blender,
they don't know what they don't know.
i use blender daily for like a Notepad equivalent of 3d Editor.
and i pretty much a 3d Program Agnostic, use the right tool for the right job
It is for almost a decade. Leftist teachers promote it and schools like it because they do not have to deal with licensing even free one. There are thousands who are taught with Blender. Their work is not up to par with people who are seeing their profession more seriously and professionally. More seriously dedicated and more methodical. Blender is a tool that not only it is preferred by amateurs, but also produces amateurs. And yes there are of course great artists working with Blender but they are the exception, and not the rule.
Thank you to the creator of blender Ton, we all love you sir 🫶
I feel like Blender is good for amateurs and hobbyist, but the program honestly leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of the modules are denied. Sure, they're getting better, but very very slowly. Animation tools, texturing tools, even the modeling tools. Lately, they've seemed to only focus on geometry nodes, which might be great if you're into motion graphics, but it's a big learning curve and most likely not the reason people use Blender. The deeper you dive into Blender, the more you realize how lacking the tools are. Blender is still a great tool, but the biggest reason people use it is cause it's free.
Mhm and geometry nodes, when you try it as an experienced Houdini TD, are pretty terrible. Same goes for simulation -- Everything is black boxed, bolted on based on some whitepaper, different sim engines dont talk to eachother, and the performance is not good. Blender is great for a treat but sucks as a meal. Great for making a cool smaller thing very easily, but falls apart under load.
@@patrickl9930 I agree. Simulations are an absolute nightmare to work with in Blender.
SO very glad to have found your channel.
did you ever work in a vfx company? did you ever talk about this topic with someone who works in vfx? vfx companies don't hate blender, and many use them to some extent. and many of the experienced 3d artists like it, it has it's strong points.
some of your assumptions are right like bulk licensing, jack of all trades master of none, missing support (although autodesk support is pretty bad :) ) but you miss the big picture: production means many steps, pipeline, integration, developing scripts and plug-ins, finding blender users with production experience. also, last time i checked the docs it was missing a lot (maybe it's better now, i dont know).
in short it's a totally different world compared to a one (-2-3) man team doing some nice stuff at home.
everyone sees that blender develops insanely fast, has some great features and in my experience many people in vfx like it. i'm not a pipeline td but what i saw and heard blender has some inherent problems which are hard, maybe impossible to fix, but it's tools are getting better all the time.
ahh! and "industry standard" is a stupid term! industry standard for what?
@@villain42
Our standard, pleb.
@@Dr.W.Krueger your standard for what? you spoke but didn't say anything apart from scolding me, moron. :D
it's a stupid and childish "answer" from someone hwo is probably smart (if your name is not a lie)
I work in a huge game development studio. We use Blender, but only 2D artists use it to quickly build perspective. The reason why we will never switch to Blender is that we have a huge number of our own software tools and developments made for Maya. This took a huge amount of time and the transition to Blender will cost us VERY much, even by the standards of huge studios. And yes, one of the reasons why you can't find a job is that 3D Max or Maya is used almost everywhere instead of Blender. You can say as much as you want that Blender will soon become an industry standard, but I've been hearing this "soon" for years.
Everything I heard so far tells me professionals are already using it at home, thus minimizing that 'learning curve'. Studios are already using it for Pre-Vis since it is faster and easier to pump out prelims when all the tools are available in the same box. Schools are beginning to teach it. It's biggest deterrent right now is its limited capacity for handling millions of poly's, but there are people poking at it under the hood to optimize that code so in the near future that may be a non issue as well. I don't think it'll ever become an industry 'standard', since they all use a variety of tools to begin with, but I do see it as being added to the pipeline more and more.
The Blender community has been saying for over 10 years that Blender will soon become the standard, and today it's not even close to become one, Blender is cool, but only for small projects that don't require any advanced VFX!
I wouldn't say Studio's hate blender, but other 3D companies definitely do. Imagine you're renting out your software for thousands of dollars a year. And a company comes along and provides an alternative to your software that is FREE growing bigger and better all the time and is getting a bigger percentage of users over your software?
I've seen a lot of users moving from Max and Maya to Blender, as a graphic designer vfx artist myself.... I find Blender does what I need it to do. Let's face it Maya and Max crash as well, all software is prone to crashing at times.
The future of software isn't Subscription based! It's Open Source. The majority of users don't want to be locked into software based on how much you pay a month to use it. Unless you get hold of the software some other way.... (Argh Jim lad)
The problem with software like Maya and Max is that it's Closed Source, in Blender as part of the GNU General Public License. I can create anything and sell it on etc I make a full blown movie and make millions out of it and wouldn't have to give a penny to Blender if I didn't want to.
However if I wanted to do that in Maya or Max because of there licensing, you technically don't own what you create. If you use the Indie version of Maya, I think you can earn up to like 100,000 USD. Which is a lot, but if you make more than that with the software. You then have to spend money to upgrade the license.
The difference for me with Blender I own the tools to create, whilst with Maya it's like renting someone else's to do what I want to create.
This is why Blender is hugely popular and when you read reviews from people. More and more studio's are investing and using Blender alternative nowadays, especially out of house studio's and it will continue to grow. So in a way it has become a studio standard.
I think there will come a point, where these 3D studio's are going to have to adjust their pricing and licensing laws to stay relevant in the future.
Film companies are going to have to force themselves into using Blender more as part of the workflow. Because as more and more people use Blender over Maya and Max they will need to understand the tide is changing. Maya is harder to learn.
Subscription models for software DON'T WORK in this day and age. Most people outside of a multimillion dollar company, ain't going to spend thousands dollars a year to rent software it's not a viable option unless you get the other way.
A lot of people that have got into 3D design have done because of Blender, not Maya or Max and with a lot of companies investing in the foundation of Blender, it's only going to get better and better. You have to remember software can only go so far...
Change is coming...
Thats how the business works. Very well explained.
Studios don't hate Blender, on the contrary, it's a slow process for certain industries to adapt their workflow, and Blender still needs a bit to be on par with some of its competitors like Maya or 3dsMax. For example, for handling VERY large scenes, Blender is still behind, it can become chaotic. The real problem I see is that a large part of the Blender community has become very toxic, lately there is a slight rejection or mockery of those who do not work in Blender, and that is very bad. For my part, I have received criticism from Blender users when I tell them that I work in ArchViz and use 3dsMax, and on the contrary, every time I see a comment in the forums and groups about someone using Blender for ArchViz, what I see are comments about how it could be improved, that it is good that it is being included in that industry and the excellent results that are achieved.
This is an EXCELLENT video that shows you why... I don't like the title (a bit click-bait-ish) but it makes 100% sense - and REALLY well done in the way the video (and narrator) explain this. Kudos!
I really appreciate it!
I think hobbyists might not understand how many features are missing from Blender that will cause a you to hit a brick wall in professional production. I'm a compositor and the lack of AOV options and deep pixel rendering makes Cycles kinda just... Dead in the water. I'm talking about features that you might not use every day, but then one day you REALLY need it. Deep is an example one of those things, sometimes there isn't really an alternative without massively sacrificing efficiency and/or quality.
There are HUNDREDS of these seemingly little pitfalls that Blender has, that a hobbyist probably doesn't even know is a thing, but they'll trip up professional production.
by deep pixel rendering you mean the multiple different render passes? Blender has that and all the .exr stuff so, is that what you mean?
@@carlomdlf No, deep data is data used in compositing (with Nuke) to simplify complex layering. A normal render might have a zDepth pass which tells you the depth of that one pixel, but it can only describe the depth of the whole pixel (it's aliased, when the RGB is anti aliased). You can't use AA on a zDepth, because it'll give you incorrect depth on anti aliased edges.
Deep images however, store multiple depth samples per pixel, containing information about each samples opacity, colour and depth. The deep engine in Nuke will automatically layer these samples when you merge multiple deep images together. Nuke can create deep data for comp stuff like projections and 2d elements (smoke, fire for example) on 3d cards, and then seamlessly layer them with deep renders from CG software.
It really simplifies complex layering in compositing. It originated at Weta and is now extensively used in VFX.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_image_compositing
Also a lot of people not understand how an Open Source system should work. They like to point out the missing things in a software but they never do anything for the 3d community by helping themselves to integrate it. If more people helped Blender, we would have the best 3d software for free and open source.
@@nosirve9458 That's because the Venn diagram intersection for people who are: professional artists, good developers and are willing to work on it in their free time for free, is very very tiny.
FOSS also isn't friendly, if someone as a non-develoiper suggests improving the workflow they get hit back with the "it's open source, you're free to contribute"
"Support" is absolutely a huge reason for large companies purchasing expensive software licenses. On the surface, it doesn't make a lot of sense to blow money like this when you might not ever even need the support, but when every day of missed work due to technical problems can cost a company hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of dollars, the support fee seems miniscule in comparison to what it promises.
Every big-business-company I've worked for dumps mind-blowing levels of cash to secure a support license even when extremely good free options are available and this at least _seems_ to apply to every industry if the company is large enough.
For modelling I think it's really the best tool right now. it's regular modelling tools, hard surface addons, subd and the easy switch between modelling and sculpting makes it superior to the competition in this area. personally I think the biggest obstacle is that the internet is flooded with very good, but not top tier professional works done in blender and that makes pros think that it's because of blender's limited capabilities. in reality, it's because professionals get good by doing professional jobs in professional studios...and as a consecquence, they use other softwares. but ofc simulations, animations, rigging and texturing has better tools are the job of houdini, maya, and mari/substance.
You should try Modo
3dsmax is the best tool for polygons,
"addons" lmao, that's the problem. You have to buy addons to make stuff work out of the box.
@@FutureRulesat least it would still way cheaper than subscribe to Maya or similar here while those blender add-on only need to buy one time (check the video that compare the cost between blender with needed add-on and other software, then try to scale it for each computer your company need to use, and you will see how damn costly it is both short and long term. Of course that doesn’t mean you need to thrown out all the other tool, just one or two with Maya or similar so they at least can open or convert old projects -customer file there)
@@FutureRules you don’t need them, they just make your life easier, the expansion option with an open source program like Blender is endless
I jumped into Blender wagon as a completely new person to 3D. I was quite a rough start, as it was a bit overwhelming and I couldn't find the type of tutorials I'd want to use results from and I'd be able to keep up with at that time.
But I have to say, the amount of overall progress since 2.8 is absolutely amazing. I work extensively with geometry nodes and with each update, I get more and more excited about new possibilities and optimisations.
Most recently, I ended up "stealing" workflows from various AAA studios and just applying them to Blender environment. Nuts.
Finally somebody said it
Great video. Just started learning Blender, and I'm amazed at how good it is.
The thumbnail almost made me not click tho lol
Glad you enjoyed it!
yeah i am happy that blender is not industry standards
because the industry freaking sucks at the moment
and its hard to get too or out anyway
So it’s Autodesk’s fault no one can get work?
@@brenolad its kids fault , they are working for free for portfolio. And people from poor countries because they do work for 3 dollars
no correlation
@@saynapolygons sorry for needing to put food on my table lol
@@saynapolygonssorry for living in a poor country ig
As a Blender fan, this is a very well-reasoned take, and I agree with it. I still believe it's the future of 3d software, but there won't be the paradigm shift I'm hoping for in the immediate future.
Thank you! I appreciate it
Korea still using 3ds max and rigging using biped not even CAT bro.... thats like 15 years old system?. But they make the most addicting games. So basically Blender is not needed so far when u can get away with a 15 years old workflow and still make money. However that said i started to notice small indies studios are shifting towards open source softwares to avoid big Oopsies!~ like Unity did and some other like cough cough ado..
In the game development scene the answer can be simple:
- 3D modeling: what ever the artists want to use, but usually Zbrush and Substance Painter are mandatory, then come Blender, Maya, or 3DsMax to complete the production pack.
- Animation: animators and technical animators will dictate the animation system used, simple as that. If there are a few Blender animators and tech animators (riggers, etc.), the art director/producer will decide to follow a more secured path: Maya.
That remark @8:00 is just bs. I mean, those assets they all made them themselves out bought them. Same as you ca buy or make them for blender. Its just an awkard intro for the sponsor
I'm in the industry, using Blender exclusively. But it's nice to have a 12 year old tell me it's not happening.
I believe blender is growing within the industry. The issue is that Autodesk creates tight ecosystems that make it hard to escape.
And you can never own Maya, no matter how much you pay Autodesk.
@@kalidesu i mean duh its a company that needs to make money just like any other company, why would they let you buy out a copy to keep forever?
We are working with Blender in different ways like visualisation, prototyping, design and concept and also fpr animation. The exchange between programs is hardly a problem anymore. A problem can be that things are changed in Blender (e.g. geo-nodes) and you can no longer edit scenes with the latest version, or settings are suddenly in a different location. This is quite unreliable and annoying at times. So you should always have an older version installed. But I'm not an absolute pro in Blender... still learning!
Bender is a "Jack Of All Trade And A Master Of None"
For texturing: Substance Painter, Mari, 3D coat
Animation: Maya,
Effect: Houdini, 3dsmax and plugins
Its a master of just pure modeling. Its leagues better than maya and comparable to max only faster. Also UVing in blender is much better than in either max or maya
@@ttmayor You know nothing about "Uving" if you think Blender is better than Max or Maya. As a matter of fact UVing inBlender is worse than it is in any other 3D program.
Saying Blender is comparable to Max is another sign of your incompetence. It may be faster but it isn't comparable - Leagues better than Maya? Another lie - you probably have never modeleld in Maya. Stop it with your bullshit, it makes you look like an ignorant fanboy who is suffering from delusions.
However, blender is a lot more stable than Maya. That alone makes me use blender over maya
@@teneesh3376having made the switch, blender crashed more on me than Maya, the main reason i switched is because modeling and rigging is easier to learn and do in blender but for animation I still believe Maya is better
@@ASchnackyI don’t know what your point is especially with the lol but 3d coat is still mostly used for hand painted texture, I don’t think they mentioned Mari for game assets and Marmoset is still a bit worse for texturing than substance and 3d coat but great for render tho
This is a different industry entirely, but when I worked as a manager in logistics, our contract with our freight company gave us an 82% discount in exchange for exclusivity. I imagine these big vfx houses get similar insane discounts.
3dsMax for the win. TyFlow, Vray and Forestpack make 3dsMax an Environment Art beast. Prove me wrong.
This marketing man..every software company do marketing but blender doesn’t ❤❤❤
The problem I have with Blender isn't that it is unintuitive, but that it feels unintuitive. When you've worked in-depth with an industry standard, student license or otherwise, it's a lot harder to transition or make sense of Blender. I see this as a form of payment through watching countless youtube videos and digging through reddit threads to try to understand something that industry standards document perfectly, and often with less hoops to jump through. Blender might technically be capable of the same results... but the industry standards have methodical thought out approaches to these problems. I really wanted to like Blender. It may technically be free, but you pay for it one way or another.
I'm working for company that uses blender. I mainly came from Maya but with the time I really started to enjoy blender a lot more
Nice clickbait, not even bother watching the video because of that hideous thumbnail. Not a Blender fanboy though. I can use any software that the studios require. But this software wars content is disgusting tbh.
Don’t judge a book by its cover
@@macycollier4542 I judge a book by its intention and the thumbnail photo plus the name of this video together are clear enough signs of what I stated in the first comment.
Great video! I've been in Blender now for roughly 3 years as well. I remember tinkering around with it back in the late 2000s and I've seen it come a long way. I also got a taste of Maya this year on my first professional CG gig. The production company got me a license to use it and it took me a few days to start animating in it. I definitely love the functionality of Blender and the general navigational tools better than Maya but I would say after getting used to it's graph editor, I found myself doing much better animating.
I appreciate it! Glad you've made so much progress
3:44 Hasty generalization. Despite being the "swiss army knife" of 3D software, Blender is the clear winner for 3D modeling in particular. If you look at any surveys or polls on the matter, it's not even close. And calling it "garbage" for professional use is an insult to those who create stunning artwork with it.
I'm primarily a blender user. I've used it both professionally and privately and it's awesome; it can do everything I need it to. But the shear size of the blender community will skew any public pole in its favor. But I do appreciate your feedback!
@@filmstop7828 i dont think he has ever studied the, Berkeley gender bias case of 1973. Aka the Simpson's Paradox.
Maybe because there are more blender users than any other software?? Blender is great but in modeling it’s not much better than Maya imo I just prefer the workflow but that’s a biased opinion not an objective fact
Yes only issue is who is making those polls and who is answering them. Its a good modeler for sure it just have a bit performance problems with larger polysets
@LEDs , Blender even for its strongest suit being 3D modeling isn’t the best program at doing it while still very good for most people’s general use. I’ve heard that a lot of companies will port things from Maya into stuff like z-brush if they want super hyper realistic detailing and cloth work for games like overwatch 2 and even the new street fighter games as some general examples which is a real strong suit of that program before moving it back into Maya. The other potential reason why pro companies might not want to use it may depend on file type as well, if the file type doesn’t match or causes issues when switching between programs and makes the pipeline more complicated than the software wouldn’t be a good candidate in their eyes.
The other issue is when it comes to training employees who already know a specific software already. Most companies don’t want to spend millions of dollars trying to train their workers on a new program and find it easier to simply have new students learn the programs they already use before they enter the industry. While there are many parts of the pipeline where you can get away with maybe using a different than conventional program, it largely depends on the production but also whether the software can still integrate back into the full pipeline and the onus is on the individual to know the software and troubleshoot it on their own in their free time.
I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with what Filmstop is saying here and don’t think it’s really productive to shoot the messenger so to speak, take it up with the companies themselves if you have an issue. All he’s doing is nicely explaining the situation as it stands so that the rest of us can understand it, not that he somehow thinks blender is the worst program in the world (he’s literally stated it himself that he loves to work in the program despite the drawbacks for pros in the industry)
Best tool for Indie 3D and also 2D games, I render 3D Isometric models to then put them into a 2D Isometric game. I just love the accessibility of these tools.
Also the skills that one learns with one 3D modeling program are transferable, even real pros say so all the time, so learning 3D with Blender is still really good.
The kind of video (+ title and thumbnail) that made me wish UA-cam give users a block button.
New studios starting in blender hiring blender artists and donating to blender development will be king
This video is so clickbait.
Workflow and their pipeline come first. Blender, while getting better all the time, is not worth restarting the process as you stated. The good news is that smaller studios are using Blender for a specific reason, such as price! Future generations are learning it and eventually, there is a good chance that eventually it will be used more!
They hate Blender becoz its Free.....
It's only "free" if you don't value your time
yea.
I think the biggest factor is probably customer support for Blender to which there isn't. With a license with the other software, you get technical support from the developer. But with Blender, you have to ask the community and even then, you may not find what you're looking for.
But still I think Blender serves a purpose, allowing anyone with a computer to get their start in 3D modeling and animation and it don't cost you a dime.
I rarely consider myelf a fan of a company or product these days, because corporations are evil. But I proudly express myself as a Blender fan. Because when it is NOT about tackling a serious career but to just play and tinker in the 3D world without worrying about insanely expensive licences, Blender is the way to go. I love them for their approach - give you this insanely awesome tool for free, no questions asked. Without Blender, I wouldn't have built up meaningful 3D skills, because I could simply do it in a pace I prefer. Having to pay big sums for some professional 3D software, nobody would do that just because of personal interest without the intent of getting in the industry.
Right now I am working on the first episode of my very elaborated animated channel, which would probably not happen without Blender. So to show some respect, my character is gonna wear a shirt with the Blender logo, custom design by me. Also, as soon as this show hopefully starts generating money, it is intended to donate a portion of that income to the Blender foundation. And if this channel would grow really big with merchandise and stuff, I'd happily offer this shirt from episode 1 so that it can be worn by people on the streets. Frankly, I don't think the Blender logo is a very beautiful thing, but at least it's unique and everybody knowing it, knows what it stands for.
There simply is no way around liking those Blender people. Because there simply is no incentive to maximize profits, they truely just want to bless the world with something, people normally don't get the chance to just try without huge commitments. These people want to improve Blender further and further without always having one eye on your wallet. Bless those people.
i'm an ex-3dsmax user who worked with an AAA studio, i've been using blender for these past 8 years, and i agree with what you said.
however with the increasing number of indie game and animation companies lately that couldn't afford autodesk, i bet blender's popularity will increase significantly.
I absolutely agree. Blender is quickly seeing adoption by small studios
It's barely intuitive. I dunno what you talking about.
As example, in 3dsmax if you select object than instanced, it's name will be in bold font. In Blender to understand if object is instanced, you need search specific tab, that will contain some kinda text field that have index number, if object have index number it's mean that it instance, you need to search that, it didn't marked in any way in object browser. (at least when I've checked last time)
Also when you select object, it wont scroll object browser at all, you need to scroll it yourself, to search which entry is highlighted to understand which entry is object you selected.
To make Pan Rotate work as it in 3dsmax, you need to do complicated re-configuration of keymapping, which key should be pressed and which released to do that and that, so you will able to rotate while you pan, and pan while you rotate, like in normal program, in default Blender you need to release pan at first, and only then you can rotate. Why they can make it normal? How many years should pass?
It's intuitive if you never used normal soft. I'm sorry.
it's have nice features, and now it's much better than that old version from the past, and it's free. But it still suffers from same stuff as Gimp as example, which NEVER will replace Photoshop by functionality, and it's doesn't look like anyone even tries to do that.
I'm sorry, what?! I understand preference. But "not intuitive"? What version of blender have you used?
@@beetledjuice3062 latest one, this year. I'm whole my life used 3dsmax, and after that I can't just easily migrate to this, it missing bunch of basic stuff, and very clunky.
I dont say that it's inheartly bad program, it obviously not for me, I'm too rigid to lean something new, I guess.
I imagine the majority of people who find Blender intuitive just don't know any better. It's the free option after all.
And it's understandable why people might think that, because technically, Blender can produce the most results as an industry standard (and like you mentioned, this is like comparing gimp to photoshop, it CAN technically be done but... but what about efficiency/creative process?).
Early on in my journey, C4D won me over almost right out of the gate because of it's UX, things just worked straight up. The UI is fully customizable and the controls feel great and are extremely customizable.
Once I left the studio I worked at, I wanted a free option so I tried Blender. It sounded great. I was relieved to hear you could also change keybinds, which I made sure mostly my camera controls were great. But as I continued learning how to use it, I found myself getting frustrated at the mentions of "Oh yeah, you can do that in Blender too". But the way to do it took 8x more steps than C4D, and was nowhere near as flexible or malleable. It's not like I can complain right? It's free after all. Well, I argue no. After tasting a fine wine like C4D, Blender tastes like bud lite. And hey, some people like a cheap beer.
@@alectriciti I really don't think it's a case of "not knowing any better". I started with 3DSMax and I felt it was a lot easier to work with Blender. It took a bit to get used to the old ways of "right click-selection" but after the initial hurdle everything clicked and my workflow went miles faster than when I used 3DSM, granted I'm not a big studio doing gigantic work. But (almost) every command and keyboard shortcut in Blender made much more sense in it's context (that means more intuitive for me). I learned Blender as Blender, not trying to match it's bindings to what I was used to. It sounds like you didn't get used to it or it's just not the right tool for your type of work. So that must mean it's bad and people who use it are dummies, I guess? Truth is there's a tool for everything, if what you do is easier in C4D, stick with it, that's fine. That's not everyone's case, though.
Blender is growing fast. The biggest crutch it has is its renderer, is not production ready (and also arguably its community rampant cringe). I can see blender taking over the modeling stuff really fast. For everything else, not so much. Its so refreshing to see an actual self aware blender user, lmao.
Blender is like fast food restaurant, it keeps changing like crazy thus many tutorial broken in a year
This is another important point. I really love Blender, but it's being developed too quickly. More than once, the options you've worked with for years are completely thrown out the window and you have to rework most of your projects.
In certain areas sure. In some other areas I have tutorials in blender from 10 years ago and still get comments saying "this still works today". Equally lots of other software is like that like Maya. Hot damn I swear every year Maya was flipping moving around all it's tools.
Beyond the big studios - as a personal or freelance user, ideas + the final results are more important than which software you use, so if you are not forced to use specific software based on your workplace , use whatever you can create with good results.
Very true. That's why I use blender for nearly all my personal and freelance work
0:10 Intuitive??? what kind of blender easy mode you have? please share it 😭😭😭😭😭😭
As someone who used an old blender quite a lot, everything after 2.8 feels like an easy mode and intuitive...
@@wolfgangd3653 Agree. This is anyway related to the habit of using the software.
G to grab
E to extrude
R to rotate
The easy mode is forgetting the bad industry standard and try to look at it logically
I worked in a Studio for 4 years before quitting to do youtube...
The Biggest Reason we didn't touch blender was, we didn't use vanilla Maya.
Over the course of 10 years, the studio made and bought plugins, that what was important for the pipeline.
Just moving that to blender would cost SO MUCH more money.
FYI no one hates Blender, everyone actually loves it, and the Studio always has a someone from every department testing what can we switch, how easy it would be to write a particular plugin for it.
It's not that studios don't switch softwares or are stuck on Maya. Mid project we switched to houdini as the sims just looked batter, behaved better and there was so much control.
And maya or Max with Fume Fx where no where near the Fidelity.
We were being paid our full salaries while we learned Houdini
It was the same with Nuke
clickbait title => Dislike with extreme prejudice without even watching the video. Cheers
A VFX artist here. As already pointed out by a few people the primary reason why companies haven't switched to Blender is due to studios already having stablished pipelines that have been built over many years and while they are always making changes and improvements all the time because they have teams dedicated to it. the changes take place gradually to avoid making disruptions on existing shows and because there are already well stablished workflows and work arounds in place that are well understood.
Another main reason is that the leading major studios adopted the popular software's that were available at the time and these led smaller studios doing the same and therefore universities and art schools also followed the same as well as the surge of video tutorials and later online courses that focused on training artists on the software's that would allow them to get a job in the industry at the top studios that many of us growing up aspired to reach.
So all of this has created a larger user base of artists who are proficient on using the popular 3D packages like Maya, Houdini, Zbrush etc. that studios could more easily hire new talent.
I can confirm that over the past 4 years I have seen Blender available at my former and current job. (Although not part of the pipeline).
Not only because it is free, but because over the past few years Blender has gotten considerably better and in my opinion, also has exceeded famous 3D packages from big corporations. (We all know who they are XD ). But that's not all, many new artists from the past few years have learned 3D in Blender and are now pushing what can be done using Blender.
Also many of the artists who are now being promoted to supervisor or are now in positions of making decisions at studios are more open minded in having Blender available due to all of the above reasons and also likely due to them having some experience using Blender on their spare time. Something that wasn't the case many years ago.
Studios will continue to use what already works for them with their existing pipeline but as the industry continues to change over the years, Blender stride into the vfx and animation studios will continue to grow as it's user base continues to do so.
Over the past 4 years I have noticed the shift of a lot of Maya centric positions shifting toward Houdini and also the increased popularity to use Unreal as well.
Since Blender in a way has many similarities to both of them and is making improvements faster than most other 3D packages. Blender inroads into animation and VFX studios will continue to grow as does it's user base and pool of artists.
Pro Studios have their systems in place with the major 3d software. They don't want to spend money or change that system that could cause slowdown to get the job done.
Don't forget the custom tooling that a lot of studios have in place for each application; their staff includes a robust team (or teams) of software developers building tools that are often specific both for the studio and the software that studio uses.
Some of those are pipeline tools; replacing Maya or 3DSMax with Blender would require, in addition to the artists' retraining time, developers and TDs to spend time updating and adapting their custom tooling for things like version management, backups, renderfarm integration, and so on. No matter how fast Cycles is on your PC with its bigass nVidia GPU, even Arnold will run circles around it when it's scaled out to a thousand processors.
They use these softwares primarily because they have contracts that they respect. Additionally, they have a customized version of, for example, Maya, which is significantly different from the default one. It has been tailored by a team to meet the specific needs of the studio.
"Now this: For a teenager who is only 3 years old, using Blender, and who probably still lives in their parents' house, calling Blender "garbage" is quite arrogant."
Another important point is that companies like autodesk put a lot of effort into ensuring college courses train students on their software. So when the big studios go to hire they're getting artists trained in maya, max, houdini etc.
This mechanism is likely to lose importance as colleges lose importance though.
Clickbait title