If Blender Is Free Why Studios Don't Use it

Blender has always been considered Generalist software - the Swiss army knife of 3D. And it can do just about everything so well. But big studios can afford the best and that means the very best specialist software & the best 3D artists & technicians. Blender is already the most popular choice in indie studios

We at our VFX studio started using Blender quite a lot. It is our main 3D software now besides Houdini for simulations

Another issue is that Blender is in contestant change and development. Thus the reason Blender had to make a Long Term Support version. (LTS). I've worked in studios were the main 3d software was 5 years out of date.The reason was they built thier pipeline and tools for that 5 year old program. They cannot afford to update the software and suddenly have everything stop working,

The biggest problem I see why many of the newer independent creators don’t use Blender is that there has always been a stigma with new artists against any software that is not considered “industry standard” even if that software is better than what the industry may be using. This is especially the case for those that have Hollywood aspirations. They only adopt new software after some big name uses it. What most new artists fail to realize is that real professionals use whatever works and gets the job done.

Because software licensing cost is irrelevant in large studios.

The main problem with Blender is that it is a multi-tool. Yes, you can sculpt in it, but Zbrush makes it more convenient. Yes, you can create PBR materials in it, but Substance Painter/Designer is better. Yes, it has geometry nodes, but Houdini has better ones. Yes, you can do animation in it, but Maya is better for that. To draw an analogy, it’s like offering an experienced carpenter a swiss army knife instead of his toolbox, saying “with this thing, you can still do everything you do now.” Yes, I probably can, but I prefer separate tools for separate tasks.

Blender has an important role as a free option for smaller studios and hobbyists. A free option that performs well enough to get smaller jobs done and could theoretically by used by a studio creates competition for the big names and options for people with more limited income. If blender became a big, expensive industry standard it would hurt hobbyists like me. People who work in an unrelated industry but still want to be able to do the things blender can do on occassion.

it seems that people really underestimate the importance of "official support", besides the tradition aspect that is keeping studios hooked to their old pipelines, it feels really hard to invest millions in a project, and have one of your core software lacking official support.

I am a Maya user and I am alll for Blender doing well. I can see the jump in progress and super rad addons popping. I do wish that kind of dedication appeared in Maya, Max etc.

As a cinema 4d user , I find the development of Blender to be so exciting . So many amazing features . I wish i had started to learn blender first .. Now after years of tinkering around in the software , you sort of get tired of learning something new . But amazing work guys .. I will eventually start learning it .. that is sure

I'm working with Blender because I started on it and I'm too old and too busy to switch. It's ok for people I work with, all they want is the final images they paid for. I got to meet several people in different studios and they're two reasons why they don't use it. The first is obviously that in a professional context, most of the guys studied 3d and they were trained on other softwares. You can't ask a 40 or 45 years old artist who's an expert at 3DS Max + Vray to switch to Blender. It makes no sense. And the second reason is why they don't switch to Blender. And that's simple. Blender is an awesome free tool but it can't compete with the paid ones. The combo "experienced professional" + "industry standard softwares" can't be beaten by a hobbyist using Blender. I often oppose pros vs hobbyists which sounds irritating for a lot of people but that's the whole point. Blender has a community with a majority of passionate hobbyists who don't really want to face the reality of a high standard professional context. Many topics on Blender groups are "how can I earn money with Blender", "I made a donut", "look this procedural texture it's amazing". A hobbyist is more likely to accept things from the moment it's better than what he can achieve. As pros we're seeking for the best of the best image quality which Blender can't offer. As usual, I want to point that they're tons of incredible Blender artists. The point is not to talk about their skills but their tools. They're convinced, most of the time that Blender can do everything and only skills matter. But that's a hobbyist point of view... Blender is the best free software we've ever seen, its possibilities are just out of this world for the price tag but Cycles is way too limited. CAD tools are barely non existent, color management is not really accurate, lighting is fairly wrong and so on. "Ok Blender is amazing and it's free, can't studios accept some limitations to save money?" Sure, it works for small studios and Blender is nothing but a blessing for them. But big studios or big agencies don't care about the price tag. I'm talking for agencies I work with in France, softwares are just professional tools that are included in a budget and you can decrease taxes using them. Plus, "big agencies" mean "big clients" and "big money". Again these are two different universes. I can easily charge those companies for several thousands for a couple images (then I have taxes and so on), same goes with other artists, so paying for ten or twenty license is nothing for them. Final point, it may change in the future if the Blender Org concentrates on real features. Updates after updates they add funny things that we grow a custom to (like geo nodes) but nothing is game changing. Image quality is still the same, everything is based on making modeling easier. Which is great for the work flow, but I personaly don't need all those things, I can model hair, complexe meshes, I got my own library, I know how to optimize my scenes because that's my job. But I can't change the way illumination, colors, exposure or other stuffs are calculated. At one point you're limited and that's not about skills or understanding.

35 years in the industry, and my 4 latest productions here in France, all Blender! And all of those productions without an animation library, and with tons of add-ons; easy constraint, animation layers, a picker, a toggle soundtrack, frame f-curve, bone layers, wiggles etc... . And the same goes for the riggers and skinners; add-ons, add-ons for missing tools that should be standard. (not even the fancy ones-addons) It's just ooo soooo hard to get a character with a t-shirt and his backpack correctly skinned, together with the correct animation controllers. But I do like Blender, I do get things done but way not as easy and cheap as people might think.

It is pretty simple really; the reason why big studios use Maya is that it is far easier to write tools for it than other packages. If you open Maya in any major VFX house you will find many tools that have been written in-house for that studio's needs, often on a show-by-show basis. It is also true that Maya is so embedded into the Pipelines of these studios that changing their pipeline to accommodate other software is simply not cost-effective. Smaller houses are more agile and are more likely to have Generalists working for them, so Blender does have a place (and it is great, don't get me wrong), but in the bigger studio, it is only ever going to be used if there is no other solution to a particular issue.

I'm fairly involved with the process of platform choice decisions at various studios, and its very simple. Artists mostly get to decide what packages they want to use, The amount of highly capable artists that use packages like Maya vastly out number capable Blender users. This is the nr.1 reason, nr.2 is pipeline compatibility, support is rarely used, and the price is barely even discussed.

I love how blender is so good at many different aspects and I do use it for certain tasks. Basically an all in one package. As a professional animator in the in the VFX industry I would never switch to it for animation however. Maya has such a strong foundation and you can basically solve any problem in lots and lots of different ways. I often hear people complain about how Maya is too technical and too much going on behind the scenes which blender has smoothed out and made less complicated. Yes! It is exactly what makes Maya so strong. It's got all the technical grit and dirt under the hood that if you master it -you use to your advantage and enables you to work in multiple workflows and adapt to the situation. That's what I find lacking in blender. Also the graph editor in blender isn't as versitile as Maya. I always recommend younger artists to use blender however if they aren't sure what aspect of the industry they want to focus on. Blender lets them try everything.

Support is such a big thing. Lots of smaller artists who didn't have to deal with some pretty hefty NDAs don't know how difficult help can be when you aren't allowed to ask anything online or even worse, when your machine isn't hooked on internet at all. You NEED that on site support for the bigger projects.

I've been working in Computer Graphics and Animation for over 30 years. I've worked in AAA games, Product Visualisation and Motion Graphics. I've used pretty much every 3D package of the last 30 years..Max, Softimage, Cinema 4D, Maya, SketchUp, Houdini, Alias, NinGen, GameGen etc etc. I now teach on one of the leading Games Degree courses in the World. I discovered Blender about 4 years ago...its without the doubt the best modelling and look development tool I've ever worked with. Hugely scalable, very solid, and immensely powerful. I predict Blender will dominate most studios within the next 4 or 5 years, especially given many schools like our own are feeding kick ass Blender artists onto the job market. I absolutley love the tool...its nothing short of a work of genius in its design, functionality and application.

As a small indie studio, I sometimes use blender but also mainly use Houdini Indie and 3DS Max Indie which is cheaper and no different to full versions (mainy because of our legacy files and I like to have options).

As a Senior 3D Artist for 8 years, a simple explanation and my opinion is, Blender is good for startups. And other "old and been in the industry" applications are for those huge studios that has been around for a while now. Other big studios are starting to adapt Blender too. But right now, it's really in its early stages. I myself believe that Blender has huge potential and will 100% be used mostly in the future. I'm also using it for quite a while now, transferring back and fourth from Maya, Max, and Blender. Really, there are just some things that Blender is not capable as of this moment, but for sure, give it 3-5 years and it will be an insane software to use. Especially for studios, which in the first place wants to make money, and Blender is free. Others should understand this, especially those Blender stans. There's always a "but" on their main reason: "Blender is free"---"BUT". Because if you say Maya/Max is expensive BUT---we currently get everything that we need so it's worth it. Again, Blender is awesome. Can't wait to make it my 3D application in the VERY VERY near future.

Thanks for your thoughts about this. I think you have made some strong points. Support and perception of using the best-in-class tools all play a part in the larger enterprise's business, marketing, and technical strategies. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Blender Artist and Dev community are affecting major change regarding the perception of what tools are best in-class issue. 👍👍