Has Blender 2.8 surpassed Maya (and a lot of other modeling rendering programs)?

[L'Ancien Regime 644]

 

 

Edited July 5, 2019 by L'Ancien Regime

[L'Ancien Regime 644]

What an amazing modeling toolset.

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2019 by L'Ancien Regime

[animk 90]

I am very happy with boxcutter, hardops, meshmachine and kitops combination for hard surface.  It feels like modeling in CAD program, although not exactly the same.

[L'Ancien Regime 644]

5 hours ago, animk said:

I am very happy with boxcutter, hardops, meshmachine and kitops combination for hard surface.  It feels like modeling in CAD program, although not exactly the same.

So is this guy modeling in 2.8 as it comes in its basic package or is he using a collection of 2nd party plug ins? And if so, which ones exactly?

[animk 90]

21 minutes ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

So is this guy modeling in 2.8 as it comes in its basic package or is he using a collection of 2nd party plug ins? And if so, which ones exactly?

This guy is using native tools.  But check out those plugins I mention.  They simplify complex workflows to just a few clicks.  

[L'Ancien Regime 644]

2 hours ago, animk said:

This guy is using native tools.  But check out those plugins I mention.  They simplify complex workflows to just a few clicks.  

Yeah there's some great plug ins out there for Blender alright. Thanks for listing those.

 

This Gleb Alexandrov has a massive 30GB hard edge tutorial for Blender using just native tools. 

 

Edited July 7, 2019 by L'Ancien Regime

[Ballistic_Tension 76]

The new 2.8  U I is a step in the wrong direction  for me . So many things to be improved upon and they waste time on those changes . Seam to me that they needed to keep people busy doing something in there area so you get a generic 1980s looking layout . I will be staying at the 2.79 for a long while. The new features are great though .

[AbnRanger 1,541]

33 minutes ago, Ballistic_Tension said:

The new 2.8  U I is a step in the wrong direction  for me . So many things to be improved upon and they waste time on those changes . Seam to me that they needed to keep people busy doing something in there area so you get a generic 1980s looking layout . I will be staying at the 2.79 for a long while. The new features are great though .

I LOVE the new changes in 2.8. So much nicer, all around, IMO. Especially the new icons for tools, workspace tabs and such.

[L'Ancien Regime 644]

4 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

I LOVE the new changes in 2.8. So much nicer, all around, IMO. Especially the new icons for tools, workspace tabs and such.

I can see it's going to be a big investment in time to learn it all though *sigh*.

[Carlosan 2,497]

I use Blender 2.79 for modeling. I bought those plugins and they are excellent.

The great disadvantage of Blender is the viewport performance. As you can read on this post, is really bad compared with other apps.

They say that they will improve it in the future version 2.8.1, but for that we must wait until the next year.

[Falconius 63]

Some of the changes are really irritating (mostly because I'm used to some of the things the way they were, the pie menus slow thing down imo), but overall, and in most if not all of the technical aspects the work done by Blender is kind of awesome.  Modelling has become significantly better.

[Nossgrr 75]

Quote

The new 2.8  U I is a step in the wrong direction  for me . So many things to be improved upon and they waste time on those changes . Seam to me that they needed to keep people busy doing something in there area so you get a generic 1980s looking layout . I will be staying at the 2.79 for a long while. The new features are great though .

I absolutely love the new v2.8 interface and if you've followed the development vlogs that Pablo put up in the Blender development channel, he explains how the new interface paves the way for new and existing features to be better integrated into Blender. The UI overhaul was overdue and needed.. Otherwise you might end up in a 3dsmax\zbrush situation..

[Carlosan 2,497]

Epic Games supports Blender Foundation with $1.2 million Epic MegaGrant

[animk 90]

On 7/8/2019 at 6:18 AM, Falconius said:

Some of the changes are really irritating (mostly because I'm used to some of the things the way they were, the pie menus slow thing down imo), but overall, and in most if not all of the technical aspects the work done by Blender is kind of awesome.  Modelling has become significantly better.

Which pie menus slow thing down?  The tap pie menu in 2.8 is annoying imo, but it can be turned off. 

I miss the pop up menu for vertex/edge/face selection, it is not available in 2.8. 

Edited July 16, 2019 by animk

[Taranta 3]

I have opened Blender many years ago to start learning 3D from, but never bothered. Just recently I picked up the 2.8 beta and I had a much better time understanding the UI and controls. I think they did a good job. Epic helping out is great news.

[L'Ancien Regime 644]

11 hours ago, Taranta said:

I have opened Blender many years ago to start learning 3D from, but never bothered. Just recently I picked up the 2.8 beta and I had a much better time understanding the UI and controls. I think they did a good job. Epic helping out is great news.

http://www.cgchannel.com/2019/07/epic-games-donates-1-2-million-to-blender-development/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cgchannel%2FnHpU+(CG+Channel+-+Entertainment+Production+Art)

 

Epic Games has awarded the Blender Foundation, the nonprofit organisation that oversees Blender’s development, a $1.2 million cash grant, to be delivered over the next three years.

The money, which has been awarded from Epic’s new Epic MegaGrants program, will be used to fund Blender’s Professionalizing Blender Development Initiative.

New grant nearly doubles development funding for Blender
This isn’t the first time that Epic has funded Blender development, but it is by far its biggest donation.

Before the grant was announced, the crowdsourced Blender Development Fund stood at €37,538/month (just over $42,000/month), meaning the award almost doubles development Blender funding at a stroke.

Roughly a further €40,000/month (around $50,000/month) is donated through Blender Cloud, but the money is primarily used to fund Blender Institute‘s open-source animation projects.

Blender Foundation chairman Ton Roosendaal said that the grant money will form “a significant investment in our project organization to improve on-boarding, coordination and best practices for code quality”.

“As a result, we expect more contributors from the industry to join our projects.”

 

[AbnRanger 1,541]

That's pretty big and it shows that the industry is starting to recognize Blender as a serious contender in the market. I hope it impacts Autodesk's pricing where they at least off an Indie version, like Houdini does.

[Falconius 63]

On 7/16/2019 at 9:39 AM, animk said:

Which pie menus slow thing down?  The tap pie menu in 2.8 is annoying imo, but it can be turned off. 

I miss the pop up menu for vertex/edge/face selection, it is not available in 2.8. 

The one that comes to mind is switching between display rendering.  Like going from wire frame, to face, to rendered (which used to be done by cycling through on a hotkey), but there are a few that I've encounter like that.  One in particular that comes up all the time but I can't recall ATM.

For me I like the hotkeys of 1,2,3 for vertex, edge, face select.  It's very quick.  I don't remember if it was in the previous version or I just didn't know them then.  And whilst I'm on random changes that I like: I also like the change for select all and deselect all from just being A to being split up into A and alt-A, even though at the beginning I wasn't too sure about it.  That said I've lost the subdivide hotkey which I used all the time and I haven't dug through the options to add it back.  I wish you could change hotkeys right from the lookup window (which, thank God, is finally off the space bar and over on f3 where it belongs).

[L'Ancien Regime 644]

18 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

That's pretty big and it shows that the industry is starting to recognize Blender as a serious contender in the market. I hope it impacts Autodesk's pricing where they at least off an Indie version, like Houdini does.

Actually, I think the train has already left the station on Maya and 3DSMax...they're stacking bits of new code on top of old code while Blender is totally rewriting their code. I know this very cynical guy who claims that the reason Blender is so small and lean as opposed to say, Maya which is massive and bulky, is that  much of Maya's code is not only old, but they're obsessed with encrypting and decrypting everything you do with them to maintain their proprietary secrecy so everything is matched by huge and growing hash files for the encrytpion. Thus the crappiness of Maya Binary Files.

Edited July 18, 2019 by L'Ancien Regime

[Taranta 3]

The best thing is that there are very good add-ons around for Blender. Money you save for Blender being open source, is money you can potentially spend on add-ons (if you need them). Meshmachine, Decalmachine, Boxcutter, Hard-ops, Kit-ops, are a few add-ons that heavily improve the workflow with Blender, and are still relevant with the new update coming out. All for an affordable price too. I think if you are fairly new, now is a great time to start learning in my opinion.

[Carlosan 2,497]

Ubisoft joins Blender Development Fund

[WillBellJr 6]

On 7/7/2019 at 8:17 AM, Ballistic_Tension said:

The new 2.8  U I is a step in the wrong direction  for me . So many things to be improved upon and they waste time on those changes . Seam to me that they needed to keep people busy doing something in there area so you get a generic 1980s looking layout . I will be staying at the 2.79 for a long while. The new features are great though .

Interesting point of view considering after all of the v2.8 modifications, companies like Epic and others have started donating serious cash to further the work being done?

They all must have felt felt something positive was being done, and I agree with them.

-Will

Edited July 30, 2019 by WillBellJr
Read additional responses

[WillBellJr 6]

 

...And yes, it will take time learning Blender - it always has!

So much more training available, and a lot of it is much higher quality and focused compared to years ago; whole series of Beginner and other training is now available.

Take that first step, start learning it, and enjoy yourself!

 

[Nossgrr 75]

Funny thing is, after learning Blender I find it very difficult to go back to Maya or Max.. Even if I dont do any 3D for a while, returning to Blender feels more natural to me than Maya. But like everything else, apps are a personal preference thing.. 

 

[AbnRanger 1,541]

On 7/18/2019 at 8:32 PM, Taranta said:

The best thing is that there are very good add-ons around for Blender. Money you save for Blender being open source, is money you can potentially spend on add-ons (if you need them). Meshmachine, Decalmachine, Boxcutter, Hard-ops, Kit-ops, are a few add-ons that heavily improve the workflow with Blender, and are still relevant with the new update coming out. All for an affordable price too. I think if you are fairly new, now is a great time to start learning in my opinion.

I think that is why Blender has such a vibrant addon/plugin community, largely via BlenderMarket.com. It's nicer than anything I've seen for 3ds Max (ScriptSpot is the closest thing to it).