Trying Blender
polycounter lvl 6
So I just downloaded Blender which was an amazingly small download for what I have seen of this program. I'v just been giving it a bit of a test and there's a lot to get used to like finding smoothing groups, how to unwrap and so on.
What I was curious about though is, is it worth learning it fully? I know Maya and Max. I love Max to bits and of course both of those are heavily used in the industry but ever since I'v been using zBrush and UDK, I just see the modelling programs as a step to get into the other programs.
I never put things in my portfolio anymore that are rendered from Max unless its Xoliul's awesome shader. I find I'm only using max now to produce a base mesh, retopology, unwrapping, creating obj's/ASC and FBX files.
What I was curious about though is, is it worth learning it fully? I know Maya and Max. I love Max to bits and of course both of those are heavily used in the industry but ever since I'v been using zBrush and UDK, I just see the modelling programs as a step to get into the other programs.
I never put things in my portfolio anymore that are rendered from Max unless its Xoliul's awesome shader. I find I'm only using max now to produce a base mesh, retopology, unwrapping, creating obj's/ASC and FBX files.
Replies
If there is a negative bias towards Blender, I think it might be because of snobbery or ignorance or a combination of both. A prevailing attitude of "If it's free, how good can it be?" or the notion you must spend many thousands of dollars to have something decent still persists, but I think in a down economy, that feeling might not be so popular anymore.
Another factor against Blender until recently was the interface. It was just too different from mainstream apps until the 2.5 and upward release. Now it looks and feels pretty much like any app you care to use. There are still differences, of course, but that's true of all the apps.
In defense of those who don't want to learn Blender because no big (i.e. paying) studios (at least game studios) use it... well, that's fairly accurate (although I won't say entirely true because I don't know what every studio uses). Most studios are firmly in the clutches of Autodesk and if you want to work at those studios, you really need to broadcast your Max and Maya (and maybe some XSI) knowledge and downplay your use of programs like Blender. Companies that invest heavily in a commercial product tend to want employees working with that product and tend to be unimpressed with knowledge of other programs. That's been my experience, at least. YMMV.
And there is always the time factor to consider. If I only have X hours a day to devote to learning a new tool, do I want to learn another industry-standard app (Maya if your are a Max user or XSI if you know both Maya and Max, for example) or do I want to put my time towards something less commercially-used as Blender? I understand if artists want to spend their time making art or working on their traditional painting and sculpting skills or learning Zbrush over learning another all-encompassing 3D application. Blender really could be all you need to make great art, but if you've already learned Max and Maya, it might not make a lot of sense to learn something that is not fundamentally different from what you've used for years. So, I get why someone might feel like there's little point to learning it.
What I love about Blender is the freedom I get with it (not just financial). If I want to install it on a PC, I can. If I have a MacBook, no worries. There's a Blender for that (for free). Linux? Same. These may seem like small things, but anyone who has dealt with licensing software will immediately appreciate a simple-download-and-install-and-you're-off to-the-races. Other applications, like Modo, don't gouge you or restrict you nearly the way Autodesk does with their licensing. So there are options other than Blender that don't punish the user.0
At a small indie studio (there are a lot of them out there and more popping up every day), Blender would be my first choice simply because you can do everything you need for most games without dropping a dime. That's pretty powerful, especially as a lot of the big studios close or hemorrhage money and employees. Limiting costs is usually a good thing and it's hard to beat free.
Lots of timeley releases, generally very stable and pretty full-featured (modeling, animation, rendering, simulation, etc)- there's a lot to like about Blender. There are some chinks in the armor, though. BMesh has done a lot to bring Blender's modeling up to what most people coming from Max, Maya, XSI have used for years, but I've heard complaints about beveling not being as robust. Hasn't been a problem for me though. Also, finding good importers/exporters for various file formats can be iffy. The good news is there is usually someone out there in Blender land that is working on a plugin, addon or tool that will help. But, that's not always a reliable way to work, especially under a tight deadline.
In my opinion, a working knowledge of the program is a good thing. I don't think Blender will ever replace Max or Maya, but it's great there is such a powerful alternative. I think Blender is where a lot of the innovation in 3D is happening right now.
That's a very interesting take on it. I think if it comes down to snobbery then snobbery isn't going to guarantee good art. I personally find the real fine detail comes from zBrush, I see that program as the canvas and Max is now a tool to set up the canvas as brilliant as it is.
My point is, if I can create a base mesh in blender for free when all the heard graft is going to happen in zBrush, then its hard to see Max as good value. You know, what are the studios getting out of the expensive license fees if there is a free alternative with the same technical abilities.
Of course I don't make the rules, you are right in that things aren't likely to change, but it does make you wonder when you look at say the deal you get with UDK, where you only pay if you're making money off it.
I suppose if your an animator its a bit different.
It is worth it in the sense of; You are not losing anything, it is free for personal / commercial use, there are many blender tutorials that can be found for free through which you can master blender. There is probably no money involved so hay.
Doesnt hurt to learn it. I've seen many people using it for their 3d portfolio as well.
Do consider looking in to their short films, e-shop and gallery. If you like what they have done. Go ahead and learn it.
For me its kind of worth it.
There are some great animation tools in Blender. In fact there are animation tools in Blender I have yet to see in Max or Maya.
The licensing fees for Max and Maya are considerable, but there is also the additional cost of converting everyone from a standard studio tool to something new. The money and time put into Maya or Max plug-ins, exporters, tools and other bits of code used in most big game studios will probably mean it's just too expensive to switch.
And it's hard to get people to change. Just getting someone to use Max when all they've used is Maya is hard and the inverse can be just as true. I think Blender has a bright future in the indie scene, but maybe it will never get much penetration in a large corporation.
That's not true at all as far as I know... it used to be an in-house tool that was created at a studio Ton Roosendal worked at, then they simply made the decision to develop it as open source software. They can afford to keep developing Blender for free because they get grants from their awesome government and from proceeds from Blender goods (so buy their DVD's/T-Shirts!
Blender's U.I. is much closer to other 3D Programs now. You should have seen it prior to 2.5! I never thought I would get used to the drastic difference in U.I. when 2.5 came out, but I'd be hard pushed to go back now.
Now that BMesh is in the main releases, we should start seeing a lot more functional modeling tools released. There's no reason the modeling tools can't be on par with Max. A lot of features exist already, or are on their way.
The viewport renderer could stand some performance upgrades. That is one area that could use help. It is simply not able to support the kind of vert counts that other higher end apps can. Hopefully that will be improved upon.
To Wiki we go! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)#History
A bit of both.
From my attempts at using it, Blender behaves like no other 3d app I've ever used - I'm sure it's great for people that have the time to spend weeks figuring it out but I don't really have the time to do that, if I can't figure it out in a few hours it's not worth it to me.
Granted all my issues stem from trying to import an unwrapped model and apply an existing texture to it, after talking to Blender users they admit that the material system is a little weird and unintuitive.
Yeah after a day of playing around with it, its really out on its own in terms of the UI. I don't really see the point in why its that different, could it be legal/copyright issues? I just feel if it was slightly more in sync with the mainstream programs in that area it would be a much more widely used package.
Well those are complementary packages, not direct competitors to the central Autodesk suites like Max, Maya and XSI.
I would agree. Blender has to be kind of a hobby for people at the beggining, they have to have a bit of fun learning the software and it's quirks as well as actually making art if they want to keep it up. I've not heard of many people who 'pushed through' its quirks for another purpose, like freelancing with it.
I would MOST DEFINITELY agree with this hah. The material/texturing component of Blender is probably the funkiest part of the whole software, and something I would like to see overhauled ala B-Mesh.
Edge split modifier I think does the same thing as smoothing groups. I'm kinda the reverse and really only know how Blender does stuff heh. Unwrapping you usually mark edge seams and hit u to unwrap. 3DBuzz goes over it in one of their videos.
Kent Trammell has some a really good set of ongoing tutorials that kind of demonstrate Blender's general modeling, sculpting, texture capabilities. Might give you a better idea if it's something you want to invest time in learning or not. I mean it's a free application, so time is really the only investment.
FBX support (and Collada for different reasons) have been a thorn for Blender. Autodesk's FBX SDK isn't compatible with the GPL (they can't redistribute it or something I forget). One of the Google Summer of Code projects starting at the end of the month is for FBX Import, so I guess someone thinks they have a solution.
Dude, first thing I ever made in 3d was with POV-Ray (which was actually a decent free raytracer).
To learn blender, go here:
http://blendtuts.com/blender_tutorials
Start with the bottom one here:
http://blendtuts.com/blender_tutorials?field_level_value=All&page=2
POV-Ray constructive solid geometry for the win! Typed in a text file, of course.
The first time I modeled something in Max it tripped me out because the model WAS JUST A SHELL. :eek:
Oh, yeah...Blender...
I used to hate Blender. The UI was horrendous and kept me from learning more about it.
The new UI made me take a new look at Blender. Now, I think Blender stands on its own and is more than capable of creating whatever you need.
The main drawback is that Blender has a quirky way of doing things. It has a steep learning curve because it isn't very intuitive if you are coming from Max or Maya. Lucky for me, I enjoy a challenge.
I use whatever tools are required to do the job, but for my little projects Blender+Unity is a no-brainer. If you are only interested in studio jobs, stick with Max and Maya.
Another great site: http://cgcookie.com/blender/
Things I love:
Things I disliked:
For my first task, I thought I'd do something easy. Explore the interface, then animate a box jumping and render it out. This took about two hours since I had almost no experience with the program before now. My next task will be a walk cycle.
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if you like that, try right click and do view docs!
Also, no one uses the gizmos in blender. If you want to axis constrain press R (rotate) then x y or z to lock to that axis and press again if you want to go in to local. You can then type in numbers at this point.
Try rigify if you just want to character animate without doing a rig.
The problem with blender is that it has no foothold in the industry. Almost all studios have existing tools and pipelines. Artists which are familiar often up to expert level with an app. No time to lose for learning, especially when it concerns an entire studio. Hiring people with blender as main app is a problem. Convincing IT that relative newcomer a free tool beats a commercial app. I'd say it's more difficult than switching an entire gfx company to Linux on the desktop level.
Nevertheless, I think it's great that there's an open source 3D app and I'd love to see more like this in production.
Also using matcaps and masking and baking the results out can be great for laying down a foundation for your diffuse maps.
Once you get used to it I find Blender to be a really great tool, I enjoy the subdiv tool it has and being able to adjust a crease with a slider, it's not a 100% of the time method for subdiv modeling but it works in quite a few instances.
And using the shrinkwrap modifier works well for making clothing and armor base meshes for sculpting and for retopo work.
In fact, overally I really enjoy the modifier stack in Blender, it sort of works well for me as a halfway point between how I worked in Max and Maya.
I used to hate it when it was still in the "old" 2.49 UI version. Now it's my main tool.
Im learning max now because it helps knowing it for getting into game industry.
Im not saying max ain't good, but it feels like a slow behemoth for me now when coming from Blender.
But once i get the hold of the shortcuts it will probably get better.
I don't see anything wrong about Blenders material system. Although i don't use it that much either. I just do unwrapping in Blender, textures in Photoshop and then rendering in UDK, Unity or Marmoset.
Good things:
+ Free / Free plugins / Great Community
+ When you get hold of the shortcuts, its fast. No tweaking with gizmos..
+ UV tools
+ Spacebar Search (why on earth other packages dont have that?)
+ Modifiers (no need to collapse modifiers like in max)
+ It's getting better fast. (I remember being exited when i heard Lightwave getting an realtime viewport rendering. Time passed by.. few years actually before it was released on LW11. Blender announced Cycles. Few months later we already had it on our hands..)
+ You can customize the UI layout the way you want. Super easy, no need to go to settings or anything
+ perfect for freelance work, indie teams, works like a charm with Unity.
Bad Things:
- Not used really in larger game studios
- Game Engine feels unnecessary, i only know one serious game using it for real.
- Beveling. I havent looked into it, maybe it's possible (i know theres a modifier for it, but its not the same) .. i just do it "manually"..
2.63 has bevel (should be in the specials menu - w). It's comically buggy though. Probably should have been cut for release, but a lot of people really wanted it I guess.
They're porting over a bevel plugin from Sketchup. Right now it's an add-on called Bevel Round. You can find it on this page. It's still testing but works better than the trunk bevel, and eventually will replace it.
Blender encourages a gizmo-less manipulation. Its much much much faster to press the move hotkey and move your mouse, than to click and drag on handles. This is something Modo users have known a long time, but Max and Maya users "dont know what they dont know"
You can set up a max navigation style easily. The hotkey config setup is great, and its really easy to set up new hotkeys. The first thing I did was make the navigation like Max, and set the 1-2-3 keys to Vert, Edge, Face select in edit mode.
Another tip: Go to the user preferences, then addons, and enable "Dynamic Spacebar Menu". No clue why its not default. It has the search + everything else in the app:
As for the timeline issue, check this video:
http://blendtuts.com/animation_basics
At the end, he shows how to replace the timeline with a modified Dope Sheet which works the way you'd expect. Another reason I like blender - customization!
In fact, if anyone wants my key setup, here it is:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2586457/jm_blender_keys.py
Also, here's my startup.blend
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2586457/startup.blend
Just save the file and in the User Preferences (Ctrl-Alt-U), Import Key Configuration).
A few changes:
Max style navigation which means:
middle click: pan
alt-middle: rotate
ctrl-alt-middle: zoom
Also, in edit mode: 1-2-3 keys = Vertex, Edge, Face. Also works in UV edit mode as long as selection sync is on.
Right click is now lasso select instead of tweak/grab. Everyone in the world should quit using Box select in every app 80% of the time and use lasso. There are only a few times ever where Box is more efficient than lasso. Another thing most people dont realize :P
Ctrl-Mousewheel: Select more/select Less (Grow/shrink selection in Max)
Alt-W: Merge menu. M is too far on the keyboard for something you'll use that often.
Ctrl-X: Loop cut/slide. Usually defaults to Ctrl-R, but I find that too cumbersome for something I use a lot. Personal preference, YMMV
Also, if you hate the right as select, just go to the User Preferences and in the input, change the select button to left instead of right.
How do you access the edge tools when you've taken its hotkey? Also, loop cut is CTRL-R. Alt-R is spin.
Whoops! I meant Ctrl-X. You are correct sir!
Another funny thing about blender is the x key being the default for delete. At first I was annoyed by this, but I realized it's much nicer than delete/backspace because you don't have to move your hand off the mouse or across the keyboard.
The best advice I can give for someone looking to learn a new app and getting frustrated: question everything you do. Try to justify the reason why you expect something to work the way you think it should. I'd wager half the time the only reason you feel like it 'should' be that way is because of habit, not because it's better or more efficient. Always think about what you're doing and how you can improve your workflow/processes. This actually applies even if you're not switching apps. Don't get caught in a habit for the sake of it - justify what you're doing and try to get faster and more efficient.
Yes, everyone do this. It's much better.
Lots of great links in this thread!
Even though I've been using Blender for many years, I've still not gotten used to the stupid cursor and the ways it's used though. Sad face.
By the looks of your post, you have some wrong information. This is one of them. The beauty of Max's modifier system is that you DON'T have to collapse the stack... therefore retaining the option to change things. Very handy modelling process.
What other wrong information?
Well i have to admit, i haven't used that much max's modifiers but it sucks that i have to add a Unwrap UVW modifier to my model just so i can unwrap it (or do i?) ,and when im done, i cant go back to editing polys unless i collapse it. Am i wrong?
edit: whoops my bad, it wasn't collapsing, it was just that annoying pop-up.
You can use it to move objects/vertices etc to exact points, set origins..
Btw, i've had dynamic space bar menu working as default everytime i have installed Blender..
I wouldn't necessarily collapse it, but you might have to re-UV that particular shell; that would all depend on the model. Yeah, if you are moving up and down a modifier stack you will frequently get warnings. They can be annoying.
^ this!
For my current project I've been retopologising my model and have a first pass rig with a short deformation test animation. Using the modifier stack:
Mirror the new mesh
Subdivide the new mesh
Shrink wrap the new mesh onto the source mesh
Skin new mesh to the rig
Doing this means only working on one side (obviously), and having it in this order means when it is subdivided the new geometry is then shrinkwrapped to the source, so you can see what it will look like when you reproject, and then the whole thing is on the rig so you can see how the final result will deform (been very impressed with Blender's autoskinning).
And by toggling on the visibility/editing options of the modifiers you can actually scrub the timeline to move the rig into a pose, then edit the mesh in that pose and it will propogate the changes from the default pose and shrinkwrap onto the deformed one. So you can for example raise the character's arm and twist it, then push verts and see in real time the projection updating.
Hopefully that made some sense. I found it cool anyway.
This is exactly how i feel too. Mirroring is there too..
Youre right, i wrote that mainly from my point of view..
But still, i check out Blender's front page news everyday and i can't remember seeing commercial quality game stuff made with the game engine in there. If you know these kind of projects, i would love to see them.
??
I don't get this. Should game making be hard?
I think Unity is doing good job making things that shouldn't be rocket science ,easier.