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Blender 5.0

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Re: Blender 5.0

#101

Post by CoreformGreg »

bgoated01 wrote: post #89
bsder wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sandia seems to have some form of kernel, but only Federal-associated entities can get access to it. It would be interesting to see if they would license that out further for some amount of money.

If you're referring to Cubit, they license the ACIS kernel under the hood.

They’re (possibly) referring to “Scalable Geometric Modeler” (SGM)

https://github.com/sandialabs/sgm

Originally open-source, but since taken back in-house. As I understand, which should not be construed as an accurate accounting, Sandia wants to flesh out the basics further before (potentially) open-sourcing it again.

Re: Blender 5.0

#102

Post by _bent »

jsheard wrote: post #92
porphyra wrote: post #85

Blender is really an amazing case study of open source software. Apart from the Linux kernel and web browsers/tools, it is perhaps the only open source software that managed to beat all the commercial software in its niche. It has rendered Maya nearly obsolete. Meanwhile, in other niches, Microsoft Office still beats open source office suites like LibreOffice; Photoshop isn't about to give up its crown to GIMP; Light…

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Blender has done far better than most open source software but Maya is still very much the industry standard. I don't think we can realistically say that Maya is beaten until Blender is battle-proven to the same degree, on the most demanding real-world production workloads (think Pixar/Weta), which for now it hasn't been.

What Blender achieved is that lots of university programmes have started teaching Blender or becoming 'tool agnostic'. Studios have also started diversifying their pipelines (this coincidences with studios adopting Unreal and increasing usage of Houdini).

So while Maya is currently the standard, I don't believe that it's growing. It'll probably be around still in 20 years, with lots of studios having built their pipelines and tooling around it, with lots of people being trained in it, and because it's at the moment still better than Blender in some aspects like rigging and animation (afaik).

Re: Blender 5.0

#103

Post by btreecat »

porphyra wrote: post #85

Blender is really an amazing case study of open source software. Apart from the Linux kernel and web browsers/tools, it is perhaps the only open source software that managed to beat all the commercial software in its niche. It has rendered Maya nearly obsolete. Meanwhile, in other niches, Microsoft Office still beats open source office suites like LibreOffice; Photoshop isn't about to give up its crown to GIMP; Light…

> Meanwhile, in other niches, Microsoft Office still beats open source office suites like LibreOffice; Photoshop isn't about to give up its crown to GIMP; Lightroom isn't losing to Darktable; and FreeCAD isn't even in the rear view mirror of Solidworks.

Tbf, everything starts somewhere and all the proprietary apps you listed were not instant market leaders.

I can and do use all those FOSS tools just fine both as a hobbyist and professionally, my needs are meet. Others may not find the same, but I suspect there's just a lot of stickyness preventing even trying new workflows.

Re: Blender 5.0

#104

Post by WhitneyLand »

porphyra wrote: post #85

Blender is really an amazing case study of open source software. Apart from the Linux kernel and web browsers/tools, it is perhaps the only open source software that managed to beat all the commercial software in its niche. It has rendered Maya nearly obsolete. Meanwhile, in other niches, Microsoft Office still beats open source office suites like LibreOffice; Photoshop isn't about to give up its crown to GIMP; Light…

>>It has rendered Maya nearly obsolete

Hadn’t heard that. How many AAA vfx studios have left Maya for Blender?

Re: Blender 5.0

#105

Post by _carbyau_ »

jwagenet wrote: post #63
_carbyau_ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During COVID I learnt Blender for 3D modelling. It is still my go to. Many people complain about it being a mesh editor but it works for me. The sheer variety of tooling and flexibility in Blender is insane, and that's before you get to the world of add-ons. I want to learn Geometry nodes and object generation as I think they will address a lot of the "parametric" crowd concerns. This v5 is meant to be a big step in…

In MCAD, “parametric” does not mean a high level part or feature is driven by editable parameters or procedurally generated features. Parametric refers to the underlying storage format representing part features in a parametric way rather than as a mesh. Mesh formats like stl cannot represent a circle by its position and radius, while a parametric format like step can. This distinction is more akin to raster (bmp) vs…

Sorry, separate point:

>Mesh formats like stl cannot represent a circle by its position and radius, while a parametric format like step can.

This is where I think the Geometry nodes can help. A node (function) can be used to represent the circle with inputs and outputs set or changed as required.[0]

I have not fully explored this space though and so my "hopes and dreams" may well be as useful as thoughts and prayers...

[0] https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/modeling/geometry_...

Re: Blender 5.0

#106

Post by 0xFF0123 »

porphyra wrote: post #85

Blender is really an amazing case study of open source software. Apart from the Linux kernel and web browsers/tools, it is perhaps the only open source software that managed to beat all the commercial software in its niche. It has rendered Maya nearly obsolete. Meanwhile, in other niches, Microsoft Office still beats open source office suites like LibreOffice; Photoshop isn't about to give up its crown to GIMP; Light…

Possibly Audacity, given the direction v4 is taking. Great video essay / update here: https://youtu.be/QYM3TWf_G38

Re: Blender 5.0

#107

Post by wlesieutre »

MichaelEstes wrote: post #100
manifoldgeo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The studio that makes Evangelion moved from 3DS Max to Blender as their primary 3D software according to this article: https://www.blender.org/user-stories/japanese-anime-studio-k...

That is not a very big studio or very big production, Blender falls over in the pipeline department. It’s a constantly changing API that doesn’t allow for the extensibility needed to get a major project out the door, just the fact that only a Python API is provided is enough for most people who have worked on massive scenes with massive amounts of data to consider it a non starter.

I'm sure "major project" is a subjective label, but Flow made headlines earlier this year with an Academy Award (Best Animated Feature) and Golden Globe (Best Animated Feature Film)

https://flow.movie/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgZccxuj2RY

https://www.blender.org/user-stories/making-flow-an-intervie...

Re: Blender 5.0

#108

Post by underscoremark »

jsheard wrote: post #92
porphyra wrote: post #85

Blender is really an amazing case study of open source software. Apart from the Linux kernel and web browsers/tools, it is perhaps the only open source software that managed to beat all the commercial software in its niche. It has rendered Maya nearly obsolete. Meanwhile, in other niches, Microsoft Office still beats open source office suites like LibreOffice; Photoshop isn't about to give up its crown to GIMP; Light…

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Blender has done far better than most open source software but Maya is still very much the industry standard. I don't think we can realistically say that Maya is beaten until Blender is battle-proven to the same degree, on the most demanding real-world production workloads (think Pixar/Weta), which for now it hasn't been.

Blender is the go-to for struggling artists/developers, and industry outsiders, like me. I'm stuck at Blender 2.93.18 because I don't have the budget for better hardware, let alone a Maya license! However, even that version of Blender still gets it done for me.

And also, how can you say Blender is not battle-proven? I mean, the big studios use Maya like fortune 500 companies use Microsoft Windows - doesn't mean Linux isn't battle proven.

Re: Blender 5.0

#109

Post by bigyikes »

What does Blender do differently that makes it such a successful open source product?

It’s powerful and pleasant to use. Even the release marketing page is beautiful and well-made.

I like open source as much as the next guy, but outside of developer tools there is little that comes close to Blender in terms of utility and UX.

Is it funding? Specific individuals? Are there PMs and designers? Whatever it is, it’s working!

Re: Blender 5.0

#110

Post by ehnto »

SchemaLoad wrote: post #70
daedrdev wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender is a decent option for low effort 3d modeling for 3d printing in my experience

Depends if your goal is artistic or functional. Blender is good if you are trying to make character models, etc. It's not great when you are trying to make a part that has to fit something in the real world and after printing you discover one step half way through needs to be 1mm shorter.

It does take a different set of skills to regular CAD, but I haven't found it that bad for simple 3D printed models that need to be dimensionally accurate.

I have used it to make quite a few functional prints, with the help of making sure my scene units are correct and a CAD plugin.

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