Over the last week, we saw some interesting videos discussing Blender's role in the CG Industry. On the one hand, we saw Flipped Normals reason that big industry studios are entrenched in existing software, making it hard to switch to other tools. Grant Abbitt looks at existing high-end productions, the recent increase of Blender's development pace and the push of Blender use through indie studios upwards.
Flipped Normals: Why Blender isn't an Industry Standard
Grant Abbitt: Will Blender Take Over as the Industry Standard
To close off, I also noticed this topic on Blender Artists by Chipp Walters, who looks at disruption of industries by comparing traditional CG software to Kodak. It's worth a read.
13 Comments
It's obvious the Flipped Normals guys follow Blender Stack Exchange. The number of questions there about importing/exporting is increasing. And smooth work with other programs is key in 100% commercial productions. Also the fact Blender relies, to a great extent, on community help and tuts plays it's role. Still, the video's title should be: why B3D is not an industry standard yet as Blender is on the road to becoming such a standard.
Industry adoption and ultimately becoming a standard would be aided quite a bit if the Blender Foundation adopted the VFX Reference Platform specifications where applicable. Locking the Python version to the VFX standard and including PySide2 would make it much easier for pipeline developers to find a place for Blender in a full production toolchain.
Isn't the VFX platform lagging behind with the version of Python it supports? Last I heard VFX platform didn't support python3 but hopefully soon.
Thanks for including me in your article Bart :)
For me the following makes Blender non-industry standard:
1. The breaking of file format even between Blender versions. Sometimes you go from 2.4 to 2.5 or 2.7 to 2.8, all those files no longer works. It seems Blender isn't responsible for the past when it goes for the future.
2. The interoperabilties with other apps.
3. The UI. Although improved in 2.8 still has ways to go. Too many shortcuts without obvious menus.
I would like to relate your criticism to the old interface at 34.15 and the lack of quality training: many procedures become easy when explained and understood.
Not many training courses / tutorials dig into the core concepts and give the tools to understand the general sense, the interface and the structure of Blender.
I've been teaching Blender at university since 2009 and I'm still perfecting my lessons.
Hi, what's the University and the course that you teaching Blender? Thanks!
Thank you for your interest @Alvaro!
Currently at:
http://www.polito.it
http://www.accademiasironi.it
http://www.albertina.academy
For more info please write me at info @ brixel . it detailed URLs are very long ;)
Thank you Rickyx! Cause I use Blender since 2007 and only now, in 2019 that I started to teaching in a University, but to the Civil Engineer Course, and I'm interested to know other Universities that make the same. I will take a look in the URLs and if apper some question I will enter in conteact.
I hope Blender never will become industry standard. Might take the fun out of it. Too much commercial dependencies and pressures. Like a company on the stock market.. be careful what you say or do or the investees (read Development Fund Members) might stop donating. Hire too many programmers and when the members leave you are bankrupt all of a sudden. And I don't want it to look like 3ds Max. Blender is on a good track. For instance being forced to use more shortcuts really helped to up my productivity. With 3ds Max I literally had my feet on the desk, most of the times, scrolling through menus. Nope.. no industry standard for me.. Let them buy their expansive software and have their say.
Why should it? Blender has its own niche. Too many cooks in the kitchen doesn't do it any good.
Blender needs to create a revolutionary new movie that doesn't just copy Pixar ideals of children's cartoon characters with huge gooey eyes. Something incredible that brings together all the realism that Cycles and Eevee allow... that's real environments and real looking characters. Everyone at the Blender Institute should be forced to watch the movie "Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within", look at the year on the DVD (2001), then ask why, almost two decades later, they only do children's cartoons.
Blender is open-source software. It's not an industry-standard software. Some 3D studio using blender for saving money. If the blender is paid software like Maya or max, no one uses this software.