If all that is true, then it must also be true that Blender will get better if we instead concentrate on making it less popular by making it more un-sexy and even less appealing to the masses. But that is not the case because your logic is faulty…
I never said stop moving forward, as you can see the slow and steady approach is already panning out. Ton was at the table with some pretty heavy industry types at Siggraph talking Open Source. Looks like things are working out well to me… not sure what you’d call it? The industry knows it’s the future not sure why everyone is stuck with a dying model.
I’m only trying to say that Blender doesn’t need to become a download in the apps store to be great software. In my experience the more time people spend convincing others how awesome they are usually means they’re full of it, talk is cheap. No false logic. If Blender continues to become more and more powerful, which of course it will, it will gain more and more attention. The growth will be manageable,and more importantly it will get the right kind of attention.
I guess you just confused me using Krita and Canonical as examples for your point. Canonical just had that Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding thing that failed. Krita is literally working with Professional VFX studios and artists. Mad Crew, Double Negative, in addition to David Revoy and others. They also offer commercial support. They just seem really unsual examples to use if your argument is to continue to essentially ignore large portions of artists. They’d both love to open the floodgates.
Perhaps to simplify discussion I’ll use my own work as an example: I posted in the Low-Poly forum at Polycount. The entire character 100% was done using Blender (even textured). Blender seems capable of handing that work. So here is the question:
- Why are most of the other artists in that thread not using Blender; not even for utility roles?
it doesn’t matter that much a bunch of outsiders are so keen on promoting Blender, Blender will still be Blender as it is now, the key is to get real professionals who work in the industry to work with Blender and see what the output is like from there, otherwise it will look like cheap branding; better doc is always welcome though.
I assume the reason is that when you use a program for years, free, open source or commercial, having learned and mastered its toolsets and interface so you can do everything you need with such program, there’s no reason at all for you to move to another one for doing the same exact things you were doing previously in your mastered program, unless of course it has some unique toolsets not found in your previous program that will make your work even faster and easier.
A couple of thoughts from a < 1 yr Blender user:
- Surely, Blender is the no-cost (lo-cost, if you include your personal time investment) option if you don’t have the $3,500 for Maya or Cinema 4D (which is better spent on some hardware). That will always be your selling point. Want to get into 3D modeling/animation? Well, try this…
- The best advertisement is good work. If we collectively produce good work, some will be interested in how it was done, and there’s your next set of users. I severely doubt anyone bases a tool choice on the slickness of the website.
- Whenever you’re rebranding, you need to pay close attention who you’re marketing to and to whom your rebrand is directed. Focus on one, and you may lose elsewhere. That is, focus on getting into pro shops will lead you in a particular direction, and even if you have success, you may alienate exactly that new group of artists looking for a tool they can afford and get started with
- Blender first steps are hella hard. Man, I think I spent the first two hours in Blender just to get the default cube to move, rotate, etc.! So, there is plenty of need for documentation (I can often read a documentation paragraph 10 times and still don’t know what it means) and tutorials - and guess what, there’s a MASSIVE tutorial ecosystem out there (of which Andrew Price is just one). If anyone could use a rebranding, it is those, by instead of saying “learn Blender!” they could rebrand as “learn 3d modeling/animation!” and by the way, the tool we use is Open Source and won’t cost you anything. They shouldn’t need Blender Foundation to make their market for them: make your own, and as a result drive more users to Blender! (i.e. don’t ask what BF can do for you, but what you can do for BF)
I love Blender because it allows me a tool towards creativity and telling a story that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Yes, it is free, but the investment in terms of time is enormous in its own right. We can’t expect every new user to go through that, and there will be natural attrition when they realize it is not quite point and click. But you won’t play the guitar like Jimi Hendrix after just a few months of practice. I don’t think any marketing from the developers/BF is really going to change that. Artists are driven by the stories they want to tell, and the tools are secondary to that. It seems to me exactly the tutorial ecosystem (CGCookie, BlenderGuru and others) that would be the appropriate ones to drive further adoption by making their tutorial sites compelling and rich (as the first two are).
Let the developers and BF please focus on features and bug fixes.
They add new tools to their toolchain all the time though. 
Modellers? Not so much. Technical directors and the like - hell yes they do! There is a reason big studios pay so much money for support, and it’s not because they lack staff who know how to install the software 
Two things to note about this (good) post.
First up, it’s a very good question. I don’t know how many BA regulars are also Polycount regulars, but there is a large number of young, eager, and willing to learn new artists logging onto Polycount everyday. There are a lot experienced artists there too who frequently show off their experiments in different techniques & software. If Blender is not (or cannot) attract these people to the application - we need to ask ourselves why that is?
The second point about this I want to make is a partial answer. Just because something is “possible” does not make it easier, faster, or better than other methods. Hell, just because it is possible doesn’t make it even as good as other methods. It’s “possible” to model objects using just a text editor ( i.e. write out the OBJ file manually ), but there are many faster & easier methods of doing so. It is possible to do a great many things with Blender, but there are faster and easier methods and in an industry where asset creation time is critical - this is far more important than cost.
Have a larger response planned on the podcast that triggered this off, but have to grab some lunch while I can get away from the desk!
Ok, listened to the podcast, and while I definitely don’t share his affinity for marketing and stand by my previous comments, there is truth to the psychology bit. What irks me is his examples: Mozilla, Google, Canonical, Adobe and Apple. Nevermind how resourceful these companies are, all these products are targeting the general public. Compared to how you would convince a consumer to change their browser or phone, or even how to photoshop family pictures, 3D is as niche as it gets and orders of magnitude more advanced.
Sure, the fundamental psychology is always at work, and Blender has a major disadvantage here as it can’t show off a flashy Hollywood blockbuster showreel, or have testimonials from AAA game studios. If these things are important to you, why are you here? What Blender can show, is that it is a viable alternative for small productions, commercials, visualizations, research and art, that is freely available (time/money investment is up to the individual). If that is not sexy enough for you, again why are you here?
Of course new users interested in this field will look up to industry professionals, who use de facto standard packages, and likely think it’s the tools that makes the difference instead of hard work and talent. I’m not disregarding the efficiency of tools like Maya and Nuke (+ plugins), but I’ve seen and been in productions where these tools were overkill (outside of production who haven’t been asked by a friend or family for a cracked copy of Photoshop for some stupid simple thing?). The relationship between industry and education is also very hard to break, cementing the Autodesk authority even more. And yes, Blender can’t compete with every DCC app today. As a Nuke user, my productivity would grind to a halt if I had to use the Blender compositor. Expecting that to change soon, especially with marketing campaigns, is stupid.
I understand Ton when he says he doesn’t care how much Blender is used today, that he just want to focus on making the best tool it can be. People need to start thinking critically if/how Blender can work for their individual use cases, and not just follow the mainstream perception. I can’t use Blender for compositing shots, but for the 3D I’m doing it’s great, so I wouldn’t even consider investing in Maya/Max/Modo. For some it’s sculpting for others it’s Cycles. Who knows, one day it might make sense for me to comp in Blender. If you already know you want to work with Maya because it’s de facto, or are heavily invested in a commercial pipeline, what does it matter to you if Blender is rebranded or not?
In my mind, having an informative website, and accessible software really doesn’t have anything to do with Autodesk - I don’t think anyone on this side of the fence has even mentioned them. The desire is to repair shortcomings in Blender, and make it the best it can be for the largest group of artists. As I linked to in my example above, there are a lot of CG Artists, our target market, currently not using Blender. It isn’t a desire to appeal to people like my dad or whatever, but to actual CG Artists, that for whatever reason are currently not using Blender.
If you guys disagree and think appealing to those artists is a superficial waste of time, that is totally fine. However, don’t twist our side of the argument into bullshit we don’t even remotely imply. We just simply would like to get those artists on board in order to grow Blender’s Community. What a crime.
Did you listen to the podcast? Autodesk is referred to as “the authority” when it comes to 3D tools. It is the de facto standard. But I agree, Blender doesn’t have anything to do with Autodesk.
Repairing shortcomings of Blender and rebranding it are two different things. This topic is about the latter. I don’t believe using tactics Andrew Price describes are going to work on our demographic, what matters are results. There are many reasons why CG artists aren’t using Blender, none of which have to do with its image/branding:
- wanting to learn the tools used by the industry
- education teaching the tools used by the industry
- industry veterans not seeing the benefit of relearning what they already master
- Blender not supporting proprietary formats and pipelines 100%
- that 1 thing it’s missing making the rest unusable (highly subjective)
People are already aware of Blender, and the community is growing. Sure it would be nice if the pre- and misconceptions were cleared up, but wrapping pretty gift paper around it and “selling” it as something it’s not (yet) could do more damage than good, IMO (the “fanboy” labeling issue). If artists decides against learning/using Blender it is their choice, maybe someday they’ll join the community, maybe not. It doesn’t stop Blender development. No twisting of arguments, just reality.
I’m the one who linked the podcast on the first page; of course I listened to it. In the same post I even mentioned that I don’t agree with all of Andrew’s assertions. However, I feel the only risk we would run by attempting to make Blender more appealing to those CG Artists is that it doesn’t work. That leaves us exactly where we already are.
Ugh. I keep telling myself to not bother getting into these discussions, and yet I always wind up in em. :mad:
@xrg
Please don’t take it personally, it’s just a matter of opinion. The way I see it Blender will eventually reach a point where many artists find it useful for what they need, it just takes time more than marketing. For some they will never use Blender for whatever reason, I don’t see that as a loss.
The ONLY way we’ll appeal to great artists, is not by making a cool website or by engaging companies, if by MAKING WORK THAT LOOKS GOOD, at the level that maya, zbrush, modo, etc etc, high level artists have been doing for a while…
I believe this has started already, from the introduction of cycles where you don’t need to be an expert on blender to make renders look half decent, in fact, the ease of use that cycles has is super appealing and it’s one of the reasons we are using it more and more, if we only had a shadows/reflection only material it would be perfect (but that’s an other subject).
I think it’s been slow and steady, much slower than i’d like but still it’s getting there, each one of us has to do great work, and with that we’ll appeal other great artists (or maybe we become one ourselfs)…
I think you are right but you are also wrong. I think that it’s correct that better art coming from the blender community and more commercial studios using Blender, will make the most difference. But I also don’t think that it’s fair to say that having a better web site will have NO effect on Blender.
Also, I really don’t think it’s fair ro focus so much attention on the website aspect of Andrew’s comments. if you listen to the pod cast, he covers a lot of different aspects of marketing. It actually includes creating brand authority and trust. Both things that are directly the result of the quality of the output of a product.
Written my longer post three times now… and there is no way to express my opinion here without attracting Hiroshima levels of flameage. So I’ll leave it at the (much) shorter note - I agree with Andrew to an extent (marketing is not evil, we should take advantage of it), I think (contrary to Ton’s opinion) we should be trying to attract more users as the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks, and that the key to that is fixing the shortcomings of Blender that have persisted due to <flame-bait censored>.
Andrew’s ideas for improving the website are good, the opinion that Blender should remain at it’s small user-base are detrimental to it’s longevity/improvement, and that the way to move forward is to answer questions like those asked by xrg objectively and without referring (even obliquely) to software snobbery on either side.
I think it takes both really. Marketing is a good way to change bad impressions (blender has a bit of that) from its past, and its helps get the word out. People and studios will give Blender a longer look if theres enough buzz surrounding it.
Also I disagree when you say some people will never end up using it no matter what. Rather its a given that it wont reach every single person, but more importantly…Blender is free and you can bet that even established users of other software will give it a shot because it cost them nothing other than a little bit of their time. If the impression they are left with is good, if they see far more value in it, then they will make that switch. The only way they will start doing that in earnest is if its being presented in a new and better light. These are also the people that will contribute heavily to the production of such software.
In short, every user…established professional or newbie that downloads and trys Blender (because it cost them nothing to do so) is a potential long term user. To get them to that point requires a good image and some marketing (one way or another), getting them to stick around and stay requires good software. They go hand in hand. More donations and development revenue can only lead to more development as a whole.
Yes it takes both, but it will take a while is what I mean. The buzz is relatively high already, compared to a few years ago, but I think it will take a couple or more Siggraphs until the buzz is high enough to push Blender over the hump. Great if it happens sooner, just trying to be realistic.
Also I disagree when you say some people will never end up using it no matter what.
Actually we say the same thing. It can go both ways.
These are also the people that will contribute heavily to the production of such software.
That is yet to be determined. We could also end up with a lot of entitled users who don’t understand the development process.
Building brand trust and authority takes time, money and effort as well, and can really only come from the BF. I think Ton is already doing this, but to expect it on the scale of Mozilla or Google is unrealistic, hence my reaction to Andrews podcast.
OK, this is where is have to ask the obvious… “So what?”
If you think Blender doesn’t already have entitled users that don’t understand the development process, you’ve been living under a rock. EVERY open-source project has those users that think they’re entitled to something more than they’ve got. We’ve had them in the past, we have them now, and we’ll have them in the future. It’s not unique to OSS either, it’s intrinsic to having people that use software - us developers of commercial apps get them too.
Unlike those “entitled users” of commercial software, it’s not like these hypothetical new ones are going to be able to do anything about their sense of entitlement that isn’t already endemic in the community. Whether they want to change it, keep it the same, take it in a new direction, change the funding models, think they should have more say in the Blender Foundation efforts, think others have too much say in the BF efforts, etc - that’s already going on. What else can they do? Stop using Blender? Demand a refund?
Want to know the difference between a large community with these folks in it and a small one with these folks in it? In a large community, the social pressure against these folks tends to keep their outbursts minimal and out of every other thread. What I think some people fear is actually that they’ll be the ones who have their influence diminished by a larger, more active user-base… which is, in itself, an indication of entitlement as things rest right now
I get Andrew’s point, it’s not exactly that Blender needs rebranding but it’s the Blender Institute.
For an investor or a venture capitalist the two fold factor software/artist is not enough. These persons they are key factor to let Blender go BIG. Services include:
- 24/7 FIFO bug fixing
- Onsite tech support
e.t.c.
All of this magic does not come for free right? Eventually is a clear room for BI getting into business which in the long run will benefit the organization and will allow Blender to gain momentum in the market.
This is business model is not something new, take for example Ubuntu which offers products and services (servers and mobile computing). But the real deal is if Blender Institute needs a structural reorganization to get more commercialized so it can be more respected.
It’s up to the founders to decide this.