Why isn't 3D more popular?

The thing is, you're approaching it the wrong way. You don't start by trying to understand what all the windows and controls do and whether you 'need' them (which doesn't even make sense, because if you needed them you would know!). You start by finding out how to put a box in the scene, which is very easy and straightforward, and then you start pulling vertexes around and go from there.

Literally three quarters of blender I've never even looked at, for example I don't have a clue how to even begin with Cycles because I don't need it.

For modelling, you need like half a dozen hotkey controls like loop cut and extrude and you can get most of the way there. The rest of what you need you learn when you need it, by googling it or finding a good tutorial.

 

OK, revised version: Nobody, who has any chance at all of actually accomplishing anything whatsoever, is that helpless.

--Eric

 

No. You need Blender 2.80. For the first time I feel like I could learn Blender and enjoy working with it.

Spoiler

Edit: Playing around some more revealed that the little green shapes on the left side do the same actions.

Incidentally I just spent a couple minutes trying to do just that with the beta. It was trivial to do with a mouse only. Having a little bit of experience from trying to learn older releases helped but everything on screen was easily identifiable.

 

Can't comment on 2.8 since I haven't tried it, but from what I can see there it doesn't appear to have better UI than previous versions.

I really don't see what's hard about adding a cube in 2.7-



In any case, no sane modeller is extruding and loop cutting by clicking on hierarchies of menu buttons. It takes five minutes to find out what the hotkeys are and then you're good to go.

If someone is so new to modelling that they don't even know where to begin, it's not the job of the UI to provide a tutorial for them.

I don't see what's the huge difficulty. Everything is there in the menus, and there's nothing incredibly different from other tools. And when you start off with a new tool, it's standard to go and watch a 'getting started' tutorial, even when you're experienced in the field.

 

@Ryiah , you are a pretty experienced programmer, aren't you?

i would venture to guess that your difficulty with blender is probably just a matter of expectation and motivation. You expected modeling to be a little easier than it really is, but you aren't suuuper motivated to really give it proper attention. because I am sure you could handle it if you really wanted to. Like said above, this is really as simple and straightforward as it gets.

 

Creating the base mesh is trivial. Just about step beyond that is a different story.

Like I mentioned in my edit, I found a more convenient way to do it than navigating a menu. That said the way you work with a tool is not necessarily the way everyone works with a tool. Blender is gaining these improvements for a reason.

 

I'll definitely agree that I'm not terribly motivated. I don't expect modeling to be easy, but I do expect the program to not be in the way. My first experience with modeling was with 3ds max and it was very pleasant. Unfortunately it likely shaped the way I treat other programs because it was very heavily mouse driven in addition to an insane number of hotkeys.

Are you saying this in regards to the current stable release? I only ask because the current beta is a massive improvement when it comes to simplicity and straightforwardness. At least in my opinion.

Yes, I'm a programmer not an artist. I haven't modeled anything beyond low poly static models. I blame the high school computers not having enough resources to do anything else with 3ds max. It's a miracle it ran on them. They were dinosaurs even back then.

 

but like, the actions you do in both programs are the same. It's only a difference of clicking or typing. How is that a hang up? i mean, that just really seems like a matter of preference. and if mere preference is the major hang up -- it's really a matter of motivation.

Were you not using some video tutorials or something to learn so you just felt lost in blender? everybody is different, but i think if you really get into modeling seriously you inevitably want to minimize mouse usage because it can give you wrist pain pretty fast. If you rely on clicking it can be a lot of clicking and moving.

 

No, and it wasn't for a lack of trying to find some either. At the time, which admittedly it has been some years now, there weren't very many good tutorials available and they tended to be out of date. Sometimes insanely so.

 

ah, i see. not a problem i ever had as i got started later.

 

Going through the steps now, probably the only thing that I can imagine being confused about would be Object and Edit mode, since the UI changes considerably based on this. I have no idea if other programs have that.

But in Edit mode, all the standard modelling controls are there on the left tab.

I don't think it's possible to argue that clicking on menus is a feasible way to do basic modelling tasks. It's like saying that someone can play the piano by opening menus and clicking on menu buttons.

Things like adding modifiers, yeah for sure, menus are good for that. But that's just a question of familiarity.

Anyway, I don't want to sound like I'm simply arguing against your negative experience with it, but I'd like to know exactly where the difficulty would lie compared to another software such as Maya.

 

I don't agree that it's like saying that at all. If we have to compare it to anything I would compare it to the process of creating a game object and adding components to it. There is a hotkey for creating an empty game object but everything else you need to click the mouse at least once (unless you have a custom editor extension to avoid all of that).

If you want an example of how effective you can be with the mouse just look at ProBuilder. Beyond cases where you can't just click-and-drag a value to modify the value of it, you can use the mouse for the vast majority of the tasks you want to perform with it (eg with an extrusion, I can click the face, click the extrude button, and drag away).

https://unity3d.com/unity/features/worldbuilding/probuilder

That's not to say I use the mouse for absolutely everything. A numerical value, for example, is far easier to do through keys.

 

It's not the same thing at all. The process of planning the different components and objects in a scene is by far the biggest overhead in that scenario. No one is going to need to create gameobjects at the speed that someone wants to manipulate vertices in a model.

The mouse is fine for changing the perspective and occasional operations, but hotkeys are necessary for any kind of efficiency. I'm going to be able to hit E probably 100x faster than anyone can possibly open up some menu and click on Extrude.

I think it's worth watching a real pro, like Tor Frick who is someone whose skill I really admire. These people are using hotkeys (something Tor said he uses for not just basic operations but also stacked operations that are frequently required in succession) to do very frequent operations multiple times per second, and their mouse and keyboards actually sound like a piano or something of the sort in their videos. Menus would never allow someone to approach anywhere near that level of speed, and when a model takes several hours at best, it adds up to a lot of efficiency.

 

I mainly use blender 2.49, I do have 2.8 installed but only use it to convert other formats that's not available in 2.49... And you'll be overwhelmed on how the UI on blender prior to 2.5 looks like More like flight simulator cockpit than a modeling software, but, it does get the work done to me, not just shortcut heavy but thanks to gesture recognition (which sadly gets dumped)

I think it can be put like this...
In 2D, it's practically WYSIWYG, human vision is basically 2D, you visualize an image, and put it as 2D image in a 2D media.
But in 3D, it's extends beyond that, you have to visualize it in every direction, you add/modify a vertex or polygon once, and you have to check if it's good at any angle...

 

i think a lot of people didn't pick up on blender at first just because of it's right click selection method, but if you got past that and learn just a few of the short cuts the workflow is just amazing. i'm a little bummed that 2.8 is changing so many things from 2.7 and taking a less hotkey oriented approach and even changing their default selection method just to draw in the people who wanted a prettier menu.

 

I am with @Ryiah on this blender 3D Max comparison.
Discussion ignores the fact, there is many very casual users of 3d software, which dont need spend on it days, or weeks. Just for short periods every so often. For that reason, friendly UI and mouse clicker interface is highly beneficial.

I used 3d Max since early 3.x around that. But I never was using it on professional level. Never attempted.

However, doing anything there from moving and rotating objects, to adding modifiers and manipulating them was so intuitive, compare what blender was offering. Granted, last Blender version I have used, is 1 years old. But my point is, as casual user, in case of blender, everytime I try to comeback to it after some longer break, I need study hotkeys to remind, how to operate things. In 3d max, I was just simply doing with mouse and hotkeys I stil rememberd, and job was done in no time. Keys were picked on the way. But I didn't had study and memorize keys, just for few hours / days of work.

 

This.

Okay, not to downplay the professionals you admire, but I'm not a professional artist. I'm a hobbyist programmer trying to become a professional programmer. Making time to learn the basics of a modeling program to be able to touch up models is hard enough. I don't foresee myself finding time to become good at the level an actual artist would be at.

An intuitive user interface is far more valuable to me than a program that I can control entirely through a keyboard. If I need efficiency I'll hire an actual artist.

 

When talking about casual 3d modeller, shouldnt it be loading time and memory usage? Blender loads almost instantly even on my 4GB laptop thanks to the very small size, and it never occupy more than 500MB of RAM... Now I dont have any experience with 3DMax, but from the installation size alone, I could imagine how long it will load and how much RAM it will eat...

 

Sorry, but that is completely irrelevant, to what I discussed.

 

It's entirely dependent on the modeler. If they're a game developer with a different field (eg a programmer) then chances are they will have a good machine. If they're a game modder then chances are they will have a good machine (Bethesda games modded can be very heavy). If they're a student chances are they will have a modest laptop (it's required by many schools).

System requirements for asset creation software are almost always going to be dependent on the asset itself. I don't have a copy of 3ds max, but I do know that the system requirements are identical to that of Photoshop CC. Photoshop consumes less than one gigabyte for me after a fresh start. Speculate what you want to from that.

 

I'm referencing this, how could you have short periods if the loading it self takes long time?

Emphasize on chance (since I definetly dont have one )

 

Not a joke review of Blender. I haven't been able to model anything decent yet. It took me weeks to get familiar with the UI and shortcuts, workflows etc
(I'll admit more than half of that were spent on editing / fixing pre-made models, instead of modelling from scratch)

I wish 3D is easier, and Max to have a free license.

 

Because the amount of knowledge and time you need to make 3D not look like poo is more demanding than making 2D look passable.

 

Tools don't make art. Artists do. It has virtually nothing to do with "how hard" an application appears to be, or is for a "beginner". The solution is dead simple..., stop being a "beginner". If Blender isn't your bag, just find something else. Or simply pick something and spend some time learning it. There is no magic tool that makes you an artist, that is time and effort. The only 100% guarantee is that no matter how much time you spending bitching about "hard" or "confusing" or "not for beginners" something is, that effort won't make you better or art easier.

See.. here is the thing:
https://blenderartists.org/c/artwork/forum-gallery
https://area.autodesk.com/gallery/
https://www.pinterest.com/patriciacornet/3ds-max-gallery/?lp=true
https://www.pinterest.com/cgcookieinc/blender-inspirational-gallery/
https://cgsociety.org/galleries/featured
etc...

Clearly, many people have been making great 3d art for a long time with a variety of tools free to expensive, easy to hard, recent tools and old tools. If other people can do with all these tools, obviously the problem has nothing to do with the tools, it is completely user error. Spend less effort on looking at/for tools, and more time arting. Simple as that.

 

And here we are 20years later and Blender is still as every bit as obtuse and un-intuitive, just beyond ridiculous.

 

A bit silly argument to look at.
If loading software even took a minute, and I work for only an hour, that is nothing in comparison.
With slower HDD only took 30-60 sec if that, for either blender or 3D Max. With SDD incomparable.
Also, I tend leave software open, for period I expect to work with.
If you concerned about ram, there is something called virtual memory in your PC. Basically memory buffer, if ram can not store more.

Potato can handle either at ease. Hence this is not an issue.

 

Oh I remember while ago, looking for tutorials, just to close / collapse windows lol. I thought it was just me, but I find out, others had same problems.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I would love to love Blender. And did some work on it. Its capabilities are no doubt. But I wish it was more friendly approachable. Maybe is with latest iteration, but I haven't tested.

 

well excuse me for having a worse than potato machine, I really doubt my laptop can open 3ds max faster than 60 second. 5 minutes maybe, sharing the memory space with unity and gimp and other stuff.. but whatever, I'm not going further with this blender vs 3dmax stuff...

 

Is irrelevant to what software you are running, but you should weight, what your device can handle. If struggling, then should close other application, to free up resources.

Lets not speculate without actual experience. Is pointless.
Lets move on.

 

IMO 3d software is so fricking extremely complicated and difficult to use, a massive learning curve. It's a huge turnoff.

I tried out Cheetah3D on the mac which is a much more simplified interface and it's sort of useable but still somewhat cryptic. It's like having to learn a whole new skillset. I guess if you're really into 3D stuff then you'll learn these massive applications. But also partly because they're not really super-focused on game production but are more general purpose (e.g. for movies and such) that makes matters worse with all the bloat you don't need to know about.

 

For anyone who struggles with 3D software, the easiest one to use is Teddy:
http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/teddy/teddy.htm

Edit: I just noticed after I posted this that Teddy was ported to a Unity Asset! Did not know that. Last time I used it, it was just a java exe.

 

Ugh, and again it's turned into the perennial 3D DCC thread, where everyone is right in their own way.

It's true that sometimes you do want a tool that you can just jump into to do some edits. Audacity is like that, Paint.NET is like that. But instead, you get a muddled mess like Blender, which is like GIMP is to Photoshop. (I think some of what's to blame is that there is no standard 3D format. STILL! We have proprietary formats and interchange formats, and some data arrangements are more optimal than others, and not only that, each 3D format has to describe all its dependencies on other files, which inherently already makes it more complex than editing a 2D .psd or .png (Going back to the original question))

In the absolute general case, @zombiegorilla probably has the most useful advice here, since really, to get things done, "Just Do It". And if it's a barrier, understand that you have to overcome it and have it as part of your toolbox.

I've spent about 5 years each with 3dsMax, Maya, and Blender, and I'd agree with most people here that 3ds Max is the most intuitive to pick up. At the time though, its animation tools were horrendous, and I didn't agree with the Biped system. While modeling and texturing was great, the animation tools fell short. This was the reason I jumped to Maya. It's architecture makes the most sense, and becomes intuitive once you invest in the upfront cost of learning those ins and outs. But the investment is hefty, because the UI is absolutely the most bare bones there is. If you need a tool, you'd have to find it, but the hotbox helps out so much here, and is by far the best balance between speed and accessibility. I got off the Maya train once Autodesk switched to subscription. And Blender was the hardest beast to tame, and probably still is. I quit several times while learning it. It took me the longest to get comfortable with, and this was AFTER having experience with 3ds Max and Maya. But the words "FREE AND OPEN SOURCE" and the fact that it's in active development should be enough reason to invest in that initial time cost of learning. They're putting in loads of effort to provide an alternate solution to Autodesk. I don't use Blender's default controls. I'm using the Maya controls that they've provided. They cut out the Blender Game Engine to redistribute their focuses on more important areas. They've introduced a new realtime viewport rendering engine. And knowing that they put the effort in to provide these options should say a lot about the direction that Blender dev is going in.

For some background on Blender, in the posted video, that's Ton and Andrew. Ton's the original creator, and for decades has been stubborn about Blender's UI paradigms, which is essentially the UI that everyone sh*ts on. Andrew used to be some joe-shmoe in 2013, when he posted the controversial series of videos of why Blender's UI sucks so hard, and suggestions to improve it. So, Andrew's the catalyst for getting Blender's UI updated to more conventional 3D, and has been basically the face of this movement. Once Ton finally "conceded" that the UI doesn't follow convention, the last 3-5 years of Blender dev has put a massive emphasis on improving the UI, and I'd have to say it's been accelerating at a good pace, considering a lot of the underlying technical architecture has to be refactored to move forward.

Considering you got this far in this post, I guess that even if there was a 3D DCC that took all great aspects of all 3D packages, including free and open source, there is still a great barrier to entry AND completion. Getting from vision to actualization in 3D is a greater task that involves a lot more skill than getting a vision to a 2D canvas. We all just like to write books and books of our opinions about it .

 

Is it possible to make a UI for a professional application that is required to do vfx, modeling, texturing, lighting, uv unwrapping, animation, rigging, etc easy to learn for a beginner/hobbyist? Why would you expect that from professional software?

Blender 2.8 new UI looks a lot like Maya's UI.

 

Really is alot of bad design (even if you consider that after learning it's stupid quirky aspects it's not well documented neither intuitive at least not by any established standards) I'm sure if 3dsmax 3.x onwards was in the same position as an open source piece software as blender for the same length of time, I doubt blender would even be around I mean it probably would be and used by devout luddites but not with any popularity and developer attention that it has attained in the last couple of years.

No its not, those clowns still haven't even gotten around to actually making left click work for scrubbing the timeline.. I mean who the hell has ever used right click hold dragging for scrubbing a timeline... in any piece of software, I bring that up because even after lasst years initiative by them to make left click work better as per industry standard, no one had bothered to bring up the fact the timeline scrubbing was still using right click until it was reported as a bug. And that's just one example,there is just so many more areas it's stupid as hell, and yeah even that one you mentioned "looking for tutorials, just to close / collapse windows lol" intuitive and good design just simply does not exist in blender land.

And everytime I have taken a look at Blender I've always managed to find a way to somehow crash it, it's like you are punished for exploring and just trying to get anything to work, you learn not what to do because it's undo system is some real jankety pile of crap, which says alot about it's overall design and workflow imo.

 

If you understand marketing aspects, you would know the answer to that question asap.

The point of making something intuitive and friendly for newbies, is so they can get attracted, yet when people are students. Providing easy software to work with, early as in schools and academia, allows to gain familiarity and already selling a product. There is limited time and different range of skills across students. Some will learn faster than others.

And then we can translate that into industry.

 

Yes, and Unity is an excellent example of professional software that is both powerful while being very user friendly.

Same reason we've come to expect user friendliness from Unity. It's important to grow your business and you can't grow it if people aren't willing to use your software. Subscriptions aren't the only cost to a program. Training your staff can easily be far more expensive depending on how complex the software is for them to learn.

Copying the most popular professional modelers on the market is likely the easiest way to achieve it since the companies in question will have invested time and money into creating user friendly interfaces.

Incidentally here is the layout of 3ds max. I wasn't able to find an image of the release I learned but the interface hasn't changed that much over the years.

Spoiler: 3ds max

 

3D Studio Max R3 (1999)

Spoiler

 

I understand you want newbies to be attracted to your software. I think a user friendly UI at a professional level doesn't necessarily translate to a newbie friendly UI. Especially 3d software that supports the full spectrum of creating 3D animations. It seems like all the 3d software UI are starting to look the same anyways. Maybe there isn't a better way to pack that amount of options in to a UI. I am not a UI expert though so take my opinions as an educated guess.

 

You're not wrong. But then, Blender isn't a commercial product. It's an open-source project. It doesn't actually have to sell itself to anyone, as it isn't sold at all. That's why you don't really see much impetus on the part of its development team to push a shorter learning curve. They don't actually have to try to get people to use it.

And that may be for the best. While pandering has its place, it can also lead to some flawed design decisions. Structurally, there are certain advantages to Blender, and at least a portion of them are rooted in the design philosophy its developers adhere to. They may not be prioritizing User-Friendliness, but not necessarily all software packages should. In order to reach the brief learning curve you seem to desire, they might have to compromise the software in ways that could hamper it in the future.

And it's also true that Blender-heads who have made it over the hump of Blender's learning curve usually never look back. Once you "get" Blender, you can essentially use it effectively for just about everything, and are no longer intimidated by changes to the package. It's just that initial steep learning curve that is the problem. Refinements to the UI could be a step in the right direction, but I don't think an overhaul would be appropriate. The UI complexity that many complain about is part of Blender's core design, and part of what makes it easier and more efficient to work with once you learn it.

 

Unity's UI is probably among my least favorite applications to work in. Everything is slow and cumbersome. It is very hard for me to work quickly in Unity.

Is it user friendly? I don't really even know what that means. I learn how to use a program first by finding whatever video tutorials exist and then by reading the manual as I work. I'm not concerned with how much effort is involved -- if I have to do some work I have to do it. So user friendliness isn't really a concern. What I do care about it being able to work quickly and efficiently. An application that doesn't have all the common workflow tools tied to hotkeys or quick menus is not efficient. A 3d environment with poor viewport controls is not efficient.

So although Unity's minimalistic UI may feel less daunting the first time I open it up -- so what? That is really not a useful concern.

My point here is to illustrate that it really doesn't matter what negligible difficulties a beginner has. The tools are designed for professionals to use to do work.

 

This isn't just about newbies. I have been doing paid work with Blender since the 2.4 years, and I still find parts of the interface totally baffling.

 

On the contrary they do have to attract new people, at least when looking at it from a long term perspective, as a portion of the user base of an open source program eventually becomes the people who develop it. GIMP, for example, is no longer being developed by the original developers. They've since moved on to other projects.

 

This is true. But I could easily argue that their commercial counterparts are kind of doing their jobs for them on this point. Most users agree that the majority of commercial 3D software is prohibitively expensive, not updated or improved as regularly as most people want, and not as user friendly as you would expect from commercially-supported projects. A LOT of 3D modelers first come to Blender because it is open-source and they don't have to pay for it. As long as they have that portion of the user-base sewn up, there will always be users to be had. At that point, the real "competition" that they need to worry about is other open-source projects. And at the moment they're looking pretty good on that front.

If Autodesk wanted to push back against Blender, they would release a low-cost or free version of their 3D modeling package to help draw people into their ecosystem. They tried that once, but abandoned it through lack of support. (typical behavior for Autodesk) Autodesk doesn't know how to adapt or respond to changes in the market, and never really has. All they know how to do is buy their competition.

 

autodesk allows free use of their products for three years... and anybody who is working professionally or is trying to will be using autodesk products because that's what most studios use.

 

Well said .Not only I refuse to switch to another 3D apps (let alone some paid/expensive app), I even refuse to move on to newer version of blender. I always feel that working with new blender feel slower than the earlier version.

Is it GMax?
That professional things also bugging me... I mean using open source app doesnt necessarily makes someone look unprofessional, but sadly thats the truth, its not uncommon here in for some studios to choose illegal copies of 3d max and photoshop instead of their free counterparts like blender and gimp

 

no, you can use maya or 3dsmax with a student license for three years free.

and using blender has nothing to do with making you look unprofessional. It's just the fact that most studios use autodesk programs so if you want to work for them it makes sense to learn the program they are using. That's all. There is no stigma to using blender. tools a tool.

 

This can destroy your company if you are caught........

 

To be honest I don't remember any instance where the method of optimizing a game required anything bizarre, but then I don't tend to be exhaustive when optimizing. I just checked the thread you're most likely referring to and I don't see why you're approaching the problem the way you are. That said you haven't explained anything about your situation.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/bil...jects-position-in-shader.630214/#post-4247842

 

Have you read the entry in the scripting manual that he linked? It provides a direct answer to why it's beneficial. It exists for the sole purpose of making it unnecessary to create game objects if you just want to have a mesh rendered to the screen.

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Graphics.DrawMeshInstanced.html

Edit: Incidentally, and before anyone can comment on it, I'm fully aware of the irony of recommending reading the manual for Unity when I could be thoroughly reading the manual for Blender.

 

theirs, not mine as we dont use 3dmax here