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That's the whole point. If you're a carmaker, you want gasoline to be a cheap, widely available commodity. Gasoline complements cars. 3D modelling software has

That's the whole point. If you're a carmaker, you want gasoline to be a cheap, widely available commodity. Gasoline complements cars. 3D modelling software has had a long history of expensive, esoteric, difficult-to-use applications. Epic, hoping to make money from large numbers of Unreal Engine licenses, would like to see that situation change. Ideally (for them), 3D modelling software would be free and easy to use for everyone, thereby lowering the barrier to entry for those who might make 3D games using UE. By donating to Blender, Epic hopes to achieve two things: 1. Blender becomes better and easier to use, allowing more developers to enter the market and buy UE licenses. 2. Increased competition puts downward price pressure on commercial 3D packages such as Maya, thus making it more affordable for small-to-medium sized game studios, potentially freeing up budget for more UE licenses.

soulofmischief 7y ago
My question is about OP's assertment: > Unreal Engine, like Unity, right now has to be used with Autodesk products like 3DS Max or Maya I am asking why they think this is the case. Not the circular reasoning of "most professionals use it" but I am interested in what they feel the Blender is missing.
- soup10 7y ago
  Blender supports FBX exports so you can bring models from there to unreal, but Maya is the much more popular program with artists for modelling and rigging, there's a whole lot going on with these programs so I doubt its any one thing, if it were close i'm sure a lot of people would be happy to not pay for Maya considering how expensive it is.
  - soulofmischief 7y ago
    > Maya is the much more popular program with artists for modelling and rigging This is the circular reasoning I'm trying to avoid. I'm not looking for any one thing either, I'm looking for any shortcomings OP can think of. I've used Blender+Unreal for a number of years and Blender itself for over fifteen years so I could rattle off issues I've dealt with in integrating Blender into the pipeline, but many have been dealt with so I'm curious about OP's particular pain points.
    - Tossrock 7y ago
      Not the OP, but I've used Blender and UE (though Unity more), and I would say the main problem with Blender is how undiscoverable the core actions in the interface are. I'm sure for you, as a 15 year user, the shortcuts are all perfectly ingrained, and you can crank out work very efficiently. However, if you don't already know all those shortcuts, it's very difficult to learn them, or even to learn what functionality is available. Some examples: If you already know that `Tab` switches between object mode and edit mode, then it's quick and easy. If you don't, then you have to click the drop down mode selection menu, which is one of the dozens of widgets on screen with highly variable levels of usefulness (seriously, what the hell is 'Grease Pencil'?). And if you hover for a tooltip, it doesn't even tell you that tab is the shortcut! Or when in the UV workspace, there's literally nothing in the interface window except the vertices/edges. How do I select all vertices? How do I select multiple via box? How do I do numeric input? None of this is obvious. The defaults are also terrible - eg click to set 3D cursor, instead of select. Overall, Blender seems to suffer from a classic case of open-source programmer driven development. If you already know how to use it, it's very powerful and customizable - the python scripting is great! But because no one really cares about making it into a product, the UI/UX suffers. I haven't used Maya/3DSMax, but I have used Fusion 360 (another Autodesk 3D modelling package, but focused on CAD/CAM) extensively, and it is much, much more user friendly. There are easily navigable menus which surface key functionality and respond contextually to the workload - ie if you're modeling, creating components and performing extrusions/rotations is front and center. If you're sketching, applying constraints (and the various types available) is all right there. Of course, none of this means you CAN'T use Blender with UE, you totally can. And if you're a Blender expert, then none of this probably bothers you, because you don't care about discoverability of functionality since you already know it all. But if you're fresh out of Digipen or whatever, and you have to learn a single software package, then the refined products from Autodesk are going to win. edit: In fairness, I hear that 2.80 is going to fix a lot of this, and I'm looking forward to trying it.
      - opencl 7y ago
        2.80 is definitely a pretty big UI improvement, and the new EEVEE renderer makes it much easier to work with materials and preview how they'll actually look in game since it is functionally similar to modern game engines.
- rishav_sharan 7y ago
  UX. I just gave up trying to convert my architect wife to Blender after nearly a month of effort.. "its just too hard!"
  - tomaskafka 7y ago
    Yes. Years back as a kid, I taught myself a pirated copy of 3DS Max pretty well, but Blender seemed just almost impossible to use.
- sprafa 7y ago
  There’s huge costs to using a non-standard choice like Blender over 3dsMax or Maya. They both have loads of proprietary tools (and are constantly adding one more every couple of cycles or so). 3D DCCs are not equivalent to each other. Financing Blender is indeed a good move for Epic if they believe (and there’s good reason to) it might make Game production toolsets more available.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    I was under the impression that Blender was fairly common in the modeling industry. Not a de-facto standard like Microsoft Office or Creative Suite, but one frequently used option among many. Not true?
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      Not at all. Blender is an important piece of software because it is open and free, which helps lower investment 3D uses like research, but its interface and usability is about as bad as it gets. It takes heat for its interface yet still not enough in my opinion. You have to experience trying to actually get something accomplished to truly understand how incredibly unintuitive everything from names to button placements to object movement to component selection etc truly is. I've used a lot of different 3D programs in a lot of different domains and nothing comes close to blender. It almost seems to go out of its way to make the most basic excersize a puzzle for the user. The money for commercial programs is completely necessary in a professional context, since time is money and people have expectations.
      - caspar 7y ago
        Have you tried using the Blender 2.8 release candidate UI though? As someone with approximately zero artistic skills and minimal 3D background, I was also turned off by Blender's inscrutable UI patterns 10 years ago. But with the 2.8 RC news on HN last week I recently tried it again and I have to say that now it seems like the UI is pretty decent. Left click select, a move tool that works like every other move tool in paint, a clear hierarchy view with obvious nestable layers - it seems like many of the weird things I remember (like "drag the divider between the viewport and the menu bar down to see a secret option pane") are gone or redesigned now. Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBqYTgaFDxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBqYTgaFDxU for some example usage or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVpg4_POww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVpg4_POww for a preview of the UI/UX changes.

soulofmischief 7y ago

My question is about OP's assertment: > Unreal Engine, like Unity, right now has to be used with Autodesk products like 3DS Max or Maya I am asking why they think this is the case. Not the circular reasoning of "most professionals use it" but I am interested in what they feel the Blender is missing.

soup10 7y ago
Blender supports FBX exports so you can bring models from there to unreal, but Maya is the much more popular program with artists for modelling and rigging, there's a whole lot going on with these programs so I doubt its any one thing, if it were close i'm sure a lot of people would be happy to not pay for Maya considering how expensive it is.
- soulofmischief 7y ago
  > Maya is the much more popular program with artists for modelling and rigging This is the circular reasoning I'm trying to avoid. I'm not looking for any one thing either, I'm looking for any shortcomings OP can think of. I've used Blender+Unreal for a number of years and Blender itself for over fifteen years so I could rattle off issues I've dealt with in integrating Blender into the pipeline, but many have been dealt with so I'm curious about OP's particular pain points.
  - Tossrock 7y ago
    Not the OP, but I've used Blender and UE (though Unity more), and I would say the main problem with Blender is how undiscoverable the core actions in the interface are. I'm sure for you, as a 15 year user, the shortcuts are all perfectly ingrained, and you can crank out work very efficiently. However, if you don't already know all those shortcuts, it's very difficult to learn them, or even to learn what functionality is available. Some examples: If you already know that `Tab` switches between object mode and edit mode, then it's quick and easy. If you don't, then you have to click the drop down mode selection menu, which is one of the dozens of widgets on screen with highly variable levels of usefulness (seriously, what the hell is 'Grease Pencil'?). And if you hover for a tooltip, it doesn't even tell you that tab is the shortcut! Or when in the UV workspace, there's literally nothing in the interface window except the vertices/edges. How do I select all vertices? How do I select multiple via box? How do I do numeric input? None of this is obvious. The defaults are also terrible - eg click to set 3D cursor, instead of select. Overall, Blender seems to suffer from a classic case of open-source programmer driven development. If you already know how to use it, it's very powerful and customizable - the python scripting is great! But because no one really cares about making it into a product, the UI/UX suffers. I haven't used Maya/3DSMax, but I have used Fusion 360 (another Autodesk 3D modelling package, but focused on CAD/CAM) extensively, and it is much, much more user friendly. There are easily navigable menus which surface key functionality and respond contextually to the workload - ie if you're modeling, creating components and performing extrusions/rotations is front and center. If you're sketching, applying constraints (and the various types available) is all right there. Of course, none of this means you CAN'T use Blender with UE, you totally can. And if you're a Blender expert, then none of this probably bothers you, because you don't care about discoverability of functionality since you already know it all. But if you're fresh out of Digipen or whatever, and you have to learn a single software package, then the refined products from Autodesk are going to win. edit: In fairness, I hear that 2.80 is going to fix a lot of this, and I'm looking forward to trying it.
    - opencl 7y ago
      2.80 is definitely a pretty big UI improvement, and the new EEVEE renderer makes it much easier to work with materials and preview how they'll actually look in game since it is functionally similar to modern game engines.
rishav_sharan 7y ago
UX. I just gave up trying to convert my architect wife to Blender after nearly a month of effort.. "its just too hard!"
- tomaskafka 7y ago
  Yes. Years back as a kid, I taught myself a pirated copy of 3DS Max pretty well, but Blender seemed just almost impossible to use.
sprafa 7y ago
There’s huge costs to using a non-standard choice like Blender over 3dsMax or Maya. They both have loads of proprietary tools (and are constantly adding one more every couple of cycles or so). 3D DCCs are not equivalent to each other. Financing Blender is indeed a good move for Epic if they believe (and there’s good reason to) it might make Game production toolsets more available.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I was under the impression that Blender was fairly common in the modeling industry. Not a de-facto standard like Microsoft Office or Creative Suite, but one frequently used option among many. Not true?
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    Not at all. Blender is an important piece of software because it is open and free, which helps lower investment 3D uses like research, but its interface and usability is about as bad as it gets. It takes heat for its interface yet still not enough in my opinion. You have to experience trying to actually get something accomplished to truly understand how incredibly unintuitive everything from names to button placements to object movement to component selection etc truly is. I've used a lot of different 3D programs in a lot of different domains and nothing comes close to blender. It almost seems to go out of its way to make the most basic excersize a puzzle for the user. The money for commercial programs is completely necessary in a professional context, since time is money and people have expectations.
    - caspar 7y ago
      Have you tried using the Blender 2.8 release candidate UI though? As someone with approximately zero artistic skills and minimal 3D background, I was also turned off by Blender's inscrutable UI patterns 10 years ago. But with the 2.8 RC news on HN last week I recently tried it again and I have to say that now it seems like the UI is pretty decent. Left click select, a move tool that works like every other move tool in paint, a clear hierarchy view with obvious nestable layers - it seems like many of the weird things I remember (like "drag the divider between the viewport and the menu bar down to see a secret option pane") are gone or redesigned now. Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBqYTgaFDxU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBqYTgaFDxU for some example usage or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVpg4_POww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPVpg4_POww for a preview of the UI/UX changes.