Blender Compared To the Major 3D Applications

LetterRip writes "Recently TDT 3D published a comparison of the major 3D digital content creation applications such as Maya, 3DS Max, and XSI, and of course Blender. Blender came out surprisingly well, although it definitely still has some weaknesses."

Comments

It's the UI that kills it

[l0ungeb0y]

I've always thought Blender to be a solid but completely useless application because for whatever reason, the developers created the most heinous god aweful UI known to man. It's a freakin eyebleeding headache that leaves one happily shelling out the hundreds or thousands of Dollars for a modelor with a usable GUI.

It's a shame. Because Blender could be a contender, but since the developers live in their own little world with the attitidude that their app is made for a "certain group of people and not everyone", the application is basically a sick joke. If you're looking for a free 3D package and don't care how painful it is to use it, Blender might be for you. Otherwise, go with Maya or Lightwave. Also, Modo is a good modeler with a great UI, if you just want to model and not animate/render.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[ajs318]

Mod parent up.

Too many people confuse "hard to learn" with "hard to use". For example, typing less-than, e, m, more-than followed by text to italicise then less-than, divide, e, m, more-than is much quicker -- once you know how to do it -- than highlighting the text (an operation requiring leaving the keyboard, getting hold of the mouse, manoeuvring it with pixel precision, clicking and dragging), either clicking on an icon (invariably an italicised "i") or selecting something from a context menu (involving a tricky finger-swap or possibly even a keyboard operation), and then returning to the keyboard.

Also, anything that was hard to learn will be even harder to forget.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[gaspyy]

[...]they have to factor in that blender will undergo 5 or more years of development before they hit the job market after uni. They'd be insane to learn a closed source one, which might go bust in that time, as opposed to coming into the market with 5 years of Blender

Sorry, I disagree.

First, all the major 3D apps have very strong markets; it's highly unlikely to see any of these disappearing any time soonn. Even when Autodesk purchased Maya, they didn't kill it, but rather refocused the programs a little: 3ds max for games and architectural visualisation and Maya for film.

Second, by learning any of these programs (I'm thinking of Max, Maya, Lightwave and XSI) a student would more easily jump to another program than from Blender.

Third, if a graduate goes to an interview and says he only knows Bldender, their chances of being hired would drop dramatically.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[sabernet]

But they have to decide whether they want to please their niche or appeal to the greater audience. The niche may like it enough to stick with it. But a great many people, some with influence, some just with experience in industry apps, don't. And not everyone has time or the ability to throw those out the window.

On the Interface

[Smerity]

First off, the name is a tad misleading, it's more "Major 3D Applications Comparison (including Blender)" as opposed to a focused against Blender - but that can be easily forgiven. What is good is that the author has used a wide range of industry standard tools (Maya, 3ds max and Lightwave etc) in everyday tasks, so it's not a fanboy style review where the outcome was and always would be 'Blender best'.

Blender is maturing well, especially considering if you look at the progress they've made since the code was first open sourced, and I'm confident that they will be able to continue this progress in to the future. I won't comment on the feature to feature comparison, I will just reiterate what the author said early on in the article - it's the artist not the tools - and in this case the an open source and free tool is sufficient to create some stunning art. Check out Elephant's Dream to see an example.

And my one note to those commenting later - the interface. Many people complain about the interface, how it's difficult to learn. Unfortunately, many of these people are trying to 'learn 3D' over the weekend - and I'm sorry, that won't happen, regardless of the package. To become truly proficient in any 3D software package takes a long time.
I also see many people compare the UI disaster to that of GIMP - I don't think that's really an accurate comparison. Read reviews of people who have actually mastered the Blender UI and they will confess that once learned it is very effective. The author in the article also states this, with him saying that it's a "Fast workflow, (but) can be more intuitive".
I'm not saying the Blender user interface is perfect, or that improvement can't be made, merely that even in its current state, once learned and mastered it is a powerful tool.

Overall however, I'm glad that Blender has progressed so well, and look forward to seeing it's progress in the future. Without it I would never have begun my exploration into 3D at all.

it's all in the details

[Dubbie99]

Comparison lists like this are very misleading. The devil is in the details. It's not about how many buzzword columns an app can check, it's about whether the app has had a userbase that has thrashed the software through years and years of real production work and had the software evolve into a powerful tool. It's very easy to add a feature in a 3D app. Most interested hobbiest weekend coders could whip up most functions found in any given 3D app. Whether that feature is production ready is another story. Going by the list it would seem that something like Blender of C4D is on a par with Maya and Max. They're not. They don't have the huge in-depth expert user communities and the benefit of thousands of users pushing them to the limit day in and day out. If you're choosing a 3D app, talk to some real 3D artists who have been in the industry for years and depend on their 3D application system for their living. Don't compare checkbox lists.

It's the UI that makes it

[Max Littlemore]

Some people don't like blender's UI like some people don't like vi.

Once you spend the time (say a day or two) it's really quick and productive. The UI is a major asset.

Re:It's the UI that makes it

[paganizer]

This is a rebuttal.
Background: My very first job, in the late 70's, was as a Draftsman. I used the very first version of Autocad, back in '83(?). I've been using 3dstudio since before it was a actual product. I used Lightwave on an Amiga in '91 (VideoToaster rocked).
I changed careers, and only play with 3D these days. But I play with everything, Vue d'esprit, Poser, Maya. I've tried pretty much every 3d application I hear about just to see if it's worth parting with my limited hobby money. Never had a problem figuring out the wildly different UI's (except Maya, a little. I was overthinking it).
Do you get what I'm saying here? I figured out Truespace from a german language version. I don't read or speak german.

I tried out blender first when it was shareware.. 2001 I think. The UI was a nightmare. I had a decently new copy of 3ds, so shook my head and forgot about it.
Then the game "The Movies" came out. I got hooked. after poking around, I found out that the only import/output scripts for customization were blender scripts, so i grabbed the latest version of blender.
I tried. I really, really tried. I grabbed the tutorials, FAQ's. I bought "The Official Blender guide". I even had a "Blender Guru" come on to my system in VNC to walk me through the (allegedly) simple process of opening a file, applying textures, and exporting using the plugin. it took 3 flipping hours.
Blender may be a great engine. But the interface is a crime against logic, nature and makes me revise my opinion on whether or not true Evil exists.
If you are thinking of getting into 3D software in some way, as a career or a hobby, keep this in mind: If you waste your time learning the Blender interface, you will not be able to use that "knowledge" with ANY OTHER APPLICATION.

Re:It's all bunk

[KDR_11k]

CSG is just a means, you could just as well use NURBS or subdivision to represent a highpoly model. The problem is that you have to downres it to a point where it's not just fewer sides on a cylinder or something but where the entire surface has to change. Details must be removed from the geometry and put onto the texture instead. Some things will be faked with alpha. The software would have to automatically recognize which details are important and need to be kept. Even worse, for organic objects it has to understand where and how the object will deform and how to make that look good. And finally, it's just unnecessary work to model every little detail on a model when 90% of them will be lost in the downressing anyway, that just wastes time and time is money.

Sorry but that's just wrong

[Sycraft-fu]

Just because you can learn to use a harder system, doesn't mean it isn't harder. Since car analogies are popular let's go for another one: The difference between a stick and an automatic. I drive a stick, always have, always will if I can get away with it. I'm an ace at it, never causes me any problems. I don't even think about it, I just do it. However there is no way I can argue that it isn't harder than driving an automatic. There is simply more to do, more to learn, and I remember how painful learning to drive on a stick was. It certainly isn't an unusable or unlearnable system, and once you've learned it well you are plenty efficient with it, but it is not as easy as an automatic.

Well same deal with interface. Not all choices are arbitrary, it isn't as though all UIs are created equal. There really are things that make it easier and things that make it harder. Just because you spent the time learning it and now don't have a problem, doesn't mean it is easy.

Also, some things are easier for computer people than non-technical people. I've seen many things that make assumptions in relation to a level of understanding of how computers work that if you lack that, you are really screwed. A good example would be regular expressions. If you understand how a finite state machine works, regular expressions are likely to be easy for you. I remember when I learned about them and as soon as I was shown the syntax, a light bulb went off. I found them quite easy, once told how they work, but then I'd been tinkering with FSMs before I knew that term. However a non-technical person could be hopelessly lost on them because they just don't understand the logic behind them.

Trying to defend bad UIs in OSS does no good for anyone. People don't want excuses and they certainly don't want to be told that it is their problem.