Why Blender Isn't 3D Industry Standard

just my 2c: I'm in gaming industry for 20 years already and made couple of AAA games. I used mainly Max and Maya for modeling. I always ignored Blender because it was "just a toy for muggles". Since I tried the v2.8 for the first time and especially with addons like BoxCutter, HOps and DecalMachine I'm really struggling to get back to Autodesk. Blender really surprised me with it's modelling.

2019 : Why Blender Isn't 3D Industry Standard 2030: How Blender took over the 3D industry 2031: How blender became sentient and took over the world in less than a year

As a long term Maya user ,after trying out blender I must say: Finally there's a good competition for Maya as it's been stagnant in last few years, hopefully that will change

2 years on a follow-up to this conversation would be nice, now that Blender 3.x has made some great strides (geometry nodes, improved sculpting, fluid sim, realtime compositing etc)

Take a drink every time they say: "guys we don't hate Blender".

Quote of the Day: "Maya isn't fun to use. It's boring. It's a tractor."

I’m curious to see an update to this in another year or two. I absolutely agree with your reasons and the logic behind studios not switching their pipelines, but as programs get more predatory, and Blender stays Blender with adding features like the new hair system and animation and such, it’d be interesting to revisit this!

my 2c as a 25+ year Max/Blender generalist freelancer: Why Blender is not seen as industry standard: 1. Perceived as a toy 2. No technical support 3. Lack of professional talent pool. 4. Scene file exchange. Other studio's want files they can use. 5. Lack of industry standard plugins like iToo Forrest Pack hampered by open source nature. My thoughts on that: Perceived as a toy ============== Blender 2.8 is, imo, a game changer. Eevee alone is worth its weight in gold that other software lacks in. I switched from Max 2019 to Blender 2.7 / 2.8 and my work output quality has not changed, in fact I produce faster in Blender now than I did with 25+ years of Max software knowledge. We should look at software to solve problems or achieve goals quicker and if Blender can solve a problem that Max/Maya/Houdini struggles with then learn it, use it and add it to you toolbox. A flexible artist has a whole collection of software tools to complete a job. No Technical Support ================= As a freelancer I had what? 2 free calls to Autodesk to help with issues during each 12 month subs. The issues I found were crash bugs and the response was something like "we will let you know when that status changes". Max forums / Reddit are pretty much ghost towns. Vray (Chaos Group) were better at getting back to you and I commend their support though. Now Blender, if you have an issue there are lots of places to get almost real-time help from other users. It is a thriving community. If it is a serious bug in the software you could (assuming you can code) dive in, fix it, recompile. Or wait for a daily build that fixes it and more often than not, find a workaround. I am not sure if priority support exists for Blender but a studio could employ a programmer for that as you get the full source for free. Also, Blender crashes maybe once every 4 weeks when working. Max 2019 crashed 2 to 3 times a day on my last 20 mil+ poly project. I would much rather NOT have a need for urgent support. Lack of professional Talent Pool ========================== This is something that industry needs. I good supply of talented users in software x. I think 2.8 with its more natural UI and accessibility will gradually change this but until universities and colleges offer Blender courses more often this will stifle adoption. Scene File Exchange ================= This was my biggest hurdle. My colleagues in the industry wanted max files so when I switched to Blender that become impossible. Exporting as FBX is not a solution here and I have lost a few clients because of this. Rather than pay $200 per month for those odd jobs that require Max source files I decided to drop it altogether and just concentrate on Blender as most clients do not care what I use as long as the output is to their expectations. Plugins ====== This is an issue where industry grade plugin developers need to protect their IP and with Blenders open source nature that makes it very difficult. Yes you can compile a copy of Blender just for your addon (e.g. VRay) but the pace of Blender fixes and releases makes that a constant job for plugin developers to recompile. This is one area I wish Blender could find a solution to. Some kind of API that is not bound by Blender's open source license and allow compiled linked addons. For instance I like to have a collection of render engines for different jobs, I am now limited in that area. I would also like to see plugins like iToo Forrest Pack make its way to Blender but again, difficult. Finally: I can understand why big budget studio's want to stick with corporate software tools but for freelancers and smaller studio's (<$100K) I can see Blender really having an impact. especially since version 2.8 which overhauled the entire application. Autodesk have let the ball slip in recent versions of Max and for me, it was not worth the cost/frustration/lackluster features to keep supporting that when there is a very active and free app that does 95% of what I needed. Blender also brought back the "fun" to working in 3D due to its real-time semi-rendered viewports.

2:17 "Maya has been tested for years"... Crashes every 5 minutes

Here's my take - We understand that Autodesk have been the kings of 3D design and animation for the last 15-odd years and have been the #1 company in the industries of games, films, television and even architecture if I'm correct to say, but the thing is Blender has been around since 1998, which for the last 20 years continued to develop and work as a major open-source tool that enables more people to get into 3D design and animation. With the release of Blender 2.8 this past year, it has been progressing to the next step in becoming a professional tool in the terms of how the UI looks and it's navigation, how people can operate the software via hotkeys and certain tasks etc. We get the fact that users and artists that have the knowledge of Autodesk software like Maya and 3DS Max are likely to be more in the pipeline of working with AAA game studios and even with other major production companies of Film and TV, but the bottom line is, those that have the knowledge of a Maya or a 3DS Max can afford to pay out for the privilege, if we look at how much the subscription model is with Maya or 3DS Max, people are paying out £1000s / $1000s per year in order to produce work in Autodesk software for commercial purposes, whereas Blender has unlocked the doors massively for anyone who wanted to get involved in 3D production like myself and has made it crystal clear that it can be used for any purpose including commercial. Not to be forgetting that more people turn to Blender because there is a larger community online and there are more resources made available on platforms like Social Media and even on YouTube. 1st time users can learn Blender instantly via YouTube depending on the version of Blender they are using. A friend of mine who owns his own production studio decided to turn away from Autodesk and go to Blender because small-companies like his were unable to keep up with the licensing fees that Autodesk are demanding on a yearly basis. If you are a small-time artist like I am who wants to produce good quality content on a budget, you would look at the alternatives like Blender and even 3D-Coat which is the alternative for Zbrush, because they are either free or one-off payment softwares that can be used for any purpose. Take this into account: Going off topic a little bit - If you are a multimedia designer that is looking to cut off the subscription model entirely for content production, you're best tools would be Blender, Hitfilm Express/Pro, 3D Coat, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, Inkscape, GIMP, and even Blackmagic Fusion. All those softwares in question are either free or you pay a one-off fee for that particular software. Round all of them up together, you're paying around anywhere between £800-2,000 - that is nearly the amount you pay for just 1 year's subscription of 3DS Max or Maya. So going back to the subject, I feel that people are turning to Blender because of the large community and open access, if Autodesk wants to maintain themselves as a proper superpower in the industry, they have to take the steps into what other software is doing, and stop continuing to let artists pay extortion fees. We know they do an INDIE version of their software for a cheaper but there is too many restrictions, hence why Blender is the next best thing.

This was a particularly valuable and interesting video for me as I've taught Blender for nine years. About three years ago I was persuaded by one of my colleges to change the course to Maya and I'm struggling with it. It's very hard to get first and second year students to the point where they're productive with it, even though many of them are game design majors and would be using it professionally (this is University of California at Santa Cruz). Before, even using Blender 2.78 and earlier, this large class was mostly producing wonderful work by the end of a ten week quarter. I'm very much in two minds as to whether to switch back to Blender, particularly since 2.80 is so much more accessible. You make a lot of interesting points - thanks.

Great video!! I needed a idea of which software to use and what's happening in the market and you guys made it is very clear. I hope you guys keep making such videos. Thankyou. :D

A video comparing Blender to Maya with respect to modeling, animation, rigging, texturing, dynamics, hair, cloth, fluids, miscellaneous simulation would be super helpful. Nothing beats a video over broad generalized comments.

Blender is a good software to have in your pocket, when Maya isn't working correctly it's my saviour

I wanted to know, which rendering software is more powerfully between cycles and Arnold ?

There was a mention of someone finding grease pencil amazing, could that be elaborated upon? Like what usage and advantages there is in it that you wouldn't rather use a different tool for?

I really like this format of both of you sitting down in front of a camera and having a discussion, keep up the good videos and good work guys! <3

One thing that will never change, lots of 3d users talking crap about software they know nothing about.

"It's a circle of theft" - Basically sums up all software engineering

Which mic you are using.