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Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

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Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#41

Post by dfxm12 »

high_na_euv wrote: post #26
Jedd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but are awful at UX This is such a weird trope. For those of us who've used microsoft teams, jira, servicenow, salesforce, or basically any insanely popular (in the commercial if not upvote sense) products, it's unclear what is being compared to with these tired claims.

Teams are decent, wdym? Inb4: I've used ventrilo,team speak, mumble, discord, Skype.

It looks like you only use a tiny fraction of Teams' functionality. I agree, there's little to complain about when using it for IM/voice/video calls. When you start using it for other things, especially the enterprise features, it is bad. It is a resource hog, handles navigation poorly, has poor default settings, finding installed apps can be tough, etc.

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#42

Post by Joel_Mckay »

physicsguy wrote: post #7

How does it compare to Maya these days?

Blender still needs about 130 hours of course projects to become useful, but is a lot better in >5 due to better color handling and geometry nodes.

Maya is frozen in time, and that is not necessarily a bad thing...

Great video on getting 3D render preview speeds up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0GW8Na5CIE

Geometry nodes tutorials:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheDucky3D/videos

Blender still needs plugins to be functional for content:

https://tinynocky.gumroad.com/l/tinyeye

https://sanctus.gumroad.com/l/SLibrary

https://flipfluids.gumroad.com/l/flipfluids

https://artell.gumroad.com/l/auto-rig-pro

https://bartoszstyperek.gumroad.com/l/ahwvli

https://polyhaven.com/plugins/blender

https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/mpfb/

Recommended training (Some artists like it, and some don't ymmv):

1. (A) Complete Blender Creator: Learn 3D Modelling for Beginners

https://www.udemy.com/course/blendertutorial/

* Basics of low-poly design in blender

2. (B+) Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-animation-rigging/

* Some more practice rigging

* Export to game engine teaser

3. (B) The Ultimate Blender 3D Sculpting Course

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-3d-sculpting-course/

* Sculpting, Retopology, and VDM brushes

* a few outdated examples, and annoying instruction style

* basic anatomy

* covers several workflows

* Instructor is inexperienced

4. (A+) The Ultimate Blender 3D Simulations, Physics & Particles

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-simulations-physics-par...

* Shader/Texture basics

* Geometry node basics

* Boid sprites

* Hair and physics simulation

* Camera FX, and post-render filters

* Focused on Blender v4.3

* Instructions on how to export your assets to Unity 3D and Unreal game engines

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#43

Post by lynndotpy »

another_twist wrote: post #2

Brilliant. Some of the animations that are put as showcases on the Blender site are absolutely phenomenal. This one https://studio.blender.org/projects/spring/ particularly is my all time favorite.

There's also the 2024 film Flow. Really delightful movie, and is impressively rendered using Eevee (Blender's real-time renderer) and not Cycles (Blender's path-traced renderer).

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#44

Post by savolai »

bzzzt wrote: post #33
Jedd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but are awful at UX This is such a weird trope. For those of us who've used microsoft teams, jira, servicenow, salesforce, or basically any insanely popular (in the commercial if not upvote sense) products, it's unclear what is being compared to with these tired claims.

> This is such a weird trope. No, it isn't. Lots of non-trivial OSS desktop applications are clearly made by people with no interest in aligning with expected desktop GUI behavior. From Gimp with dozens of windows to LibreOffice which is slow and has bad font rendering. And those are the 'poster apps' for FOSS desktops, lots of apps are worse.

Gimp may be a bitnof a bad example nowadays? Of course depends on your habits and standards.

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#45

Post by lynndotpy »

tomovo wrote: post #5
another_twist wrote: post #2

Brilliant. Some of the animations that are put as showcases on the Blender site are absolutely phenomenal. This one https://studio.blender.org/projects/spring/ particularly is my all time favorite.

I loved Coffee Run and the BCON24 Identity. Brilliant stuff. When it comes to Blender itself the only regret I have is that they ended support for Intel Macs but I understand it's a burden to support older platforms.

For anyone who happens to have an Intel Mac and is discouraged, Blender 4.5 is the LTS version and is still supported until at least 2027, and Blender is accepting patches that improve support.

https://devtalk.blender.org/t/deprecation-and-removal-of-mac...

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#46

Post by Moomoomoo309 »

bzzzt wrote: post #33
Jedd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but are awful at UX This is such a weird trope. For those of us who've used microsoft teams, jira, servicenow, salesforce, or basically any insanely popular (in the commercial if not upvote sense) products, it's unclear what is being compared to with these tired claims.

> This is such a weird trope. No, it isn't. Lots of non-trivial OSS desktop applications are clearly made by people with no interest in aligning with expected desktop GUI behavior. From Gimp with dozens of windows to LibreOffice which is slow and has bad font rendering. And those are the 'poster apps' for FOSS desktops, lots of apps are worse.

Gimp's single window mode was made the default years ago now, so that's not a great example anymore - there's scientific software that uses that paradigm that might work better, but most of that isn't OSS. Also, Libreoffice being slow and having bad font rendering seems pretty inline with Word nowadays...

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#47

Post by throwa356262 »

Jedd wrote: post #19
crote wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a self-reinforcing loop. Once a FLOSS tool becomes good enough , it'll start to attract professional users, who are willing to invest in it, which makes it even better. And it is quite hard for commercial players to compete with free. But FLOSS software is mainly made by developers. Who like writing new flashy features, but are awful at UX, and making sure all the small kinks are worked out. So most FLOSS softwa…

> but are awful at UX This is such a weird trope. For those of us who've used microsoft teams, jira, servicenow, salesforce, or basically any insanely popular (in the commercial if not upvote sense) products, it's unclear what is being compared to with these tired claims.

Actually, I like Microsoft Teams.

I know this is controversial but I prefer teams to zoom and slack.

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#48

Post by esafak »

crote wrote: post #14
BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #3

I think especially since the UI overhaul in Blender 2.8 the project has been on a steep upwards trajectory. The software was always amazing, especially since it was free and open source, but the new UI and all subsequent improvements really put Blender on the map as a serious tool and not just an alternative for when you don't have money for the big players.

It's a self-reinforcing loop. Once a FLOSS tool becomes good enough , it'll start to attract professional users, who are willing to invest in it, which makes it even better. And it is quite hard for commercial players to compete with free. But FLOSS software is mainly made by developers. Who like writing new flashy features, but are awful at UX, and making sure all the small kinks are worked out. So most FLOSS softwa…

> But FLOSS software is mainly made by developers. Who like writing new flashy features, but are awful at UX, and making sure all the small kinks are worked out.

That is what product managers are for; someone to lead the product's direction, ensure quality control, and to instill taste. That requires being able to say when a feature is poorly implemented or outright bad and unnecessary -- it's not always just kinks. The problem is that this collides with the collaborative ethos of open source software. But when it's not done it's the users who suffer.

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#49

Post by eltondegeneres »

countrymile wrote: post #38
zxcvasd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, what happens is netflix gives blender real cash. and thats the entirety of the translation

It's quite a bit of money, but a lot less than the equivalent Maya licenses. It would be great if more studios did this: $240k "Press release, tech blogpost, dedicated product manager for your area" https://fund.blender.org/corporate-memberships/ Meta are paying $30k per year, which is crazy really, when you think how much Blender has assisted in getting content onto their platform. Nvidia is better at $120k, but aga…

Unless the membership pages is locale-specific, I believe the Patron level fee is actually €240k, not USD.

Re: Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#50

Post by dylan604 »

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #3

I think especially since the UI overhaul in Blender 2.8 the project has been on a steep upwards trajectory. The software was always amazing, especially since it was free and open source, but the new UI and all subsequent improvements really put Blender on the map as a serious tool and not just an alternative for when you don't have money for the big players.

Where are all of the open source UI/UX peeps? Why do they not exist? Why are so many devs accepting of the open source concept and yet apparently no UI types are by comparison? The number of open source UI peeps rounds to zero.

What is it about design/artsy types that makes working on open source anathema where coders will do it just for the lulz?

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