leigh,
again thanks for your response,
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.
Yes and it depends significantly on how the pipeline is set up. Ie pipelines that are using Collada with conditioners (which is becoming more common) are a lot more flexible in what apps can be used.
For studios using pipelines based on collada with conditioners then adding software to the pipeline is less traumatic - that is part of the reason for the push for all DCCs to support Collada.
Of course an in house DAM solution could be extremely unflexible, as are some of the commercial DAMs.
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.
Most studios I’m aware of use a planned cycle for adoption/integration of software into their pipeline. While it wouldn’t be allowed to download Blender and dump it into a pipeline (well it can be in some instances - some pipelines will let you model and UV in whatever tool you want as long as you can get it in the proper format for doing a check in to the DAM), when the scheduled evaluation time for integration comes around it can be considered just like any other application.
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.
Availability of professionals skilled with a particular program is definitely a major consideration, which is known barrier to entry for adoption of Blender. (Both the ‘we don’t want to have to invest money to train someone on the software’ but also ‘if we are behind schedule how easy will it be to find bodys to throw at the project’).
That barrier is dropping pretty quickly as more students are being trained on Blender and as more professionals add it as a tool. I’d even be willing to bet that within 2 years the majority of 3D artists will know blender well enough to do sculpting, painting, retopology, and a render in it.
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.
Agreed.
In the professional world, it is a fringe app. I am sorry but I honestly don’t see how you can argue with that.
Do you consider Lightwave and Houdini ‘fringe’ applications? There are far more people who make their living with Blender than there are Lightwave and Houdini professionals. Most users of Blender who use it professionally are using it for Arch Viz, Illustration, Industrial Viz., music videos, game content, and related fields. The number of folks using it for FX work, tv advertising, television, and film are fairly small though growing. This is primarily due to Blender having historically having had relatively poor animation tools and a weak renderer until Big Buck Bunny.
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).
Yes I noticed that you archived Modo and then reversed it. CGTalk app specific forums aren’t related to the applications popularity (see the traffic for the Photoshop forum which dwarfs the user base of all the 3D applications combined, yet it is hardly used at all), but rather the availability of good application dedicated forums elsewhere. Maya and 3DS Max have historically had poor application specific forums elsewhere thus you have a good number of those users who visit this forum regularly. ZBrush, Modo, and Blender all have their own rather large forums - ZBrush has about double the traffic of CGTalk for instance. I think Modos traffic is about half that of CGTalk (they don’t list traffic like other forums so it is a guess based on thread activity). There are a large number (30+?) of forums that are dedicated to Blender with just one of them, blenderartists.org, having about half the traffic of cgtalk.
I think there are other variables that are important as well, but that is the most significant regarding app specific forum traffic.
That said, I think you will see traffic in this forum pick up once 2.5 is released, since the changed UI, and presets for Maya bindings will make it a lot more inviting for users of other packages to play and explore Blender.
