The CGenie CG Survey 2010 is now online. It previously gave Blender a lot of good PR, so please take a moment and fill it out. Be honest, and don't just give 'Blender Fanboy' answers ;-)
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About the Author
Bart Veldhuizen
I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.
20 Comments
Yes, and PLEASE don't vote more than once, unless it's for a different application each time.
Thanks for the heads up!
+1 for Blender (all the way).
+1 for Blender all the way?
Blender is a great generalist and has some outstanding features, buit there are still some fields average/ to be improved. I think to give +1 all the way is the kind of unrealistic, narrow Blender fanboy point of view mentioned above.
Wow! That really made me think. My main thoughts were how much Blender has improved in the last couple of years, and how great the community is. But definitely no fanboy answers here. :)
we are fanboyZ !!! and proud of it ! who can say that he's in love with his software ?
Orchestrated crowds of blenderheads lead by Bart... can't you feel ashamed of doing this?
I don't find anyone being a blender fanboy particularly detrimental at all! If you love your software, go ahead and share it! It's when we start attacking others or defending ourselves that it becomes detrimental. Also, doing so indicates conventional thinking and narrow-mindedness.
I believe this is why we shun being a fanboy as a whole; it's a response to a fear we have regarding flaming and spam.
Obviously Blender has done some amazing things to inspire such people to have such passion for their software, and it would be narrow minded of anyone to attack the community for being passionate. To those that shun I say, open up your horizons. The only thing getting in your way of using blender to it's best, is your work ethic, fear, ability to learn, and adapt. These pertain not only to Blender, but other things such as Python to assist your work-flow, C coding to change blender for yourself and the world, OpenGL coding likewise, and bad habits that limit you to a certain way of acting and thinking.
Remember that the flexibility of, and ability to change the source code is what feeds the creativity in the people that use Blender, and this benefits everyone. That's what sets it apart.
Thanks for actually reading...
Matthew Thoemke
YoYoFargo, the reason Fanboys are 'detrimental' is because some of the time they plug blender mindlessly.
Blender iz teh coolest just cuz!!!!!!1!!!111!!!!!!eleven...
Not trying to put anyone down by saying that, I'm just pointing out how is can really put down Blender's image when people start doing that.
Personally I have been using Blender since I was 'twelvish' and I think its an amazing application. I've noticed that more often than not when my peers use a different app like Maya, Houdini, or Max; they do so because there is a simple/easy button for one or two complicated effects. I have frequently tried to use these other tools only to ironically find that I can't use their interface very well or something as basic a applying a material has been rendered rather arcane and unusual (Maya). Blender is so generalized (the perfect description by the way) that nearly every feature 'mixes' extremely well together no matter the combination (with exception to being in a separated mode, but usually it still holds true).
It's a perfect circle in some cases. More often than not people choose their tools simply because they honestly aren't as skilled as they think. Cases of 'easy button' application selection are a clear symptom of this. A perfect example of this is slamming Blender or other apps for not having so many effects like smoke or fire, but the truth is that the compositor alone is and has been more than capable of providing such a gift as a '2D' effect that is still 'animateable' in '3D.' (A SKILL)
Golden Rules of Modeling
1. The more Hi-res a material is the more relative geometry is (useless except for outline).
2. The more Hi-res geometry is the more relative materials are (useless except for basic color).
3. Compositor allows for pixel perfect modifications to your render, therefor the quality of your render is -completely your fault (a skill issue).
In one way or another and one combination or another Blender has all the features of all the other apps. =)
I know because I have used nothing but blender for eight years and after Elephants Dream have been able to do all the same effects as everyone else (both in material and geometry).
I hope it was no mistake that this was posted here :)
I want objective results.
It's a bit hard to answer the money-related questions, lol... Are the costs for features and support fine?
"Excelent" or "N/A"?
N/A would mean, there is no possible answer, as it doesn't cost anything...
However, at the same time it's just perfect. Only way to improve that ratio would be by getting money for using it xD
Their personal image, maybe. But not Blender's.
If professional people actually cared about 'fanboys,' professionals would not use photoshop...
Something that may need clarification is that blender is not one big enigmatic thing, organization, or software. It's your own software. A more proper way of thinking is "I do 3D modeling with my [blender]" or "She does 3D graphics work with a [blender]" regardless of the syntactic accuracy. Not only is this because of the open source nature of the software, but because it is a toolkit; a thing, an object has it's own single existence, belonging to only to the person using it.
Knowing this, it's easy to see why professionals don't care about fanboys, they simply deflect them and move on with their own tools. Also, it's usually the fanboys who are the most motivated to do amazing things with all the tools they get their hands on. 'Mostly because they're not bogged down with negative emotions. There is a person on the other end of that monitor, and what they feel emotionally about a software and their own personal works is none of MY business. As well, I am obviously anti-censorship. :P
I don't mean to attack anyone, I'm just stating some principles. It is only up to you how you act, and how you think; so don't feel like I'm thrusting these ideas upon you.
survey is to be onest. Don't make fun
I would like to know why if I like something, can I not say it without being criticized for liking it. I did not criticize the other CG products listed but I love Blender (both the community and its products) so much that I was willing to spend time on the survey. It was a nice thought provoking survey and I am sure to read/buy the results issue when it comes out.
Are there areas for improvement in Blender, sure but that was not part of their survey. The survey was about the perception of the product and its features among the users of that product. The features that bothered some on this thread do not bother me.
I wanted to, and did, thank Bart for giving all of us a chance to express our opinion about Blender. I wonder if they would publish the total number of votes each CG product got and the percentage of favourable/unfavourable ratings of that product from the people that voted for that product.
Hi folks,
First thanks very much for getting so involved in this survey, it's brilliant to see all the responses - we've had a fantastic cross section of responses for all the software.
Just to answer a few questions from above:
- No problems with voting more than once for different software - if you vote more than once for the same software we'll just remove duplicate entrants (have a range of ways to spot this!).
- I wouldn't worry too much about 'fanboyism' just answer honestly and that's all we need - there's a range of ways we can 'cut' the data anyway - so for example we'll be able to compare the responses of blender artists who are hobbyists again those who are professionals and see if the ratings vary between these two demographics.
- Money-related questions - don't worry about this, realise Blender's a 'special' exception so will be aggregating the excellent and n/a responses.
- Finally in terms of what we're publishing, we'll cut the data in as many ways as we can as it provides a truly fascinating insight into the CG world, so we'll be as comprehensive as we possibly can!
If you have any particular analyses or view of the data that you'd appreciate, then please email me and I'll add it to the list!
Thanks again for participating and be sure to keep spreading the word! The bigger the survey, the more interesting the results!
I will tell you, that blender can do things faster then 3ds max
3ds max has no key or button to create a face with 4 vertices. I have to extrude an edge, then merge the 2 together, it slows me down by about 5 seconds each time. when your making a head, it takes you forever :(
I just wanted to add that the wonderful comments on this post so far really show how mature the Blender community has become.
Crazy 'fanboy' syndrome is starting to become a thing of the past, and I really respect that, it takes a lot of effort to keep emotional extremes out of something people genuinely care about.
Jacob, I totally agree, Blender is certainly faster at UV unwrapping too.
Blender's scripting is completely open, so even before macros scripting was really useful.
@Atarivandio: I am glad someone finally mentioned Blender scripting because that is where my interest in Blender lies. I find it intuitive, open, easy to use and learn, improves constantly and has become very powerful.
Sadly, there were no questions on scripting in the CG survey, but I guess the survey targeted artists rather than developers.
[quote]Crazy ‘fanboy’ syndrome is starting to become a thing of the past[/quote]
Next stop: the Mad Elitist disease.
Despite my love for Blender I was very honest with the survey. I have experience with at least two other professional apps so that helped me to give an informed and unbiased opinion.
I nearly settled for the best I thought I could get for free, but took time to read user reviews at the download site where I found it. That's where I found a message from a Blender fan. (Thanks Blender fan, whoever you are!) If not for that fan, who stated something to the tune of, "That program might be fine, but Blender is way better.) He listed a number of features in Blender, ones that I had lost hope years before of ever finding in a free digital 3D program, all of which I had in mind and thought I could only get by installing numerous programs on my computer.
I wanted to create a digital 3D community, populated with people and animals, and animate it...with sound. As an artist, I have strived for photo-realistic results since early childhood. After checking out art and videos with statistics that informed me that they were made solely in Blender, with exception to art in a photoshop, or vector program, and besides some that also used one, or more other free and open source program, I realized, Blender was the answer to my dreams.
Sure, I later discovered some disappointing limitations. However, that changed for all, but one, by the time Blender 2.48 was released. (My first version was 2.45, which appeared to have been just released right before I learned of Blender.) One feature lacking in Blender that I really, really want is the code to create models with voxels. But somebody (Raul?) is working on that, according to a post last Sept. at Blender Nation. I can wait patiently for it.
Blender is a blessing for any artist lacking the financial means to any of the pricey commercial alternatives, who really wants to learn digital 3D and create fantastic still art, animation, or cool games. Blender might be a ticket out of poverty for artists that, at least, are fortunate to have the hardware (or access to it) to install Blender either from the Internet, or a CD. Blender as an excellent digital 3D program with lots of bells and whistles can help many of us to make our dreams come true.
Blender is open-source and customizable. It has attracted a community of users that have kindly taken time to offer free tutorials to help us get started using the program, and also, to provide opportunities for users to learn how to understand and write python codes. (I've encouraged my son to go this route, but he wants college credit for it.) Within this community are people that freely offer their own scripts for SFX, Add Menu mesh, and so forth. Also within this community are talented people that have been, are, and can be drawn together for creative collaboration, which leads to projects that include movies and games with credit rolls. That's good for anybody seeking a future in digital art, animation, acting, music, etc. It's great for the people lacking the material resources (especially money) often required, particularly for people that cannot, or are not cut out for, the conventional routes.
Maybe, it currently poses limitations for commercial artists, architectural artists employed by corporate firms, and whatnot. From what I've read, it does, because it is a free program, which leads to less money from frugal bosses and clients. Perhaps, they don't understand Blender's powerful capabilities for customization because of its open-source and free status.
So, I supposes that I have become a Blender fan. I won't knock anybody that prefers to use the expensive commercial alternatives. I won't attack anybody that offers critique (including comparisons), or suggestions which can be used to improve Blender. I will say, Blender is not that far off from giving the commercial versions a run for their money.