I forced myself to learn Blender but I just couldn’t stand the UI. I was like “Why is this st here?! Why is this st over there?!” Plus Maya to UE4 workflow is much smoother.
The standard feature set of Blender is only half its power. Blender comes with a collection of addons that extend its features and make many repetitive tasks ease and fast and implement completely new features.
The vast majority of those addons are disabled by default in order not to confuse begineers and people new to blender. You will have to enable them by yourself in user settings -> addons, to use them. Some of those addons are the following
- 3D Navigation tool -> add navigation options for blender
- Dynamic context menu -> put to spacebar several blender actions
- Layer management -> improves layer management for blender
- Extra objects -> adds torus and spiral as 3d meshes and many curve shapes that can be converted to 3d objects
- Ivy gen -> Easy generation of ivies
- Sapling Gen -> Very powerful tree generator
- Ant landscape -> simple landscape generator
- Bolt Factory -> as the name implies it generates a large variate of bolts
- Extra objects -> more extra 3d objects/primitives
- API navigator -> easy navigation of API for understanding how to crate Blender python addons
- 3d-Coat applinc -> connect with 3d coat directly and transfer data easily
- importers -> import functionality for 24 diffirent formats
- Import Images as Planes -> easy way to import images and uses them as texture on a plane
- 3d print toolbox -> a large array of tool focusing on 3d printing
- F2 -> easy creation of faces with less clicks
- Node Wrangler -> various tools to enhance interaction with nodes
- Cell fracture -> fracture mesh in shapes of cells
- Cloud generator -> what the name says
- Bsurfaces -> generate meshes with quick drawing of curves
- Rigify -> automatically rig your character
- Pie menus -> should be familiar to Maya users
and many more addons that will take me too long to mention
But the story does not stop here, if you want even more power there are far many more addons externally that you will have to download and install yourselves those include
- Sverchock -> procedural generation of meshes using nodes
- Sensei format -> a huge array of tools to speed up workflow in too many ways to mention here
- Material Library
- Asset Managment
- Animation nodes -> yeap you can use nodes even to create procedural animation
- Pie menu editor -> if you want to create your own pie menus
- Boolean sculpt -> Using booleans while sculpting , like adding clay parts to our sculpture
- Scene city -> Quick and powerful generation of entire cities
- MeasureIt -> more tools to measure
- Space ship generator -> great for quick generation of space ships
- Particle fluid simulator -> Generation of mesh using particles it also takes advantage of meta balls
- Magic UV -> adds several new feature for UV editing
- Rock generator -> you want rocks ? we have rocks for you
and the list goes on and one, CAD tools, quick generation of Windows, Houses, other importers , enhancements to the game engine etc
you can find most of them in this forum and of course new ones are added almost every day –> https://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?48-Released-Scripts-and-Themes/page46
The vast majority of them are free, but there are several commercials that usually are at a very low price
you can find commercial addons here
True blender has a lot of add ons what makes their functionality increases greatly, I used Mayan and max for 2 years, MODO for 1 year and can say that Maya is the modeler worse, the only strength of maya is the rigging and animation, and between max, MODO and blender, blender is equally powerful to model that max and MODO and is completely free, because spend my money on max and MODO when I have the same power modeling in Blender, and with respect to the Uvs, blender is one of the best. if we talk about rendering because paying for arnold while I have at my disposal Cycles engine render powerful… concepts of 3D modeling are easily transferable from one software to another, I am too lazy to hear people complaining about how hard it is to use Blender … a good 3D artist would engage in a couple of months
How is Blender the best at UVs? The few UV tools it has seem very bare-bones. I’ve never gotten good results trying to UV with it.
I dont know if Blender has the best UV tools, probably that is highly debatable and I dont want to enter complex comparisons, but the UV mapping is anything but bare bone.
- It supports several ways of UV mapping
- Even its smart automatic mapping is quite good
- Very good projection mapping ( I am a big fan of projection mapping myself)
- Support for multiple UV maps, overlapping or not, on the same model
- UV mapping is part of the node system so you can do some crazy stuff with it procedural wise, for position , scaling and other properties
- you can edit UV on vertex, edge, face and island level
- You can pin down UVs that will make them unable to change position for easily modifying the layout of the UV vertexes without affection the boundaries of the UV map
- An army addons for a ton of specialized stuff
- Full scripting capabilities
- Very good Image editor that can easily display images and uv maps together with several tools for manipulating textures according to its uv map
Blender developers also works on ptex a form of uvmaping that removes the need for custom uv maps, I dont remember if its Disney or Pixar that invented it, but you can look it up.
I think the above are enough to classify the Blender UV tools as very powerful.
Aside from the nodes, which I’ve never seen done, that’s all basic level stuff you can find in any of the major 3D software. And the others have far more impressive tools on top of it.
there is something I do not understand, because people insist on saying that blender is not good or blender is lower compared to other 3D software, I do not think tools blender are basic on the other hand are quite powerful, is proven blender is much better modeler compared to maya, if someone can not achieve good results with the uv editor then blender something is really wrong with the abilities of the person, speaking in terms of rendering and creation of materials, hypershade Maya is a joke the editor blender is much more efficient and a more dynamic workflow … not to mention that Maya has on board a ton of things that I need for creating content focused on video games … because paying for something that I do not need, I’ll say it again maya is great for rigging / animation, besides that there are better options available … if this were not enough Autodesk is a company that gives a **** about the opinion of users, good luck to those who even they are tied to Autodesk
irrelevant if those tools come standard with big 3D apps, you said the Blender had only bare bones UV and I demonstrated why this is extremely far from the truth.
Also you have said nothing about “far more impressive tools” you come in , drop a statement and magically you expect me to use my mind reading skills to guess what you mean. Blender can do billion of things, literally, so you will have to be a tiny bit more specific if you want me to point you to the right direction. If not , ignore this posts.
I’m not going to get baited into an argument here; I gain nothing by correcting someone’s rooted misconceptions as to the strengths of any particular software. I just got annoyed when I saw someone claiming Blender had some of the best UV tools, when it actually has some of the worst I’ve used. Anyone who’s actually used the other software to a reasonable extent would know this anyway. You could even just look up videos to compare them.
of course you wont, no surprise there
There’s no point trying to argue specific tools, there’s way too many things to compare and it would take too much time. Most likely each program has features that others lack, no one has done a comprehensive comparison to see if one program is really “better” than the others. In terms of popular opinion, the vast majority of professionals use Maya or 3ds Max.
Sorry to bump an old thread but thought it made sense vs. starting a new one. I’m relatively new to the game having learnt on C4D at uni but considering a switch given will soon lose my free C4D access. As such have been looking at any and all options before I drop my hard earned $
I know that these things are super personal, but regardless would love to get views from those of you who have years using (and even jumping between) Maya/Max/C4D/Modo/Blender!
- First and most importantly, should I even be considering leaving C4D now or does it make sense to stick with what I know? Am I nuts to pay for C4D (or others) vs. learning blender?
- How hard would it be to pick up Blender/Modo having learnt C4D? Understand there would be a pretty steep learning curve to pick up Maya/Max
- Given Maya/Max have introduced their cheaper subscription model, will they start to replace other products across the industry? If so is it worth me looking at them from a career security perspective!
- I get the impression I could do mst things I do in C4D in any of the others, is that right or should I bear certain limitations in mind? I was a big fan of mograph for instance
- Any people made the switch from or to C4D from other products? Are you happier now?
Thanks and newb flaming encouraged as long as you have something helpful to add!
I wouldn’t switch from C4D to Blender, Blender is the situation where you really don’t want to spend much money on a program, so if you already have one then you’re set.
As far as whether you should stick with C4D, that depends on what career you want, C4D is extremely popular in motion graphics, but if you don’t want to do motion graphics then you can probably consider another program.
Maya/Max is not cheaper with the subscription. If you were going to use the software for a while then it was much cheaper to get the perpetual license. They’ve neglected their software in pursuit of more profit. However, Maya/3ds Max are the most popular 3D software in game development and have the best support for exporting to game engines. Modo is a good possible alternative, but really overall if you want to work for a game studio then it helps more to use 3ds Max or Maya.
Cinem4d is a very capable software, it really depends what you want to do.
If it’s just mogaph and some game work, switching to Maya or Max doesn’t make much sense unless you want to get acquainted with those software to up your chances of working in an established game/vfx studio, although, in my experience even that isn’t a big deal, if a studio finds your work to their interest then they wouldn’t care much which software you use. For instance most of Maya in larger studios is 75% rewritten code with custom interface and scripts, so eventually even if you are a Maya expert you will spend a few weeks/months learning the new ‘Maya’ in house regardless.
Subscription based model from Autodesk is Hardcore expensive in the long run and is only going to get worst, especially for small teams and individuals. So I would think real hard and twice about it.
Blender is becoming a power house, for instance there are things in Blender’s character animation/rigging tools that I wish I had in Max, and it’s new viewport will just blow Max/Maya out of the water from the way it is shaping up.
The interface is still alienating though… like mad.
After 12 years with Max we are considering Blender more seriously now than ever before, slowly perhaps we can make that switch in the future (at least for games stuff).
It just annoys the **** out of me that universities don’t go 100% with Blender and suck up to making a deal with Autodesk while doping their student’s futures in the long run.
If they teach them Blender, some aspects of the industry will be encouraged further to slowly adapt to that model instead of having Autodesk Monopolize their dirty hands all over. If students want to learn a specific software they should do it at their own time or with special classes for the technicalities as the basics are whats important.
Bottom line is, don’t concern yourself with main software switching unless you run into major bottlenecks and have very good solid reasons to do so.
sorry guys, eevee is comming !
yeah i am a blender fanboy , claim it 
Blender is a really nice piece of software, a lot of the guys I know have been switching over from Maya and 3ds to Blender.
I started to using blender too and i must say its good. The worst at blender are first 2-5 hours because of strange UI but then its OK.
I wonder how many people pay maya subscription, thats like thievery. Artists who will work in maya for 30 years (which is imo real) will pay 58 080 €, thanks autodesk, no.
as someone who used maya for over 12 year i must say, Maya is really garbage. it used to be pretty amazing, like the king of all 3d softwares but it was many years ago like before maya 2009.
they stoped improving old tools which was the base and advantage of maya over other software and instead they tried to add some new tools which wasn’t really that good.
Maya is really SLOW and UI is really old. they did many improvement but it’s still really bad.
sadly i’m stuck to maya because of all those years of working and getting use to it but price of maya is too high and i really think about completely switching to another software.
i started working with blender and it is really amazing not only it has everything maya has but it has many advantages over Maya. e.g. cycles renderer.
if you want to work with a truly professional software i highly recommend Houdini . it has an indie version $199 . and it is up to date in every aspect you can think of.
Maya has more advantages to it - better rendering and support from Autodesk, a bigger community forum, better rigging abilities, better texture rendering and making, animation capabilities and other add-ons that make Maya worth it, though if you aren’t in the professional game industry then blender is still a great tool to use.
Tell you what, not everyone uses Maya when they don’t use Blender. I find UI from both programs really awkward. I use MODO and its UI just makes perfect sense when it comes to modelling, retopologizing and UV mapping. It is as if MODO is made for humans to use.
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