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

[bky1701]

I thought the same when I started using it. Actually, you can read my complaints on their forum. The thing is, after I made the commitment that I was *going* to learn it, and after I stopped trying to do things the old 3ds ways, it started to come naturally. Now I can do far more impressive work than in 3ds, much faster.

It's painful to LEARN, not use (though there are a few UI annoyances, like the non-standard save/load menu). I'd suggest if you really want to learn it, throw the tutorials (they often offer irrational, hard or just bad ways of doing things) and old knowledge out the window and learn it. Once you know it, you may understand why they kept the interface.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there are a lot of people who start with the closed source ones and a closed mind and from there on in the open source UIs are always "wrong". Having learning the GIMP without becoming indoctrinated into photoshop and hearing all the catatonic whinging about the GIMP UI, I somehow think that I will be fine with Blender. Sure, photoshop has more high end features, but as people say, unless you need the print colour range, there isn't actually that much difference other than the price and amount of whinging.

Also, not only are these programs 4 stars to the industry leader 5s (and often beating them in many features), for people starting out with the blender or GIMP in highschool, 15 yrs old say, 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 and GIMP under their belt (and blender and gimp with all those new features).

So basically if you are already in the game, keep using the industry standards photoshop and maya etc. Remember they only got the blender sourcecode in late 2002, so as much as it's improved since the first open source release it will improve again in 5 yrs. And with a larger user base and more devs, it will likely move even faster.

Spend $30 on a good book for blender another $30 on the gimp, maybe another $30 on a python book to script both apps way further than your peers using close source stuff - go to the forums and make some good friends above and at your skill level for other advice. Then with the $1000s you were going to spend on close source edu versions and expensive manuals for them, don't forget you have to upgrade when you graduate, into something else maybe an investment account. You'll end up with better skills, better software, more friends and more money.

Industry people your calculation is simple, to stick with your software till you feel the open source stuff is good enough for you to make a move. Simple as that. But one thing you should do is shut the fuck up discouraging other people from using it like there is a chosen way.

It's the future ppl. kthxbye.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[deniable]

The UI wouldn't be half as bad if they provided some decent documentation for it. As others have mentioned, the tutorials aren't a good source of help. Once you learn how to use Blender, it's pretty good, but the learning curve is really steep.

It's been a while, so maybe they have better resources now. I'd be happy if they did.

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

[mcvos]

But one thing you should do is shut the fuck up discouraging other people from using it like there is a chosen way.

I have no experience with 3D modeling at all, but I'm interested in it. If Blender really is that hard to use, I want to be discouraged from using it, because I don't want to waste months trying to learn it.

I don't mind an unintuitive interface. Vi took be about 10 minutes to get the hang of, but it was the standard editor at my university at that time, so we got a list of all the important commands and it was easy to ask someone for help. GIMP, on the other hand, I never got the hang of. Perhaps because I just started it and didn't have a good tutorial or tutor. I'm looking at thousands of buttons and have no idea what any of them do.

So for Blender, what I'm really interested in is: is there a good tutorial that shows me the ropes? If I don't know what a button or option does, is there documentation that tells me what it does, and what that means because I don't understand the jargon at all. And if I want to do something and don't know how, is there some sort of help that explains how to do it? That is what I'm interested in: is Blender good for a newbie like me?

And also: once I've learned it, am I more or less productive than with the alternatives? Because with the months-long learning curves that the article mentions, $800 for a more productive system is a pretty smart investment once you're out of college. I can afford $800, but I can't afford too waste months struggling with something that turns out to be too painful to use.

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.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[4e617474]

Now, if the Blender team could ever pull theierr head out of their ass and bring in a UI developer and stay out of the way... they might have something. But it's been ears coming and I doubt we'll ever see Blender become usable.

I've actually seen an interview with a Blender developer (a Linux magazine I flipped through, I can't remember which one) from when Elephant's Dream came out that discussed why they made the interface the way they did. Being the in-house application of NeoGeo, it was geared towards how they worked, and the developers gave the animators what they wanted - maximum productivity after learning the application when used the way that particular group of people liked to use it. The developers came to them and offered them an easier to learn interface - they were told "No, you idiot. We're going out of business and have to try to finish our last few projects. We're not going to hire anyone new. Now add this highly unintuitive key sequence to shortcut this arcane task that no novice has ever heard of." After it was released for widespread consumption, ease of learning became a common request, but there were still people learning the interface it had and wanting to be able to use it the way they had learned to. After almost ten years since its shareware release, and five since its release under GPL, this hypothetical easy-to-use, powerful, intuitive 3d modeling software that someone must have their head up their ass not to have delivered on a silver platter by now would probably have to take the form of a completely separate front-end, a fork, or a complete rewrite with some of the nuts and bolts used over.

And there are people out there who think that Blender "has something" just like it is. If a hobbyist or student wants gratis open-source 3d modeling with an easy to use interface, they should try Art of Illusion. It's nowhere near as powerful, but it's easy and intuitive enough for someone to learn on, and it can export into formats used by the big boys. According to TFA, Blender has the same "Learning path to be productive" as the others, even with the less familiar and intuitive interface. If someone is "getting serious", there isn't really a way around having to invest the time to learn something. And of six packages the article reviewed, only one could be learned in the single month they give you to try modo, and I'm sure those figures are for people who aren't squeezing it in on a part-time basis.

Oh, and there's a few gotchas with modo. They support both platforms - Mac and Windows! Should I download the trial and see if I can get it to work under Wine? Let me click on the "Try Modo" link - "Interested in trying modo? As a result of modo 301 now being available, all of our website bandwidth is being focused on supporting our registered modo customers. Sign up to create an account and you will be informed just as soon as the new evaluation version of modo 301 is available. If you already have an account you're already on the list to be notified." What? If I have an account, I'm on a list to be notified that there's a trial version available? Oh, they want $400 for an upgrade (which they're ready to sell you sight-unseen right now). Okay, let me see if I can figure out if I can use modo to turn blueprints into 3d models the way they do here. Hmm... not too big on the import/export capabilities are they? Looking over the so-called tech specs (looks like they hired some marketing people and got out of the way) I can only find "modo is able to harvest animation data from other 3D applications in order to render it. modo reads .MDD files for this purpose." Maybe it

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[grumbel]

### Vi took be about 10 minutes to get the hang

I have used Vi (a little bit here and there) for ten years and still absolutely hate it. On the other side I never had all that much issues with Blender.

Anyway, one of the big problems with Blender is that its lacks 'explorability', it can get near impossible to find a certain feature of your own or figure out what a button does without looking it up in the documentation, since a lot of functions depend on certain pre-conditions and if they are not met they will simply do nothing, but if you stay close to the documentation and just use IRC channel #blender once in a while when you are completly stuck you really shouldn't have all that trouble to get stuff done. It however depends heavily on what you want, for example if you want to do architecture, something like Sketch-Up is *a lot* easier, even if you have used Blender for years, since Sketch-Up is a tool designed for exactly that job, while Blender happens to be a general purpose 3d app that can do almost anything, but isn't always the best at a certain job. I'd suggest you watch the introduction video tutorials and then move up from there.

Here a very quick intro of the basic movement:

left mouse button moves the cursor
right mouse button selects
middle mouse button rotates/moves/zooms the camera (hold shift or ctrl)

c centers on cursor
numpad gives top/bottom/left/right views (try shift)
numpad-5 toggles ortho and perspective projection

space gives the menu

tab switch between object mode and edit mode - this is one of the core things you have to understand, object mode moves objects, edit mode lets you edit vertexes

x removes stuff
e extrudes stuff in edit mode
b gives you a select rectangle, pressing b twice gives you a select 'brush'
g moves stuff
r rotates stuff
s scales stuff

Use Ctrl-numpad0 to make the currently selected camera the one used for rendering (this one is certainly way to obscure and could need a improvement in the UI)

Pressing keys twice often toggle the mode (r rotates around axis, rr rotates free) and holding shift or ctrl also changes modes as well.

That is basically all you need to know to get started with basic modelling.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[Nom du Keyboard]

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

Wise insight. Like learning to ride a bicycle.

Re:It's the UI that kills it

[Bob-taro]

Now, if the Blender team could ever pull theierr head out of their ass and bring in a UI developer and stay out of the way... they might have something. But it's been ears coming and I doubt we'll ever see Blender become usable.

Hey, I do UI development and I'd love to work on Blender! How much do they pay? ... Oh, yeah.

I suspect that's why so many free software projects have poor usability. That last bit of "polish" can be pretty expensive in man-hours, and I think the volunteers on these projects tend to be more interested in the challenging work of adding new features than they are in mundane usability work (I know I would be).

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.

Re:it's all in the details

[LetterRip]

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.

The professional user base for Blender is fairly large, it is just a different target market.

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.

The fluid dynamics was a number of full years of developer time. You've clearly never developed any significant feature for a 3D application.

Whether that feature is production ready is another story.

All of the features listed are used in production environments, the feature animation movie Plumiferos made use of pretty much every feature including fluids, cloth, the particle system, etc.

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.

Actually Maya and Max don't have that either - the number of users for the advanced features for all of the 3D applications is quite small. For fluids people will tend to switch to RealFlow, for Cloth people will tend to use Syflex

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.

Here is what 'real 3D artists who have been in the industry for years and depend on their 3D application system for their living.' actually say

"Blender has grown up, and fast! Today Blender rivals Maya in many ways---especially in toolsets. The interface isn't the easiest to learn, so if you choose this route you'll need to promise yourself to stick with your learning of it in order to give Blender a fair chance. Not only can Blender do NURBS, SubDs, Polygons, particle physics, and more, it also includes hair and fur tools that you'd have to pay $7k for in Maya Unlimited. Truth is, I'd personally be tempted to go the Blender route myself if not for my obsession with Pixar's RenderMan which is world's best for animation quality. But, since you don't really need that extra fine level of quality in animation that Pixar gives you, Blender may be your best choice at all.

zaon

the post is by ZaonDude who is famous (among 3D artists) for comparison of high end 3D renderer quality.

LetterRip

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 the UI that makes it

[Aladrin]

I have never been a professional, but this exactly matches my experience.

I wrote a program that converts TheSims models to OBJ format and back again. As part of that, I had to 'learn' a modeller and chose MilkShape3D. I say 'learn' because it took only a few minutes. I've also played with a few other modellers and they all had the same concepts, and the basic functions were all easy to find. (Add polys, move vertexes, apply textures, etc.)

I picked up Blender because I'd heard such good things about it. I spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to apply a texture to a model, another half an hour searching the web for the info, and another hour following a tutorial step by step to figure it out. I tried again without the tut and had lost it already.

Blender's UI is so completely anti-intuitive that it's impossible to just use, you MUST be trained. (Or self-trained.) This may be acceptable for those who never use computers and only want to use Blender, but the rest of us expect to be able to figure it out without a printed manual.

I wonder if it's just chance that the Gimp also has tons of interface complaints?

Re:It's the UI that makes it

[ozmanjusri]

Background: My very first job, in the late 70's, was as a Draftsman.

We have very similar backgrounds. I was a Surveyor in about the same era, and got into 3D modelling via mine design and surveying software (Surpac, DataMine). I started my own 3D software collection with Imagine, then Lightwave on the Amiga. I used Truespace from a coverdisk, tried C4D, and a few other packages.

I still haven't settled into using a single tool. My collection includes Hexagon modeller, Sketchup Pro, Bryce, Cinema 4D, and yes, Blender.

Each has their strengths. For some people, the time cost of learning the tool is higher than it's worth. It sound like that's the case for you. For me, I like being able to be productive anywhere and on any computer, and Blender on a thumb drive does that for me.

In any case, now that I'm used to it, I find there's things I can do quicker in Blender than with the other tools

Re:It's the UI that makes it

[Max Littlemore]

the interface is a crime against logic, nature and makes me revise my opinion on whether or not true Evil exists.

Funnily enough, that's what I thought the first time I encountered vi....

It's a shame the interface doesn't work for you. I'm not a professional graphics guy, sound is more my bag, but I used to do compositing for a living and my brother currently does 3D graphics professionally and both of us agree blender is an excellent tool - especially in terms of productivity. Once you get past the need to learn special keys and modes and such, it really is so quick to do things that take forever in other interfaces. I guess it's horses for courses.

Just remember to run it on Linux - I don't know about OSX, but it's very slow on windows

Re:It's the UI that makes it

[s4m7]

I wonder if it's just chance that the Gimp also has tons of interface complaints?

Pretty much. The GIMP was designed from scratch as an open source product. Blender, though open source now, was originally a commercial (but free) product. some Blender history.

The GIMP knows it has problems, and has asked UI design professionals to evaluate and contribute to a redesign.

I really don't see what everyone thinks is so "hard" about blender's interface though. It's definitely different, but I thought it was much easier to learn than the maya interface. I will grant however that blenders texture tools suck the big one.

Oh, and GP? Truespace is a toy. That's why you didn't need instructions.

Re:It's the UI that makes it

[grumbel]

### 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.

Could you elaborate on that? I mean, I can understand that people have trouble with the Blender UI, it certainly has issues due to being heavily focused on keyboard shortcuts, but "crime against logic"? There is nothing in Blender that makes opening a file hard, its not the standard OS file dialog, but its not all that different either. Applying a texture, ok, that can get difficult, because it is difficult and depends heavily on what the export plug-in supports, a texture setup that Yafray or Blenders internal renderer might render fine is often impossible for a game engine to handle. Blender just happens to be a general purpose app and not something like Milkshape that is specifically designed for gaming, so things can get more complicated.

How about those unhappy with the Blender start a page in the Blender Wiki detailing all the tasks they wanted to archive but couldn't do to Blender being more illogical then it should be? While the Blender developers might oppose a completly UI rewrite, since there really is no need for it, they have been quite open to cleaning things up and fixing them.

Re:It's the UI that makes it

[carlmenezes]

Thank you. You have just described my experience with Blender as well. There is no denying the power behind this application. There is also no denying that this app is like a car whose accelerator is the handbrake. I for example love modeling the interiors of buildings as a hobby. I have no background in architecture and none in graphics but I could figure my way out in 3dStudio Max, Lightwave, Maya, Poser & Sketchup to create pretty realistic versions of real world interiors. I love open source and at every single opportunity I get, I try to use an open source solution first. Hence Blender. Over the past 3 years, I have made at least 15 attempts to figure it out. Heck, it took me less time to figure out how to build a Linux system from source with no prior background. If I spent that much time on any one of the others, I would be able to do a LOT more in either of the other applications.

Which reminds me, this being slashdot and all, if anyone wants to start up a project to create a decent user interface for Blender, you've got my time & support. Its an open source project. There should be nothing stopping us from designing a useful UI. Lets do it.

It's all bunk

[QuantumG]

pushing polygons is wrong. It's a short term solution to a long term problem. Keeping to a poly budget is grunt work that should be done by the tool not by the artist. Programmers who think bitrot is bad should have a look at the "asset rot" of 3d models. The deprecation of graphics assets is so fast that it's a stretch to use the word "asset" to refer to them at all. A character model from a AAA title from six months ago has some value, to B quality games, but mostly none of them are reused.

For 3d models to earn their name as "assets" they need to be created with infinite resolution. This is not hard. Constructive Solid Geometry is a well understood technique for modeling and is typically used in CAD applications. An object described even at what would be considered a course level of detail of typical CSG modeling is orders of magnitude higher resolution than the typical game model. What's more, they can be incrementally improved, whereas the b-rep that is typical for a game model today is a one shot affair.

Today, the vast majority of CSG models are created for raytracing architectures which, although they give stunning results, are too slow for realtime applications such as games. Even the attempts to create realtime raytracing systems are aimed at rendering b-reps because of the opportunity to perform an acceleration stage which greatly reduces the scene complexity. B-reps are a win for realtime applications, but just because your application requires a b-rep doesn't mean artists need to get their hands dirty pushing polygons.

Two solutions exist which can render CSG models in realtime.

The image-based rendering algorithms with implementations (such as OpenCSG) which take advantage of z-buffer and stencil-buffer hardware in popular GPU cards. The image-based systems are more compatible than raytracing with the current 3d graphics rendering state of the art, but still require intricacies to integrate that have prevented them from appearing on the market.

The other option is the automatic generation of a b-rep from a CSG model. This has the advantage that it requires no change to the 3d graphics rendering in games and the algorithm can be parametrically tuned to produce b-reps that are fast for different applications. For example, the same CSG model can be used to generate b-reps of different Level Of Detail for when the object is close up vs far away, or for pre-rendered applications such as cut scenes or trailers.

It just happens to be really hard.

Re:It's all bunk

[big4ared]

Not exactly.

I work in video games, and ultimately the graphics cards render polygons. There are definitely tools that can down res, but have you ever seen what a 40k poly mesh looks like when you use an auto-down-res to 20k? It gives you a good start, but you still have to remesh it and tweak it by hand.

As for CSG, it's ok for CAD, but not practical at all for games. The realtime stuff is useful when comples models need to be edited in realtime (like for designing car engines), but the approaches like OpenCSG are too slow because each primitive needs to be drawn a bunch of times.

As an example, if you have the expression (A+B+C)*(D+E+F), you have to break the expression into sum-of-terms form which is AD+AE+AF+BC+BE+BF+CD+CE+CF, so that's at least 18 draw calls (acutally more). Alternatively, you could just precompute the CSG model into a triangle mesh. There are other techniques (like Blister) but they're still too slow.

CSG is used in moderation in games for tasks that make sense. For most applications, it doesn't. Imagine trying to model Wolverine with CSG. But even if you use CSG, at the end of the day, you still need an artist to tweak the vertices (which artists can do very quickly).

Not to mention, you also need to be able to lay out UVs.

If you really want your model to look good at higher resolutions, you can always subdivide your triangle meshes, which is robust (unlike triangle reduction). Up-resing meshes is easy. Down-resing takes artist work.

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.

Blender UI :-(

[Orthuberra]

I use 3DS Max and Blender myself and I definitely have to say Blender's UI is horrible and I mean that. I don't know what the developers are thinking, but damn they need serious help in making that user interface more friendly. The only time a I use Blender is for when I do some modeling and art for open source games and mods that have and export function for Blender (such as xmesh in Vega Strike). Other than that its 3dS max for me, though from what I've seen Maya is great too. Lightwave used to be a great program, but it seems to have performed worse in this comparison than I'd have thought.

Again, I can't stress enough what a pain Blender's UI is compared to these other programs. I normally try to recommend FOSS programs to people, but this is one of those programs I'd only recommend if the person couldn't afford one of the other programs here.

Re:Blender UI :-(

[Mystery00]

Strange, I've used Max as well, and I feel the same way about Max as you do about Blender... I wonder why that is.

Blender UI

[garphik]

I think Blender's UI is very efficient, not friendly but efficent.

Its good that Blender is looked upon a viable option these days!

Blender rewarding once learnt.

[delire]

I've used 3DSMax and Blender extensively though learnt to be proficient in Maya.

Blender's interface is difficult at first but once learnt I found it more efficient for many tasks - especially rapid mesh-modeling. Moreso, I found Blender's interface much easier on the hands over long periods of working, namely because it prioritises keyboard useage over mouse, has one-key accessible menus (3DSMax has terrible problems here) and distributes mouse input over all three buttons. RSI is a real problem in 3D modeling/animation related work and it's here I think Blender has the one-up. Blender's many keyboard shortcuts need to be learnt for Blender to realise it's real capacity as a tool.

Re:Blender rewarding once learnt.

[Anonymous Coward]

As previous Max user, working on game models and animation, I have to say that I was stunned with effectiveness of Blender. Interface is a nightmare - ONLY when you encounter it for the first time (especially if you have used some other software previously). BUT, that said, if you take 2 days time by doing same of the basic tutorials, you will learn the shortcuts and way things are organized.

Doing that, I'll have to say that my productivity is better, in magnitude of 3X, in comparison with 3DS MAX. This applies especially to 3D modeling and mapping. I could not recommend Blender more, and as conclusion - interface is great, but you will have to take (some) time to learn it (half an hour in blender, for previous MAX user, is not enough). But one day of fooling around, doing tutorials, and you will become very productive). I would not change anything if that wold change the productivity and current speed and ease of use.

If you want to comment the UI, just take few days to explore it, do some tutorials, and you will see that this is the best (and fastest) way of doing things.

Re:Blender came out surprisingly well ?

[Paradigm_Complex]

Are you referring to TDT3D as pro open source, or Slashdot? The article isn't *by* Slashdot. Slashdot also posts articles which lambaste open source projects or often put closed source projects in a good light. While Slashdot is definitely pro open source, the general community isn't blind either. We recognize Blender has flaws. What makes us pro open source is that we are willing to give it extra weight in our personal preferences simply due to that fact. We know Firefox has some serious issues and don't ignore the fact she's putting on a little extra weight - we still love her anyways. However, considering '07 *still* wasn't the year of Linux on the desktop, we also recognize the face that others - the majority in fact - don't share our appreciation for open source, and found it pleasantly surprising how Blender still ranked up with the best of them even when it's open source-ness wasn't taken into consideration. I can tell you this much: after struggling to get used to Blender after learning 3D Modeling on Maya, *I* am surprised Blender ranked well.

Everyone bitches about the ui, but...

[solios]

... the fact is, Maya's UI sucks. 3d Studio's UI sucks. Power Animator's UI sucks. Cinema 4d's UI sucks. Rhino's UI sucks. Nendo's UI sucks. Silo's UI sucks. Softimage's UI sucks. Lightwave's UI sucks. ALL 3d application UIs suck ass until you get up on the learning curve, because all 3d applications do fundamental things differently.

I "grew up" with 3d Studio MAX - Maya, Rhino, etc. all make my brain BLEED - not just because they're Not MAX (the way The GIMP is Not Photoshop) but because they're Not MAX the way Emacs is Not Vi.* 3d is HARD, dammit - hard to code, hard to learn. I'm picking up Silo pretty fast, but mostly because Silo seems to make it a point to do intuitively a lot of really basic things that are a massive assraping pain-in-the-ass to do in 3d Studio MAX.

That said, I have only two complaints about blender.

1. The open/save dialogue (as has been said elsewhere) does suck a load of flaming ass. Weapons grade Anthrax ass.

2. Like almost all modern 3d apps, you need a three button scroll-wheeled mouse to get ANY use out of the app at all. Which makes the app unuseable if you're using an input device, with, say... two buttons. While that's all fine and good, it ought to be fairly trivial to poll the bus, check for pointing devices, and pop up a nice little "FOR OPTIMAL USE PLZ ATTACH 3-BUTTON SCROLLWHEEL THINGER. [DIAGRAM WITH FUNCTIONS OUTLINED]" if inadequate hardware is detected. If Blender did this, it would put it well ahead of commercial apps for first-impression useability.

* Pick any two apps that generate the same results but go about it using completely contradictory and counterintuitive methods. Same principle.

Re:Robust?

[solios]

Robust has more options than good.

Much the same way 3d Max's implementation of mental ray has a LOT more granularity and options than its default scanline renderer. The problem for people like me is that you can flip a few switches in the scanline, wait a couple of hours, photoshop for ten minutes, and get something that would have taken you DAYS of messing around with mental ray. :P

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.

Re:Sorry but that's just wrong

[caseih]

Yeah you're right. That is a horrible analogy, and pointless one. Why did this get modded +5, insightful?

An 18-speed heavy truck unit is not only a stick shift, but has unsynchronized gears, requiring training, skill, and also an inherent understanding of how the transmission works (expected rpms at shift points, etc) to drive adequately. By your flawed analogy, this is clearly an overall negative thing that is adversely impacting the trucking industry in general.

Seems to me that if there really are things that, say 3Ds does in a slick, intuitive way, without compromising power and features, then we should be able to exactly quantify that. Instead we have an entire series of posts whining about how horrible the interface is and how obviously more intuitive other interfaces are, without a single example (other than the texture example, which is an acknowledged problem on blender). I mean really, does having "save" and "load" in a slightly different menu position (or even UI position) really make blender suck? No, I don't believe so.

Re:Sorry but that's just wrong

[babyrat]

furthering your analogy, while an automatic is easier to drive than a standard transmission, there are things you acn do with a standard transmission that you can't do with an automatic. So yes there is a steeper learning curve to driving a standard and it is certainly 'harder' to drive a standard than an automatic at any given point in time, but when you need the features of a standard transmission and all you have is an automatic, then you are screwed.

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.

Denying that a UI is bad is not defending it. A UI that is hard to learn is not necessarily a bad UI. It might be if it were a telephone that grandma has to use, but Blender is not a telephone.

Re:OSX

[boaworm]

I dont see why that is such a big issue ?

Apple's implementation of X is fast, stable, easy to install and blends very well into OS X. It's freely available and you can download it from apple.com.

Sure a native application would have been even better, but this is really very far away from "unusability".

Re:OSX

[am 2k]

Uh, I'm using blender on Mac OS X, and it does not use X11. It's implemented using OpenGL, so the interface is completely custom, but no need for that X-server to be open.

blender's user interface is a bit rough to get used to, but once you're used to it, it's very efficient and fast (I once attended a Maya course, and always screamed out in terror when I had to hoover around in 2 levels of menus to access a simple thing like extrude -- in blender you just press 'e').

standard

[sergevi]

I'm an active blender's user. And i find the interface very productive too..like any other "real" blender user. However, we are in a big world and , yes, THERE IS other 3D apps over there.. People spent a lot of time learning these apps, and these apps tried to UNIFY their UI. Actually,If you do ctrl+c it does copy something . When you alt+mouse , the 3D view does something.. Well, not in blender. And that's the problem, and that's why the next version is all about the new CUSTOMISABLE UI :) Take care of blender.. it's one of the best real open source projects actually. congrats tom, you're a big guy !

Bitching about Blender's interface never gets old,

[astralpancakes]

I'd like to know how many of you complaining are actual 3D artists (of some sort, be it pro/student/hobbyist) of even an intermediate skill level, who actually made an honest effort learning Blender. No, opening it up, finding your left and right mouse buttons swapped, then giving up and going back to your pirated copy of Maya doesn't count.

I _HAD_ to learn Blender for an animated short I worked on over the summer. I had about 9 months of 3ds max experience behind me, and grasping the basics in Blender took me less than a week, using Tony Mullen's book Introducing Character Animation with Blender as well as whatever tutorials could be found online. Yes, the documentation is sometimes lacking (nothing new there, considering it's free software), but that mostly applies to more advanced features (NLA editing, linking animation files together, stuff like that) where you end up having to discover many things by trial and error (which is horrible if you're working to a deadline to be sure). In my experience there's no shortage of resources targetting beginners though. Just don't expect to become a master sitting around reading tutorials -- the reason 3D graphics in general and animation in particular is hard is because IT IS HARD. And it's hard even after you've mastered whatever application you're using. Getting past the user interface is the easy part.

At this point the only thing I could say 3ds max is outright "better" at is pure modelling, since Blender lacks n-gons, and even then I'd rather use Blender because the interface is just that much nicer. I haven't really used hair and fur much in 3ds max, but my understanding is that it's a fair bit more advanced than what's currently in Blender as well, although you can expect that to change soon as the Peach project gets underway. Textures, rigging, animation, lighting, rendering, compositing are all things I find much easier to do in Blender.

Yes, the Blender interface is "unintuitive" in the sense that it doesn't look like anything else, but compared to the hodgepodge that is max it's a shedload more consistent and logical. Once you grasp the basics (A selects/deselects all, B border selects, G moves, R rotates, S scales...) all 3D windows, node views, curve editors and what have you work exactly the same way which is just lovely. Add to that a completely customizable workspace layout and completely zoomable/pannable windows. I cannot tell you what a shock it was to go back to 3ds max and discover that to move and zoom the timeline you had to use combinations of ctrl, alt and mousebuttons, when you're used to doing all of that the same way you zoom and pan 3D windows: scrollwheel and middle mouse button. Or that the damn thing loads for a minute and a half even on a top of the line machine, while Blender takes about 2 seconds to start. :)

That's not to say the Blender interface couldn't be improved. The default keyboard shortcuts are WEIRD -- Ctrl-W to save, anyone? -- and more importantly, not customizable. The default view control options are pretty confusing as well if you're used to basically anything else ever, but these can at least be changed. I think changing the defaults (but making it easy for advanced users to change back) would go a long way towards improving Blender's image at large, but I'm not so arrogant as to assume that the Blender developers (who btw are excellent, pay attention to users needs and release new features at a mindboggling rate) aren't aware of these things.

(Struggling with the formatting here -- first post, sorry.)

Re:uphill both ways.

[paganizer]

As I started out as a mechanical draftsman, Your post is not quite as sarcastic as it could have been. I've sharpened my rulers with a whetstone, used a scalpel to amend ink, and made my own Ink.
I can use a sliderule, also.

Italics

[Per Abrahamsen]

Should you use text to italicize rather than em? <em> is for text you want to emphasize, rather than text you want to force a specific slant on.

Blender's UI is good once you master it?

[Michael_gr]

That's all well and good but the fact is, you never entirely "master" a 3D application. There's just too much stuff to learn, and if you work in an environment where you use other apps as well, there are so many things you need to remember it's impossible. A good UI should be self-explanatory enough so you can find things quickly even if you don't remember *exactly* where everything is. And blender has one big fault here, which is that because of the way its interface panels are limited by size, it has to cram too much information into not enough space. So you get in each panel a hodgepodge of barely-sorted buttons which are labeled with concatenations and meaningless invented terms like "spin dup" and "innervert" and "shadbuf" because there isn't enough space to write the real term. The tool tips are a quick fix, but are not a good solution. Also, the interface is supposedly customized for speed and so is very different in basic operation (context menus, mouse selection and such) from most applications. But if you use it in conjunction with other applications - for example, when you use GIMP and Blender to texture a model - the mental gear shifting is so jarring you just get slowed down by the completely different interaction paradigm. And you almost always use more than one application in any normal professional workflow.

Blender's UI is good once you master it.

[Tetsujin]

That's all well and good but the fact is, you never entirely "master" a 3D application. There's just too much stuff to learn, and if you work in an environment where you use other apps as well, there are so many things you need to remember it's impossible. A good UI should be self-explanatory enough so you can find things quickly even if you don't remember *exactly* where everything is. And blender has one big fault here, which is that because of the way its interface panels are limited by size, it has to cram too much information into not enough space. So you get in each panel a hodgepodge of barely-sorted buttons which are labeled with concatenations and meaningless invented terms like "spin dup" and "innervert" and "shadbuf" because there isn't enough space to write the real term. The tool tips are a quick fix, but are not a good solution.

Also, the interface is supposedly customized for speed and so is very different in basic operation (context menus, mouse selection and such) from most applications. But if you use it in conjunction with other applications - for example, when you use GIMP and Blender to texture a model - the mental gear shifting is so jarring you just get slowed down by the completely different interaction paradigm. And you almost always use more than one application in any normal professional workflow.

True, that - when switching between the two I often find myself wishing Gimp worked a bit more like Blender... And certainly there are a lot of people out there who wish Gimp worked more like Photoshop...

But this whole idea of "one paradigm to rule them all" doesn't work for me. I think it's premature. People are still figuring out better ways to do things in UIs and - here's the clincher for me - what's best is domain-specific. If you're writing, say, an e-mail application - there's a certain set of tasks that program has to do, and probably there's an expectation that lots of people with all kinds of different backgrounds will use the app. In that case, sure, familiar UI concepts are a strong asset. But even then, even in something as simple as e-mail, the emphasis on making the app "easy-to-learn" emphasizes things like hiding or removing lesser-used features, to simplify the interface.

But a 3-D modeler is a different beast. You don't expect everyone to learn 3-D modeling, not everybody needs or wants to - which is quite understandable due to various difficulties involved. (For instance, dealing with 3-D space but 2-D display and input, using a giant library of different modeling tools and techniques to create the desired effect, and even dealing with things like individual vertex placement, since the computer can't quite handle that on its own in "specialized" cases, like low-poly modeling or animation...) The task of 3-D mesh modeling is inherently complicated - at present, anyway. People, in general, aren't sculptors or model-makers. In any medium (clay, plastic, polygons, whatever) the process of learning to model isn't simply "how do I make this", but "how do I make this with these tools and materials?" So users of a 3-D modeling app have a considerably higher initial investment: this suggests a higher level of sophistication as well.

So, here's the thing about making the interface fast-to-use vs. easy-to-learn... How many times do you have to use a given function? How does that weigh against the one time you have to learn how to invoke it? Let's suppose, for instance, that I had a polygon model with "smoothing" turned on. (That is, smoothing via shading algorithms, like Phong or Gourad shading) - And I wanted to specify edges that would appear "sharp" - discontinuities in the "smooth" surface. Now, it may be simpler for me to find this functionality if it's laid out nicely in a button bar somewhere - and I honestly have no idea if Blender has such a button, since I use keystrokes for most functions like this... If this is a task I have to do lots and lots of times, it's worth my t

About my article

[bsm3d]

Hello,
I'm the Benoît Saint-Moulin (the badboy) who writed this article :-)

First thanks to all for comments and email, I hope my article goal is reached : discuss about how improving softwares and what's can be offering us for our needs.
I'm CG technical artist and teacher in 3D College (HEAJ-Belgium) and try to stay independant into that's writed article. (sorry for my english...)
To writed this, take a long and painfull 12 months of works, I hope it's well understanded.

I read all comments, so here is few replies :

- I'm not Pro Blender or not, I tried to stay indepedant into my article, I'm using Blender because there is powerful tools inside, not because it's free or not. As teacher / trainer I can say today industries interface use ""standard"" shortcut, F1 for help, well organised docs,... in Blender it's a bit uncentralised and new users never done 3D before must probably loosed to found the info when he need...
To Blender be an industries and Film used softwares, replacing maybe some old dinosaurs, he must adapting his interface to be more CG artists friendly and open to artist's today kind of pipeline working, artists say not technical geek like us.

- I'm not anti-Lightwave, I have it (9.2 dvd), used from LW 3.5 and the famous LightRave dongle until today for such task others can do ! I also writed this words on LW with LW-europe dev.support.

- I'm not cons to text interface, I really prefer text interface, that's more faster to work with than vivid Icons as each softwares icons are not the sames ! text stay the sames...like in xsi, lw,...

- This article don't to tried to compare Blender opposed to the world. Blender is include in because to industries can't simply ignore Blender potential and great work who can be done by Opensource software. (no licence troubles, no network installation issues, no per year subscription...)

- Blender have a now a place to be in this kind article and I really don't like work with Nurbs in Blender, so each softwares are good for one tasks, try to do all with one is mayeb not the best to do !

If blender is really good today, he must evolving (as free it's the best) he as somes lacks on somes BIG datas projects. I know just because I'm worked with, why somes highend 3d softwares is again today so highly priced and in somes case that's really justified ! in many not :-) cheers, Ben (BSM3D)

The important question: Will it blend?

[objekt]

Will it blend? http://www.willitblend.com/

Re:The slogan of bad user interfaces everywhere...

[ikekrull]

That may be true, it may have a bad UI, it may turn new users off, but theres nothing that can be done to fix it without people who have the skill, and the will to change it.

So, in the short term, if you don't like blender's UI, go buy a package with a good UI. There is no free alternative. In the medium term, your best bet is to help to fix it, and in the long term, eventually, this issue will be addressed by somebody else.

Its a matter of how much time have you got to contribute vs how much time youre prepared to wait for Blender to get a new UI.

I mean, if i never bothered trying to edit text files in POV-Ray (oh yes, i've been there too), i would never have gained the knowledge i use daily with Blender and other 3D apps. I never once threw up my hands and said 'too hard' - i was too busy learning and creating stuff.

So while it may be 'the slogan of bad user interfaces everywhere', its also the cry of the project that is trying to be too many things to too many people, with not enough hands on deck.

Its a simple matter of resourcing and a lack of consensus - so if Blender is losing users because of the UI, well, thats regrettable, but unfortunately not addressable without compromising other goals in the short term.

Blender can, and will be, so much better than it is now - and its not like anyone is stopping anyone else from reorganising the Blender UI in a newbie-friendly way like GIMPShop does with GIMP.

Inkscape is wildly popular because a bunch of developers took the oddball sodipodi interface and changed it to their liking, not because the sodipodi developers were influenced by the UI complaints on slashdot.

And really, when you look at the size of the Blender community, does it really seem like there is a problem with the number of users?