Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Counter-point: Stop subsidizing AI companies by giving them free training data.
Counter-counter-point: I like running free models on my computer that were trained on freely accessible data.
Blender 4.5 LTS
51–60 of 105 posts
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#52It does feel like Blender is eating the world of 3D content creation.* I know the industry standard of animation is still Maya, and geometry node isn't as powerful as Houdini, but Blender has made such great progress so far... I wonder if there any hobbyist/student who learns 3Dsmax or 3DCoat as their first DCC anymore? *: Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc.
Maya hasn't changed much in a decade, and that is a wise choice for training/documentation. They focused on the content part which is its value proposition. Blender has always had the perpetual Beta problem, as many boring core design issues were never really given priority. Fine for developers, but a liability in commercial settings. Houdini is interesting, but with Blender Geometry-nodes now working it is unclear h…
I've only dabbled with Blender but from what I saw of geometry nodes it's quite a long way away from competing in the same space as Houdini. Houdini's biggest single feature and the thing that allows film studios to use it at complexity and scale is the HDA system and there's no real competition for that.
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#53I don't know if it supports HDR on MacOS but, AFAIK, it doesn't on windows and in Linux it is only supported with Wayland. Though I don't like the Wayland x X11 flamewar, I'm happy to see some modern features are only supported on Wayland. That may please the crowd that will be able to say "sorry, I can't use x11 because it doesn't support a feature I need" bringing some symmetry to the discussion. Edit: correction:…
The reality is most commercial software and users are on Windows machines. It is fundamentally a Blender interoperability, and 3rd party platform license compatibility issue. We all wish it wasn't so, as many artists find the Windows file systems and color-calibration concepts bewildering. Making a feature platform specific to a negligible fraction of the users is inefficient, as many applications will never be porte…
The significant majority of the film and animation industry uses Linux.
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#54[dead]
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#55A wonderful app that, I find, benefits from LLMs to help you figure out how to use it. That or you more or less have to dive in for months and months. The people on YouTube that make Blender look so easy … Blender is really all they do. ;-) At some point I see an LLM more or less integrated into the UI. At some point I see whole apps written so complexly that an LLM is the required interface.
Huh, TIL https://github.com/ahujasid/blender-mcp - do you use this?
I tried it and it's really not very good. It "works" but models can't seem to do anything complicated. Claude 4 Opus btw
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#56It does feel like Blender is eating the world of 3D content creation.* I know the industry standard of animation is still Maya, and geometry node isn't as powerful as Houdini, but Blender has made such great progress so far... I wonder if there any hobbyist/student who learns 3Dsmax or 3DCoat as their first DCC anymore? *: Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc.
> Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. I get the concern and the reasoning behind it but having spent most my adult life and career in digital content creative tooling (2D, 3D and video), I believe AI will be short-term disruptive but also a long-term net positive. It should make skilled pros faster and more productive while helping non-pros achieve more of their creative vision o…
> It should make skilled pros faster and more productive while helping non-pros achieve more of their creative vision on their own.
The problem is, AI is good enough to replace juniors. That means companies are already cutting positions at that level and some are just itching to ditch intermediates as well once quality improves.
But when juniors and intermediates are all gone... how are the beancounters expecting to get new seniors when the old ones go to retirement or hand in their 2 week notice because they are fed up cleaning up after crap AI?
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#57If you get value out of Blender they could use your support: https://fund.blender.org/ Even just a coffee a month will help immensely. Please consider supporting :)
You can also/alternatively subscribe to Blender Studio:
You get access to training, assets, source and production logs like the recent Dog Walk update while also supporting Blender:
https://studio.blender.org/projects/dogwalk/production-logs/
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maya hasn't changed much in a decade, and that is a wise choice for training/documentation. They focused on the content part which is its value proposition. Blender has always had the perpetual Beta problem, as many boring core design issues were never really given priority. Fine for developers, but a liability in commercial settings. Houdini is interesting, but with Blender Geometry-nodes now working it is unclear h…
I've only dabbled with Blender but from what I saw of geometry nodes it's quite a long way away from competing in the same space as Houdini. Houdini's biggest single feature and the thing that allows film studios to use it at complexity and scale is the HDA system and there's no real competition for that.
Blender has solved several key challenges, but the learning curve is steep given many tutorials are version specific.
I usually recommend these courses to users when the under $20 sale is active.
They cover a lot of Blenders non-intuitive workflows :3
"Complete Blender Creator: Learn 3D Modelling for Beginners"
https://www.udemy.com/course/blendertutorial/
* Basics of low-poly design in blender
"Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life"
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-animation-rigging/
* Some more practice rigging
"The Ultimate Blender 3D Sculpting Course"
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-3d-sculpting-course/
* Sculpting, Retopology, and VDM brushes
* basic anatomy
"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
* Instructions on how to export your assets to Unity 3D and Unreal game engines
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. I get the concern and the reasoning behind it but having spent most my adult life and career in digital content creative tooling (2D, 3D and video), I believe AI will be short-term disruptive but also a long-term net positive. It should make skilled pros faster and more productive while helping non-pros achieve more of their creative vision o…
I don’t see much risk to creatives and workers (hold the number of workers constant and have them all get more productive, and the world is a better place). But, I do wonder about smaller teams accomplishing more, which the unit of work-doing-people can be much smaller. The org tree can shrink, probably knock out some levels. Maybe a team of 4 that does the work previously done by 10 finds it easier to just have some…
> Maybe a team of 4 that does the work previously done by 10
Interestingly, I heard similar ratios were being discussed (or feared/lamented) in the mid-90s as computer-based non-linear video editing swept the post-production industry and in live TV production as computer-based all-in-one production switcher, effects, titler systems like the Amiga-based Video Toaster disrupted everything. I still remember hearing about how the Toaster was giving unionized TV stations problems because union rules said the switcher guy wasn't allowed to touch the graphics/titling system or the editing system. So three guys would be standing around one chair depending which tab was up on the Video Toaster screen :-).
Having been around the content creation tooling business for so long has given me perspective. Since at least the late 80s it's been one never-ending disruption. And, despite the constant predictions of jobs lost, today there are far more jobs in content creation than there were then. Of course, the job descriptions, types, skills required, divisions of labor and which roles were more or less valuable have never stopped changing and probably won't. Yes, this ends up displacing some people in some roles. Back in the 90s highly-paid senior video engineers with deep expertise in how to wire up and synchronize analog video systems initially laughed at us "young kids" with our "toy" digital video systems. Then they resented needing to call us in to get computer-based gear installed, interfaced and working. Then they resented that us "new kids" were paid less due to being less senior but becoming increasingly essential. Some of them learned the 'newfangled' digital systems while others didn't and opted to retire or do something else.
Over thirty years later, I'm now the highly-compensated "old guy" with once-invaluable expertise that's depreciating by the minute and proven skills at doing increasingly irrelevant things. The particulars change but the theme remains the same, which is why I don't think the shift to integrating AI in content creation will be significantly different. There will be skills that become less valuable and job types that go away and entire industry sectors which get disintermediated but at the same time new kinds of work, industry sectors and business opportunities will emerge in different places and ways. As always, the new job types won't be 1:1 replacements for the old, and this will cause as much angst as it always has. They'll not only look different and have different kinds of trade-offs, they may even have different business and compensation models.
It's Schumpeter's process of "Creative Destruction" and renewal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction). The destruction part is fast, loud and shocking as what exists today combusts in flame. The creative renewal part tends to be more gradual, unfamiliar and at first may not even seem related. From time to time, even the definition of "the industry" ends up changing along with the jobs and roles. I'm pretty sure the old-school TV station engineers I learned from wouldn't consider a digital nomad working full-time editing 30 second clips on a mobile device for YouTube, Instagram and TikTok influencers as even being "in the TV business."
Re: Blender 4.5 LTS
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. I get the concern and the reasoning behind it but having spent most my adult life and career in digital content creative tooling (2D, 3D and video), I believe AI will be short-term disruptive but also a long-term net positive. It should make skilled pros faster and more productive while helping non-pros achieve more of their creative vision o…
> It should make skilled pros faster and more productive while helping non-pros achieve more of their creative vision on their own. The problem is, AI is good enough to replace juniors. That means companies are already cutting positions at that level and some are just itching to ditch intermediates as well once quality improves. But when juniors and intermediates are all gone... how are the beancounters expecting to…
Disruption is disruptive and can suck. But it's also not new. Some companies and people will do short-sighted things in response and pay the price. Other job types and roles will simply be disintermediated and those individuals will need to learn new skills and find different kinds of jobs in the evolving landscape - same as always.
I just wrote a longer reply to a sibling comment addressing exactly this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44574895.