The State of Open Source 3D Modeling

gmueckl writes "Since Blender was released as open source in 2002, it has basically owned the open source 3D modeling scene. Its development has seen a massive push by both the community and supporting organizations. However, the program has been showing its age all along and efforts to improve on it have either been blocked or have failed in the past (note the dates). Authors of new modules are forced to jump through hoops to get their work glued onto the basic core, which still dates from the early 90s and has gone almost unchanged since. There are many other active projects out there like Art of illusion, K-3D, and Moonlight|3D. Each of them offers a modern, much saner, more coherent, and more powerful basic architecture and could match Blender in a couple of months' time with some extra manpower. So how come these projects don't get the level of support they deserve? How come developers are still willing to put up with such an arcane code base?"

Comments

It's there, and it works

[Blikkie]

As much as people may hate Blender, the main advantage of the program is that it is there, and that most things work. Some parts are even great. Personally I happen to like the poly-workflow, which is very fast. The main problem with blender for most users is that it takes a while to learn, but once it's learnt, it has a very effective workflow.

I think that the OP is very optimistic when he sais that it takes only a few months to port everything (and the kitchensink) to another app, that is just impossible, even with open code.

Re:It's there, and it works

[LetterRip]

"But I've also gained enough confidence in the basic design of that application (and learned many lessions from it, too) that I have a pretty good idea of what is possible."

Pretty much every developer that has joined Blender has spent some time looking over the codebases of the other opensource 3D applications. Your claim of a month is absolutely ridiculous - even a year would be an insane time line. At a minimum you are looking at a requiring a similar sized developer base as Blender at least 3 years of full time development before any of the other 3D apps can even come close to Blenders functionality as of right now.

Here is a very brief list of what you need to approach the basic functionality that Blender has

Modeling tools - asside from Blender the only half reasonable polygon modeling tool available is Wings3D(which is written in Erlang). In addition to a strong core of standard polygon modeling tools Blender also has sculpt modeling, curve modeling, metaball modeling, NURBS, etc.

UV Unwrapping - wings has basic UV unwrapping - Blenders are considered one of the best implementations in the 3D industry. As far as I'm aware all of the apps you mention have at best very basic tools.

Texturing - Blender has full node based materials and texturing; Blender has 3D painting and texturing tools. To my knowledge none of the apps you propose have either of those features.

Basic animation - you need good rigging and skinning tools for character animation. You need cage deformation, hooks, a driver system etc. I think AOI has okay rigging but other than that?

Simulation - physics, particles, fluids, crowds, hair. Presumably some of the apps you list have very basic collision integrated? Some also might have very basic particles. The difference between where they are at, and where they would need to be to match Blenders current capabilities is tremendous.

Compositing - not crucial for a 3D application to have - but this is a powerful feature of Blender having an integrated compositor in its rendering pipeline.

Rendering - do any of the projects you list have multipass rendering even?

Scripting - Blenders API has been refactored a few times, this has caused some pain among scripters, but the API has been steadily maturing and is quite large and powerful.

Exporters and Importers - how many and how mature are exporters for any of your suggested programs? A fairly complete and mature exporter or importer can in itself represent numerous man years of effort.

Sequencer - again not crucial to meet the definition of a standard 3D animation suite - but again a powerful feature that is part of Blender.

Logic nodes and game engine - yet another feature that wouldn't be a strict requirement to become a reasonable competitor in the 3D animation suite space, but another tool that is an important part of Blender for part of our user base.

I get the impression that you have absolutely no idea how much time and effort it would take to become a serious competitor as a 3D animation suite. No disrespect but Moonlight 3D isn't even 1% of the way there, and yet in your estimation it would only take a month to 'catch up'.

LetterRip

Showing age?

[Xzzy]

It's easy to pick on the XML bit (though I don't understand why XML is so awesome it has to be used), but that's a pretty small demerit compared to all the major feature enhancement Blender has attained over the past few years.

It's earned a fluid simulator. Particle effects have been dramatically improved, yafray integration was a huge improvement for rendering, materials can now be created with a node based system.. the list goes on and on. The feature enhancements that went into the latest point release is worth an essay all on their own:

http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/bl ender-243/

Blender stays afloat because it's seeing active development and is already a mature platform. People are used to the interface (one that newbies hate, but veterans fall in love with), and it runs on all three of the major operating systems.

I don't think an aging codebase is a critical flaw. Too often people think redesigning the wheel is a panacea for repairing a kludgy system, without realizing that all code projects fall prey to this at some point in their life. Sure we could rewrite Blender.. but to what end? It'd take another 5 years to get where we are now.

Re:It's obvious

[runningduck]

Blender's UI is the Emacs of the 3D Modelling world, it's got a steep learning curve but when you get it(in the three or so years it'll take), boy will you be marginally productive.

Actually it is the Vi of the 3D Modeling world; it has small footprint and a marginally steep learning curve, but when you get it (in three or so weeks) you will be amazed at what you can accomplish with relatively little effort.

The submitter is a troll

[Qbertino]

As far as I can tell K3D and Moonlight haven't moved an inch in the last 5 years. They both look like students summer projects to me.
Blender has weedy parts in its codebase, everyone knows that. Any programm this complex and mature has those. But they are being replaced fast and thouroughly by a thriving core team lead by the founder of Blender. Blender runs out of the box on 7 plattforms and has a featureset that closely competes with current topline commercial tools. Try to catch up on that alone 'in a few months' Mr. Smartass. Blender is responisble for the recent price drops in the 3D tool industry alone and when it eventually fully supports Renderman yet some toolmakers are going to have to redo their businessmodel big time.

The usual UI bickering is bogus aswell. Apart from being just as hard to learn as any tool of same capabilities, blenders UI has been comletely OpenGL accelerated from the begining - one of the things it's unique in iirc. Blender's learning curve is steep, as with any high-end 3D tool without a stack of books. But with the amount of material and books available on the web for free nowadays makes this learning curve not nearly as hard as it was 5 years ago. The featureset is breathtaking and has commercial providers such as Newtek struggling to catch up in some areas (notice the recent addition of an improrved node editor to Lightwave 9 - nothing but a response to Blenders node editor). Sidenote: I own a professional licence of LW 8, a commercial licence of Blender (from the NaN days) *and* use Blender since back in the days of 1.8. I haven't updated to LW 9 for the very reason that Blender 2.43, a few little things aside, offers everything professional 3D needs. And then some - an full-blown integrated compositor for instance.

Blender is as mature and developed as any open source project could wish for. As *any* software project could wish for actually. Features and improvement are being added on a regular basis and it's fully backwards compliant with any blender file, and it's professional roots not only show but have become more and more visible.

Bottom line: The submitter of the above article either doesn't know what he is talking about or is a troll. Or both.