Can blender compete in the animation industry

#1

i started to learning blender and about 3d animation some 2 months now, however i recently read on a forum that blender is for hobbyist and just that. I intend to be more than a hobbyist so should i be learning something else and if so what software would you recommend(no way i can afford maya).

#2

I think this can answer your question:

Making of Lighthouse

ProMotion Studio in Australia actually do their business using Blender.

#3

tried to fix the link… but cgs seems to dislike it’s art mag…

www.its art mag.com/features/promotionstudio/

#4

Or how about Big Buck Bunny? There is nothing “less than professional” about this tool now.

Your best bet would be … to do animation, and/or whatever else you may be interested in. “Actually do it, start to finish,” rinse and repeat.

Obviously, when you move on to your first :deal: you will have to learn their toolchain and their workflow, which may or may not include Blender, but you will have quite thoroughly learned how to do something useful.

#5

I’m about to study blender. I hope I’m picking the right application. :wink:

#6

I work professionally with blender, although on a way lower level than the aforementioned agency.

Personally I feel that Blender stands a greater chance of being accepted as a professional tool since the 2.5-version, not only is it more powerful but the new interface is way more professional as well, and like it or not but that’s where a lot of people judge software.

Perhaps what you’ve read about Blender has been about the pre 2.5-versions?

#7

petersjoberg i think ur rite, i only started using blender after 2.5 release. well i have seen some amazing work done in blender and the durian trailer looks great. so im sticking with blender

#8

can a company alter blender how they feel? since its released under GPL it seems to Me that a production house if they had skilled programmers could pull down the source and alter things to suit their needs if the stock program doesn’t do it. which would be fully against the license agreement of say Maya or 3ds.

#9

That Blender is a hobbyist tool must be an old post in that forum. Blender ages like a dog. What’s 1 year for the other commercial apps is 7 years for Blender. Lot’s of improvement very fast.

#10

Seriously… if you look at the “Release Notes” sections for the last four or five sub-releases (and I’m not even including the forthcoming one!), you’ll see for yourself just how rapidly open source development can advance, and on just how many fronts it can do so simultaneously.

Now… is any major (or not-so major) studio gonna change their workflow because of this? Uhhh… no. Any data-processing shop of any kind tends to hang on to their tools and workflows longer than a high-school student hangs on to his unwashed gym shorts. :buttrock: (And, all joking aside, there are extremely sound business reasons why they do things the way they do.)

There are lots of “professional-grade 3D graphics programs” out there, and I think that we can all say now, without any hesitation at all, that Blender is one of those programs.

#11

So how the hell did a tool DEVELOPED to be the in-house tool for a PROFESSIONAL media development organisation, which has/had an interface that requires a professional level of commitment and understanding of the art to use, somehow become labelled a “hobbyist” application?

Reminds me of a guy I know who considers himself a professional video editor because he knows how to use Final Cut Pro. Put him to the test with any other tool and it’s bitch about this and bitch about that and nothing getting done… but he will NEVER admit that it’s his lack of understanding about the fundamentals of what he’s doing for a living that is the real problem.

Not a professional in my book, I would NEVER hire someone who just knows which buttons to push to work for me, you either KNOW the fundamentals of your field or you don’t.

With Blender you have a tool that can be used as part or ALL of the production pipeline, this is a huge bone to smaller and up media development shops. The fact that the interface is getting easier to use means squat, a PRO will learn his/her tools. What’s important is that YOU have a talented group of developers who are providing a constantly evolving tool that in the hands of a talented user can and does produce professional work.

However you go, good luck… think for yourself, try various tools, but don’t believe for an instant that knowing Blender, or Maya, or whatever app is going to get you professional work. Get damn good at the art of 3d animation/rigging/modeling (which you CAN do in Blender, or Maya or whatever) and then yes… you can end up doing professional work. At this stage there’s no way of knowing what tools you’ll be using then, so save some bucks, join a great community and get going with Blender!

#12

Y’know, Phil, one thing we need to keep in mind here is that “Blender has progressed enormously in an extremely short period of time.”

When I first started using the program … well, it was fairly shortly after the “bye bye, NaN” days. And, it wasn’t too much to sneeze at. (But computers were a whole lot smaller, too.)

I kinda feel like it’s, “if the last time you looked at the girl next door was when she was ‘nothing but knees and elbows’ long-about age 12,” then … “well, she’s twenty-one now, and :eek: .”

It’s very easy to find material that’s even just a few years old that’s “talking about Blender” (and in good faith, at that point in time) and-d-d-d-d… it’s altogether and completely “a brand new game” now. If you have not been keeping a very close eye on Blender (i.e. by using it every single day), you’ve missed a lot, and it’s probably in your best interests going forward to pay a lot more attention.

I absolutely agree with you that “the tools don’t make the (wo)man.” You have to know your tools (no matter what tools they are) well enough to produce consistently good, marketable results. (And if you need to produce those results in the context of “some other program,” then so be it! “They’re payin’ ya, ain’t they?” :thumbsup: )

But Blender, today, really doesn’t have to hold a stubby-candle anymore to anyone. It truly is "that good."

#13

i think the Hobbyist label comes from it being free. as such people wanting to toy with CG and not be committing software piracy can get it.

question is what advantages do 3ds Max and Maya(and other big name commercial brands) have over Blender in a front line production environment? other then a better sales pitch to the owner of the company(and of course the colleges and universities that teach graphics arts).

#14

Well as time passes whatever advantage Max and Maya had in terms of function a few years ago is slowly eroding.

http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools

In fact you can see features where Blender is already the leader like UV-Unwrap. And it is at par in other features like Animation.

Also Blender is now a cross-competitor against Mudbox for its sculpting tool.

The speed of development is also notable for Blender. Time is something that seems to be on Blender’s side these days.

#15

Agreeing completely with CGIPadawan, I’d also point out, though, that a major “shop” that’s been in business for quite some time has a rather huge inventory of digital assets, product specific know-how … i.e. :banghead: … which they do not throw-away. They sometimes work on a single project for years, and they’d better be able to exactly re-create a very old shot on-demand.

So, there are actually plenty of business reasons why software products “hang around.” They’re well-understood, trustworthy, reliable, dependable. They move the freight.

Like, say, Blender, for instance . . . :thumbsup: Blender has arrived. (But are “the other guys,” therefore, leaving with their tails tucked between their legs? Nope. And never expect 'em to.)

Yep, lots of folks imagine that “tools displace other tools,” but in all my years of working with computer software I have almost never seen it happen. It isn’t a reflection on anyone or anything; it’s just how it is. Digital assets that merely consist of digital files nevertheless cost thousands and millions of dollars each.

#16

Don’t forget the nice smoke and fluid simulations which are for free, too. (AfterBurner etc.)

#17

seems to me then, its not that it is not ready to play in the really big leagues, it just needs its chance under the lights.

#18

For instance, here you have not even defined what you consider “really big leagues” to be! Who are they? What are they doing and how many years have they been doing it? How many gigabytes of mission critical work-products and models do they already own that were built in “product X?” And so on and on. Define your terms.

Then… does Blender belong in that setting? Would it make the slightest business sense to impose such a disruptive change? What are the costs (and yes, there are some! in terms of money!!), the benefits, the risks?

Blender is certainly well-proved by now to be suitable for production work. (There really is no more room for debate on that score…) But the decision has to make “soup to nuts” business sense … for the company, for the workers, for the project(s).

#19

Blender has matured a great deal in the past two years. Prior to Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny it had fairly poor animation tools. Now with Durian it has arguably some of the top character animation tools in the industry.

However due to the rapid maturation it hasn’t had time for it to be adopted into commercial pipelines, also the rate of documentation hasn’t kept up.

The interface prior to the 2.5x plans has been rather baffling to non Blender users which has also hampered adoption.

Also Blender has weaknesses for input and output of other formats which can prevent its usage in some pipelines.

If I were you I’d learn both Blender, but also Maya and 3DS Max (if you are a student you should be able to get student versions for free now). Within a year or so I suspect that every studio will have Blender as an option to use in their pipeline.

#20

please watch this walkthroughs that we completed at our studio

its done entirely using blender including compositing & editing

http://vimeo.com/12198312
http://vimeo.com/12202062

Completed only using open source tools in a Linux environment. Blender is the only tool mainly used for production. Only other tool used was GIMP for texture creation. Post production and editing also done inside blender.
The renderer is blender internal renderer.

regards
Sivaprasad Velayudhan
Director - Operations
Realworks Studios India Pvt. Ltd.
www.realworks.in