Can blender compete in the animation industry

#21

The Yorik’s site is also a great exemple of what can be achieved with Blender and Opensource

http://yorik.uncreated.net/
CGS gallery: http://yorik.cgsociety.org/gallery/

#22

i’m a big fan of the Blobmesh feature in Max that is similar to the mBall feature in Blender.

i have not been able to find anything similar in Maya 8.5. (could be a case of PEBKAC !)

what i like is the ability to have particles congeal, take a texture, be reflected, etc.

the other aspect of Blender is the huge user base. all those Blender users that used it in school are entering the labor force.

also, it is kind of a personal choice about which Rev. of Blender. I like 2.49 and have not taken a liking to 2.5. i think for a lot of people, the configurability of the Blender interface is a big plus. once you get used to it, the customizeability of the interface is a userful tool - [b]and it accomodates another 10,000 vision impaired users - including me.

[/b]i can use Max Maya on a 27" LCD TV, using that as a monitor, but with Blender, i can arrange the screen to make it useful on a smaller monitor. with Blender, it’s very easy to make the menu’s bigger.

( perhaps i missed something on Max & Maya and i can do the same thing ?)

#23

Hello,

I am in school right now. I have two more years for my BFA in computer animation. Right now I am learning Blender and have the beginners book as well as watching numerous tutorials to get me past the interface.

My school will teach me Maya but I won’t start my “actual” animation classes for another year. In that time I want to get bad ass with Blender. If I feel like I am really well versed, is Blender ok to put as a software that you know on your resume? Or should it be avoided?

#24

Haha. Studios totally alter Maya and other applications to suit their pipelines. In fact, Maya’s huge extensive capability through scripting and programming is one of the main reasons why it’s the main choice of the film industry, where studios rely heavily on proprietary tools.

The question being asked here should be: is there room for Blender in the industry? As of now, I’d say no.

#25

It makes perfect sense to me that what you’re saying is true, Leigh, for the segments of “the industry” that you are implicitly speaking about. When you’re doing massive projects that run for years, you’d be stupid to change anything.

We can be certain that there are now other segments of that same, vast industry which have already standardized upon Blender for much the same reasons. What goes around, comes around. As this tool continues to develop, and as “emerging markets” keep popping up in video-land, I think that this will become ever more frequently the case.

But, say, five years hence, will your (or anyone’s) assessment of movie-land be different? I seriously doubt it. It will never make business sense for them.

#26

ahh cool i always figured the big brands would be strongly against modifications. guess i am too used to other types of software.

#27

filanwizard,

ahh cool i always figured the big brands would be strongly against modifications. guess i am too used to other types of software.

You and Leigh are talking about slightly different levels of modification. Leigh is talking about replacing entire modules with custom modules etc, via API access, and extensive scripting support. You are talking about full source code access allowing tweaking of existing low level code. Few (do any?) studios have the full source code of Maya. (I do recall hearing of studios having full Nuke source code for custom versions though).

Since the major studios already have established pipelines around Maya and have designed their own custom solvers for many things, they wouldn’t gain much benefit from access to the core code in Blender.

Leigh,

The question being asked here should be: is there room for Blender in the industry? As of now, I’d say no.

Which ‘industry’ are you refering to? Film, Games, TV, Print Ads, Arch Viz? Are you talking West Coast USA only or world? My understanding is that your work is primarily (exclusively?) big budget film work?

I’m curious why you have that opinion. Are you of a similar opinion regarding Lightwave or C4D?

LetterRip

#28

I’m talking about the entire industry, not just film (which is the field I work in, yes). The reason I say this is because most studios have already built their productions around specific packages, and changing that is not a simple case of “oh, let’s try a new package!”. Of course, the exception here is independent freelancers, but they’re not the bulk of the wider industry at all. LightWave is already used quite widely in TV work, and C4D is popular for motion graphics. They’ve found their niches. I honestly don’t think there’s a place in the industry for a new package, because the others have already been around far longer and have become rooted deeply in the various fields in which they dominate.

There are other reasons why it’s beneficial to go with other more mainstream software as well, but I believe the above is the core reason. Remember that there are a lot of other fringe packages out there, not just Blender, and none of them make any significant impact on the industry either. I also wholeheartedly disagree with people who claim that Blender is being used in the film industry, because it isn’t. Maybe there are a few copies of it floating around one or two studios but it’s never been used anywhere that I have ever heard of myself.

#29

I don’t think that anyone will seriously disagree with you, Leigh, on any of the points that you have raised. I do not disagree with you, nor do I dismiss the validity of your industry point-of-view. But I do politely disagree with your conclusions with regard to future course, which do seem to “shut the door on anything else.” This athletic competition is never-ending: the point does not come where one declares, “game over,” and turns off the lights in the stadium and locks the door.

When this strange ship of computing (that every one of us in our own way is riding) changes course, it splits. Everybody who’s paying attention scrambles into the new boat, which goes off in the new direction and gradually gets larger as it goes. The old boat (which does not notice that it is now “old”), sails blissfully onward … imperceptibly shrinking … gliding … to … a … … stop. “Congratulations: you have just been ‘marginalized.’” It happened to an entire generation of COBOL programmers. It will happen here, too. And it’s not a bad thing, unless you’re on the wrong boat. :eek:

Every valid conclusion that we may draw about “the industry,” as it exists now, must be tempered by the fact that “the industry as it exists now” did not exist at all, say twenty years ago; some would say much less. Hardware of a quality and power that has become commonplace on the desktop, or in the palm of your hand, likewise did not exist, even five years ago. Blender, as a product, is in the process of being very deeply transformed, and that transformation is assimilating the good ideas that practitioners in this field bring to it. (Note: I am not a member of that development team, although I do contribute from time to time to its documentation.)

Yes, there are other open-source products out there, but, ooooh, don’t dismiss as “fringe” what might come back to eat you. “Open source” software development is no fluke. Some of the best and most serious computer gurus are deeply involved with it, investing sometimes-big money into it, and getting results.

In short, Leigh, while your conclusions as to the present state of “the industry” may well be true, “the present,” in the computer industries at least, is only a very weak indicator of “the future.” New tools are being developed, as are entirely new markets.

If I could tell you now exactly how it was going to play out, I’d have picked six numbers long ago and I’d be writing this from a beach on the south coast of Spain with a foo-foo cocktail in my hand.

“The true objective of any computer programmer is to work himself or herself right out of a job.” Is animation always going to remain “keyframes and IK solvers?” You can bet the answer is “no.” Renders still take hours per? No way. When that (and other things like it) happens, the labor-component of what we are doing right now will shrink sharply, and a lot of folks are going to be scrambling … again.

#30

I don’t know about actual production but Blender has been used in the making of Spiderman.

“As an animatic artist working in the storyboard department of Spider-Man 2, I used Blender’s 3D modeling and character animation tools to enhance the storyboards, re-creating sets and props, and putting into motion action and camera moves in 3D space to help make Sam Raimi’s vision as clear to other departments as possible.”[21] - Anthony Zierhut, Animatic Artist, Los Angeles

#31

And yet modo has apparently made substantial inroads in studios.I don’t use modo, but if a product does work and users want it - even studio users - it will be adopted. And you’ve also got to think of the smaller studios starting out that end up being large studios. if they start with Blender, then perhaps Blender will survive through the growing pains.

I use Lightwave, but I’m seriously looking at jumping into Blender when 2.5 goes gold. And I am looking to start a small studio relatively soon. Maybe we’ll use both LW and Blender. :wink:

#32

Uggghhh had a long reply typed up and broswer crashed. I’ll retype it…

Hano,

that example isn’t really pertinent - that would fall under the ‘1 or 2 copies here and there’ which Leigh acknowledged.

#33

Leigh,

first off thanks for taking the time to reply.

I agree that studios already have established pipelines and the larger the studio, the greater the difficulty in say, being a complete substitution for Maya or 3DS Max would be. However I think you are overlooking the opportunity of Blender acting as a niche tool, and instead substituting in for a part of a pipeline. Mudbox and ZBrush have made rapid in roads for sculpting (and Sculptris is taking off quickly for pure concepting); Modo and Silo have made quick in roads for modeling; 3D Coat and topogun have made good in roads for retopologizing. Mari appears poised to become the prefered tool for certain texturing situations. Houdini is establishing itself as a preferred tool for particle related work.

So substituting for part of a pipeline in large studios in a relatively brief period of time has already been demonstrated possible.

The second issue is Blender in medium to small studios and freelancers.

For film and tv work it is dominated by large players, but for most other 3D industrys, small and medium sized firms make up a large portion of the market. I think Blender has a far larger pressence in small and medium sized studios than you realize. For instance http://www.milimetros.com/ just completely switched their pipeline to Blender for their in development feature film ‘Heart of Oak’.

Also the dynamics for adoption in other industrys are not nearly as rigid as film is.

LightWave is already used quite widely in TV work, and C4D is popular for motion graphics. They’ve found their niches. I honestly don’t think there’s a place in the industry for a new package, because the others have already been around far longer and have become rooted deeply in the various fields in which they dominate.

I think that the thinking of Blender as only potential usage as a substitute for a complete 3d animation suite is a flaw here. Using Blender as a substitute where the tools in a package you already have aren’t adequate, or where you want to add additional artists as a temporary bump to your existing artists pool, or even as a longer term growth strategy are all happening.

There are other reasons why it’s beneficial to go with other more mainstream software as well, but I believe the above is the core reason. Remember that there are a lot of other fringe packages out there, not just Blender, and none of them make any significant impact on the industry either.

At Siggraph NO I talked with a number of schools that are looking to adopt Blender as part of their ciriculum, and studios that are interested in adding Blender to their pipeline. There is a ‘For Dummies’ book on learning Blender. There will be about 10 books that come out with Blender 2.5 from a variety of publishers. There are numerous companies selling commercial training videos/DVDs for Blender. Indeed at most book stores I’ve visited the number of Blender titles on the shelves is more than for any other 3D software package and sometimes more than all of the other 3D software packages combined. I think your characterization of Blender as ‘fringe’ is a bit odd in that respect.

I also wholeheartedly disagree with people who claim that Blender is being used in the film industry, because it isn’t. Maybe there are a few copies of it floating around one or two studios but it’s never been used anywhere that I have ever heard of myself.

See above. If you restrict the term film industry for 100 million film projects then I’d tend to agree, we don’t offer much to a large studio with a deeply entrenched pipeline . There is adoption going on in medium and small studios, sometimes wholesale switching of pipelines as above.

#34

I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a space for Blender at the earlier stages of the pipeline in larger studios (mostly thinking of modelling and UVing here). Models are much easier to exchange between different programs than most other assets (rigs, animations, etc), and I think I’ve seen most major 3D packages used for modelling and UVing at one point or another at various companies - not just “Maya everywhere” like one might expect.

Now that said, once you get on to rigging, animating and lighting/rendering then as Leigh said, it becomes much more difficult for a new package to enter the mix, because most studios have several years of development invested in their own scripts/tools/workflows, and a shift to another program would mean having to replace or rewrite all of these for Blender, which would be exceptionally expensive. I suspect that even if Blender gained a thousand amazing ground-breaking features overnight in rigging/lighting/rendering that no one else had, the big studios would still probably wouldn’t switch for exactly this reason.

Having the source code available isn’t always the big plus people might assume it to be either - TDs who know a bit of scripting are much cheaper and easier to find/hire than hardcore C developers. The net result is that it’s easier for a studio to modify Maya than it is Blender, regardless of the source code being available.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! :slight_smile: Don’t judge by big studios alone - Blender is a very capable and cost-effective low-end program. If a revolution comes, it’ll start at the low end of the market and trickle up to the big players, not the other way round.

#35

Where’s the business advantage of introducing even the slightest bit of “disruptive change” into a well-established pipeline of a big-shop? Probably, none.

But “the market for 3D” is big and getting ever bigger.

#36

Having the source code available isn’t always the big plus people might assume it to be either - TDs who know a bit of scripting are much cheaper and easier to find/hire than hardcore C developers. The net result is that it’s easier for a studio to modify Maya than it is Blender, regardless of the source code being available.

Yes, but only if we ignore that Blender also has scripting capabilities. So besides the free source code, there are other means to modify the program. For example the whole 2.5 UI is defined through python, the position of all widgets, panels etc.

#37

Has it? :shrug:

#38

I don’t want to be overly argumentative or sound condescending here, but posts like this really disregard the actual full meaning of the word “pipeline”. It really has to be the most frequently misused and clearly misunderstood word on this site. A pipeline does not equal workflow. It’s far, far more complex than that. You can’t just bring an app into a studio and start using it and have everything working perfectly. Just because Blender can, for example, export OBJs doesn’t mean a modeller can just use it if they want to and export OBJs for everyone. Studios build their entire asset handling systems around the software they use. When I open Maya, it has loads of proprietary menus that pull up our internal asset handling system which allows me to gather in assets, publish assets, and everything else. These tools are expansive, deeply rooted in our 3D software and are continuing to be developed and improved in-house. Every other application we use needs to communicate with these tools and needs to be supported by R&D and our tech support. You can’t just bring in a new app and expect to start using it - there’s no support for it, and it doesn’t work with our tools.

The second issue is Blender in medium to small studios and freelancers… Also the dynamics for adoption in other industrys are not nearly as rigid as film is.

I’ve worked in small and medium sized studios too, and they’re also very hesitant to change software, that’s really no different to large studios. They may use less proprietary code, but they stick with their toolsets for other reasons, one of them being that when you’re using an industry standard application, it’s easier to find professional artists who use it. No-one wants to hire artists and then have to train them to use a new package before they can start doing any work. This is a major plus factor in sticking with industry standards.

I think that the thinking of Blender as only potential usage as a substitute for a complete 3d animation suite is a flaw here. Using Blender as a substitute where the tools in a package you already have aren’t adequate, or where you want to add additional artists as a temporary bump to your existing artists pool, or even as a longer term growth strategy are all happening.

Using lots of packages for different tasks is a huge pain in the arse that most studios attempt to avoid as much as possible. It causes disruptions, can cause inconsistencies, and generally complicates what is already a relatively complicated process. And I’m speaking from experience here - working in a studio where you have to jump from package to package to do different tasks is a headache worth avoiding.

At Siggraph NO I talked with a number of schools that are looking to adopt Blender as part of their ciriculum, and studios that are interested in adding Blender to their pipeline. There is a ‘For Dummies’ book on learning Blender. There will be about 10 books that come out with Blender 2.5 from a variety of publishers. There are numerous companies selling commercial training videos/DVDs for Blender. Indeed at most book stores I’ve visited the number of Blender titles on the shelves is more than for any other 3D software package and sometimes more than all of the other 3D software packages combined. I think your characterization of Blender as ‘fringe’ is a bit odd in that respect.

In the professional world, it is a fringe app. I am sorry but I honestly don’t see how you can argue with that.

There is adoption going on in medium and small studios, sometimes wholesale switching of pipelines as above.

I often read comments like this from Blender users, and yet when asked for examples, the best they can do is produce is one or two links, usually of obscure places that hardly anyone has ever even heard of. Even this very Blender discussion forum is not nearly as busy as some of the other software forums on this site - in fact, we’re considering archiving this forum altogether (which is actually why I happened to see this thread - because I’ve started having a look at this forum to monitor activity).

#39

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode][font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Wow, wow,wow, wow!
Smoke is in the air … I see two parties here making interesting and legitimate points. Looking from the pro perspective, the variables are much and, yes, change will be costly. Coming from people who haven’t invested an equal magnitude in their software arsenal, a free and promising blender looks very attractive. I believe MAX existed before Maya but, today, Autodesk feels proud to identify with what Alias started. Big things usually start small.

So leigh, give this thread a chance. I used to hang around MAX forums sometime 2005-2008. Now, I close-mark this one … even got some issues resolved here recently.[/font][/font] I started using blender this year and I’m enjoying it. This forum is about to get dangerously busy. Give it time.

#40

I’ll be sad if they do - it does seem like this forum is germinating a decent userbase; especially considering the increasing number of people popping in to ask questions and the number of knowledgeable types who are able to answer them.

That, and BlenderArtists scares me :slight_smile: