‘People don’t criticize max, or maya, or zbrush, or photoshop or illustrator.’
Well, then you should be new on Blender forum:)))People criticize everything. I myself do on almost every app I use. PS, Max, Blender, Unity, etc.
Also, read Max forums; Max users could be very critical to the development strategy of AD as an example.
Haven’t seen anyone criticize zbrush
but I certainly have seen someone criticize Maya,max and photoshop
Nowadays, with the improvements that Blender got in the last few years and with what is brewing in the pot, I’d say that the remaining big difference are the many powerful plugins that you find for commercial programs and that exist on partially for Blender.
That’s interesting, I have a very different experience so far here in Vancouver. I work as an instructor at a major visual FX and 3d for film and game college, of which graduates have worked and are working on major Hollywood CG work and animation (The Big Studios). And the students and instructors are generally positive about Blender. A couple of students even lament the fact they have to work in Max and Maya for their modeling. Or respond with a “Oh cool, Blender. Always wanted to try that.” This has also been my experience in general whenever I meet and talk shop with people working in the industry. Blender is perhaps still regarded as an underdog, but nowadays seen in quite a positive light.
And there is quite a lot of criticism directed at Photoshop, zBrush, etc. here as well. For example one of the main instructors prefers 3dCoat any day over zBrush which he thinks is inefficient compared (and he is an astoundingly good artist!).
So I would have to disagree with you that Blender is a much criticized tool. Not my experience the last couple of years, quite the opposite.
‘Haven’t seen anyone criticize zbrush’
About its GUI and learning curve?
Most complaints with Blender these days are with the UI/controls. Even if you’re experienced with 3D, Blender takes quite a bit of time to learn. Artists often try Blender, can’t do anything except move the 3d cursor, go “lol, wtf?” and uninstall it. I don’t think most get over that hurdle to determine whether or not Blender has an actual major technical shortcoming compared to what they normally use. Enough seem to stick with it, that Blender seems to grow though.
Freedom main feature.
:yes:
@Alma
oh right
@Her
look at the first few pages of the polycount “blender megathread”
Look at the last paragraph of your reply
Kinda inconsistent
Maybe things have changed since 2009
I mean I thought blender was absolutely horrible in 2012 but now I think it’s the best thing ever
so I see your point
I am a hobbyist who came from many years using Lightwave 3D and like others, stayed away from Blender due to it’s 2.49 incarnation, which I just could NOT get on with.
With these new versions, I have ditched Lightwave upgrades and now operate 99% of the time in Blender, only rarely fire up LW, even then, I usually end up porting the model to Blender to work on.
There are only probably 2 or 3 tools I miss from LW, one of which was a paid addon anyway, otherwise, having spent some time learning some, (pardon the pun), key shortcuts, I find Blender much more intuitive to work in.
It, in my opinion, will never be taken up like the big software, simply because the time and money has already been put in by studios, the talent is there, a lot have their own software bolted onto the core of Maya et al, or in some cases, probably use small amounts of the “native” software.
I do think now though it deserves to build a better reputation as it is shaking off it’s 2.49 “baggage” and though I never thought I’d say this, the UI is nowhere near as bad as it initially appears once you get a few basics under your belt.
The only thing I do is use a different theme, set select to LMB and orbit around selection, after that, it feels much like LW did to me.
I think people are starting to take notice and using it “behind the scenes”, rather in the way LW was used for TV work / previz but rarely for big film shots, I can see Blender occupying a similar slot.
If the import / export facilities are beefed up, that would only improve matters.
Ah we gave you plenty of reasons why people think this.
What should a big studio do with a 3d app that has limited data exchange or in certain high end areas cannot deliver because of lack of tools or plug-ins?
Cycles is cool but lets be honest it is not as performant as commercial render engines.
And in the past Blender’s UI was also a nightmare and still the UI has many problems. For example we only have 20 layers and an outliner that hardly can do anything.
Blender is actually very popular in the 3D print and 3d maker scene.
However even with all the recent developments the problem also remains of good PR. Modo was pretty small and limited and over the years it matured into an accepted application.
I am curious what would happen if for example Blender would cost 500$ if then acceptance rises.
The biggest problem I think besides factual decisions against Blender because it cannot deliver for a certain task is simply that many people make uninformed statements.
I for example teach it in my university instead of Modo because we can do more with it than in Modo. Somebody else might say it is not an industry standard and thus they would rather teach SketchUp.
There are two ways of teaching as well: teach the software only used - or teach technology and process and use what software is available for that.
In my case Blender fits perfectly into our segment as a render and 3d sculpt tool for object design.
I think years ago the vote against Blender made sense - today it is however a pretty good mid range 3d application. It just does not have the PR budget like commercials apps have to advertise that. I think thats now mainly a perception issue that Blender is bad.
If people still say that Blender is a mere toy and not fit for production then they are probably still living in the year 2008 and haven’t bothered to check on Blender’s status since then. Back in 2009 I saw a lot of people sneezing at Blender mainly because it did not have Ngon support which threw off a lot of modelers that were used to having that in their primary 3D software.
Since then Blender modeling has evolved quite nicely and I now find it to be one of the best poly-modeler on the market with only it’s deformer modifiers holding it back from being the best (in my opinion).
My biggest concern with Blender is the lack of decent plugins. The Cookie Market has helped the plugin-quality for Blender skyrocket but there’s still so many (commercial) plugins that I really wish Blender could have. Like FumeFX and truly integrated render engines.
*I don’t wish to get into yet another GPL-debate. I just wish I could fire up Blender and use these awesome plugins natively or at least get decent IO plugins for easy interactivity between Blender and other 3D applications.
Do you think that MSPaint is a good software? Personally I think that it’s missing lots of features but indeed you can put pixels into the screen.
I also criticize everything, especially when I put my dear money in it but I try to do it in a good manner, trying is the keyword here 
being diplomatic is not always easy.
Blender has come a long way and many times I get what I need but Houdini, Maya, Zbrush, 3DCoat, UVLayout and Wings3D is in my toolbox as well but here goes my opinion on what could make Blender better and an equal competitor in the modeling area.
Y - Up = More intuitive, my brain understands that better, personal opinion.
No obscuring lifeboy. I use Enhanced 3D Cursor script but it gets slow after a while so built in native C is preferable.
Node based procedural modeling. I use Houdini for that, but still :) it would make Blender better, just saying, dont hate me for being unrealistic :D
Guide based retopology tools as in Zbrush ZRemesher. Is that awesome or what? Nowadays I dont even have to adjust the topology for smooth deformations other than inside of Zbrush. I prefer using 3Dcoat's voxel modeling for sketching out the model then exporting to Zbrush to generate animateable mesh. I can do it in Blender but it goes a hell of lot faster outside of it.
Preselection highlightning the way Wings3D makes it. It has been a solid tool in my job for 10+ years and nothing is close to it. I bought Nex for Maya back in the days and now it is integrated and that is good and all but Wings3D's preselection is just better.
And yeah a way to “overcome” its deficiency would be to have a real-time bouncing tool (read import/export) between them all. I know, I know it takes a lot of man-hours but still it would make Blender easier to integrate into the pipeline. Imagine “Blend-Send” a open source pipeline file-send tool that takes over where Collada/FBX failed. Oh yeah! 
Hehe Zbrush has gotten its good share of criticism and especially on its UI and early viewport tumbling methods. Look back before version 2.0 and it was only hardcore users that embraced it for what it could do.
First off…
LOL, nooo, this is absolutely not true. People criticize everything, it’s the internet, you post a video with cute puppies on youtube and people will tear you apart.
As for what application is better or lacking is more dependent on user knowledge, needs and taste than anything else. I migrated from 3ds Max abut a year back, and though I was initially completely into migrating to Blender, I ended up in Houdini Indie - it was as unexpected as my last kid… :eek: 
Why Houdini? I just fits my way of thinking, my mindset, the competency of the application was NOT driving my choice at all, the primary drive was taste - not that Blender was bad, I just had more fun in H - though I will admit. had Houdini Indie not existed I would not have migrated seeing the Houdini FX pricing - a major reason for leaving 3ds Max was the pricing, the app, the plugins, endless expenses…(*)
With that being said, I still keep up with Blender development, I have for years and I will for years to come. Same with Natron. Whatever happens I will never put myself into a situation where I can’t work using 100% open source software.
(* Interestingly enough, 2015 also entailed migrating away from After Effects (Red Giant Suite, Element3D, etc.) for Fusion, which also was unexpected - but making me save something like $4,500 in 2015 alone. Perhaps I’ll invest in a Clarisse IFX freelance license for 2016… :yes:)
Hobbyist. When comparing hobby hall user of Blender and another software user who make 3d for living, difference could be huge. Its not necessarily the program but skill that has accumulated over the years because you’re doing it for a living.
Not using commercial/another render engine. Cycles/BI can be ok, but another engine can produce better results a way shortly + much more freely work with postpro (all separated light passes fex.). Many people even do not know that chosen render engine limits his 3dvieport performance (real proxy objects vs all in (as cycles/bi))
I wonder how many people here realize that some of these weaknesses mentioned (such as lack of AOV’s and less than stellar particle functionality) would take the rewriting of entire systems in Blender to resolve. Like these two
Lack of AOV’s - can’t exactly be done until the devs. rip out Blender’s current render pass code (which has some stringent limitations) and replace it with a new system that’s flexible and expandable.
Particles - Also needs to be ripped out and replaced with a modern system (which will probably be node-based), part of the issue is that the hair system is entangled within the code and the messy state means it’s not even easy to fix bugs.
The BF right now only has the resources to have one or two large-scale refactoring/rewriting projects going on at once, so we have to be patient.
3ds max is a scourge upon 3D and must be destroyed. It’s 10 years past its execution date.
Ace, nobody is demanding anything here. It’s just an honest list of the shortcomings in blender. Yeah, it would take a long time to repair some of these issues, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t issues. pretending that everything is fine does exactly nothing to improve blender, acknowledging areas that need work helps to focus the energy in the right direction.
Sure, all of the acknowledgement in the world doesn’t write a single line of code, but having a realistic inventory of user issues is invaluable. otherwise we’ll just get more and more projects that users don’t really care that much about. The new grease pencil tools are nice, but I didn’t see anyone asking for them to fill a hole in their workflow. stereoscopic rendering is nice, but again, not a huge demand in the user base. However, viewport performance improvements are moving forward, object nodes are happening, particle improvements are coming up on the radar.
I guess I’m just curious why you want to shut down discussion of real issues in blender? We all know that it will take time and money to get these features in, but we are being patient. in the meantime, while we patiently wait, can’t we at least discuss what we are waiting for?
Ace that is why I said Maya or Max for sure can do stuff Blender cannot but on the other side does a person need everything or is what Blender offers also not often already sufficient for our needs!
I agree here, I believe the developers already know most of what Blender falls short on (it would be an issue if they don’t). Now the mission is to determine which ones should be the highest priority and how the BF’s development model can be improved to increase resources and increase the number of developers.
Of course that would be priorities after the node-based modifiers and deformers and the viewport overhaul since they are active projects now.
Anyway, if you want my opinion of what Blender needs yet (and I will mainly stick with enhancements and improvements to existing systems, please note that these are probably not all of them and they don’t include the systems being worked on now).