I believe Fweeb is a top moderator around here. So Fweeb, a quick response, I completely agree with you, was responding to the OP’s intention “My career goal is technical art, lighting, shading and VFX (particle system, simulation, etc). I will be seeking an internship with a number of larger studios upon graduation”. Not really looking to start a debate either, happy to leave it at that. And best of luck to the OP Shawn, no matter what (p.s. you are free to private message me if you have any questions that might be off topic here on these forums (although my reply may not be timely, as I post/visit BA.org intermittently throughout the month), best of luck to you good sir).
Very difficult to give a simple answer to this, everyone has a different route/experience as a digital artist.
As far as I can tell, Blender is getting more of a foothold in “the industry” (I tend to work as a one-man-band, so software doesn’t matter too much on our productions), so I wouldn’t say that learning Blender is a waste by a long stretch.
Probably the best advice, make great work. Sounds a bit wishy-washy, but it’s true. You can always lean how to push different buttons with new tools, but at the minute, it’s important for you to learn the principles for what makes something “good”. Software comes and goes. Remember Softimage? Popular in the industry, but Autodesk killed it off with little warning. All of those artists who had invested their time in Softimage no doubt had to invest more time in learning Maya (probably). The main thing here though, the principles between the software are the same, so once these Softimage artists learnt where the buttons were in Maya, they could carry on with not too much pain.
So, long and short of it, in my opinion, learn the principles really well, the core/foundation of the area you want to specialise in. Tools are just tools.
It’s a different world now. Students of old would never have thought they would be able to learn a complex software at home. Courses that you’re only able to learn in the classroom. So people assume that when you say you’re learning Maya, 3dsmax, and all these super expensive 3d packages that you’re able to access them at home, legally or not, and not just in the classroom. This is the standard nowadays and it’s the fastest way to learn a 3d tool.
I spent money on every version of Carrara, Amapi, Hexagon, then Modo just to be able learn them at home. But they’ve become worthless because I didn’t spend enough time with them. Probably because my 3d goal is not that deep. But I’m not spending a single cent, haven’t even upgraded my Modo 401.
This thread has an appropriate title. You can have access to all the super expensive 3d tools in the world and still be worthless if you don’t invest time with them. I would spend the majority of my time with Maya, 3dsmax, etc. which are known to be industry standard, then spend about 30 minutes/day on Blender if I were in your shoes.
Blender is not going to go away. It will always be there for you. It’s free. 
Cancer - your viewpoint is perfectly fine, and completely valid. However, the job market right now is just saturated, period, all around. Even once “high paying entry level jobs”, such as IT, Web and Law are hard to find, and don’t pay nearly as well as they had 20 years ago. I don’t know what’s driving that exactly, but, unfortunately it is true. It’s not 1995, and it certainly isn’t 1965. Getting a high paying career right out of college is hard no matter what you’re studying.
Fortunately, I have enough graphic design experience and all this CGI/Motion Design/VFX added to that will make me more competitive, not less.
Definitely. And I just don’t feel like there is enough time in the world to learn everything I feel like I should at least be familiar with. Maya and Houdini by itself are huge. Throw in PRMan, Maxwell and (even OR) Arnold … arghh.
Though, it’s not only investment in time. I’m currently running a K2000, and if I were to stick with Blender I’d probably invest in a GTX 980ti or Titan X. However, being that Mental Ray, PRMan and Arnold all run on CPU, it doesn’t make much sense to get a big number cruncher card at this point (Octane isn’t on my radar right now).
I think the largest investment in software is time. Second to that, the time you spend on a tool in relation to what it gives you in time savings down the road. Blender modeling tools are a simple example. The time spent learning the Blender way of manipulating the viewport and all of the modeling tools, pays off exponentially in time savings and a much more ergonomic experience down the road especially if you model full time every day. These little things add up. That talk is from experience myself, doing just that.
There is yet another trade off. Time spent in an application you will be doing other things in down the road. If you force yourself to learn modeling in Maya for instance, you will find a good deal of the functionality in Blender and a few extra gems. But most importantly the time you spend doing that teaches you things about using Maya that you can apply in other areas of production. Just like in Blender the manipulation tools cross over to animation. Same in Maya and you will also familiarize yourself with areas of the interface that cross over to other aspects of production.
There are areas of Blender that are not as fully developed as Maya. So, for example time spent learning Maya cloth dynamics for example pays off exponentially in functionality and speed. When you consider how much time you will spend in Blender trying to get it to do things it was not designed well enough to do and in many cases never achieving it resulting in wasted time. In contrast, those production roadblocks are solved in Maya nCloth quite well. Allowing you to do things otherwise not possible.
So there is a very practical aspect to this when considering working in any capacity in the industry.
The tools of choice, you will come to find are chosen for good practical reasons.
And in my opinion for a student looking to get into the business, learning these “industry standard” tools is a wise choice.
So to the original question. “Is Blender worth spending time on?” Well I would not let it get in the way ofmastering
these other tools - at this point.
If you are spread too thin, leave Blender for later.
In that case (and from having read all your mission statements and obvious commitment no matter the cost), I’d invest in a good stills/video camera and focus 90+% of your time doing real-world + digital/VFX composites. By always having to match VFX to the real world, you A. get to have a base to start your work without a blank canvas and B. always have a very clear target as to the final result requirements. You’ll know always, when something doesn’t look 100% because it’s not matching up to reality: reality-which is included by default in all of your projects.
It also compartmentalizes everything nicely for each project moving forward. Either you are adding a CG element to a video scene (a monster, a tank, a prop/set piece, etc.) or you are composting a video element (blue screen actor) into a CG environment.
I guess you could always start with available stock footage (that is what you will do as an employee, you’ll be given the shots/goals) but there is also a lot to be gained by really understanding how to work every setting inside of a professional camera (stills and video) as well as setting up real world shots (lighting, rigs, lens choices, framing, etc.) and that knowledge translates directly to 3D.
If you were to take this approach, and compartmentalize every single one of your 3D projects into many comp layers, you will be able to mix and match various software quite readily, as your primary end result will be a 2D film composite and never a 3D scene. You will never be concerned with a 360 degree view, only the end resulting rendered comp layer(s) that will be torn out of the 3D world and re-purposed in a 2D stack/network.
That said (and best of luck to you again, good man) if I knew better what was coming 12 years ago, the day I graduated with a BFA, I would most definitely have stuck to working on trucks and doing CG/Game modding for fun on the weekends/sleepless nights/long holidays while exploring a different path altogether for paid higher education.
I have a couple of still bodies. I’ve flirted with the idea of getting a Black Magic Pocket Cinema for some time.
my answer - focus maya, since you mentioned studios.
no retrain is one bonus thing. but you must also - to a certain extent - uses the popular plug-ins that most studio uses, like texture generator / painter. you can also study renderer such as renderman without exporter issues (because currently the one for blender is still being worked on / developed).
so on and so forth. it seems that maya is the popular ‘glue’ that stick stuff together (renderer, texture tool, etc).
people love to say that skills can be transferred over (as in learn blender, retrain in other software if needed). well, guess what, the reverse is true too. you can study maya, focus on being a professional. if that didn’t work out and you move into other profession, you can transfer the skill to blender if you plan to keep it as a hobby.
i’m a DBA now and i use blender as hobby. but i also own modo 401 and modo 801 indie (subscription - summer sale).
back then (1999 - 2001) the college i learn from uses max.
–edit–
i know i have mentioned about getting modo 901. but if one knows what is happening to MYR currency right now, I have decided to wait till thing improves. besides, the indie subs give access to 901 anyway (albeit indie version).
and i think i want to spend that money on Cintiq 13 HD :evilgrin: