4 ms·

It does feel like Blender is eating the world of 3D content creation.* I know the industry standard of animation is still Maya, and geometry node isn't as powe

It does feel like Blender is eating the world of 3D content creation.* I know the industry standard of animation is still Maya, and geometry node isn't as powerful as Houdini, but Blender has made such great progress so far... I wonder if there any hobbyist/student who learns 3Dsmax or 3DCoat as their first DCC anymore? *: Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc.

minimaxir 1y ago
Due to Blender being OSS and scriptable with Python (https://docs.blender.org/api/current/info_quickstart.html https://docs.blender.org/api/current/info_quickstart.html), it wouldn't surprise me if a future iteration of genAI/agents works with Blender directly.
- homarp 1y ago
  There is a Blender MCP server https://blender-mcp.com/ https://blender-mcp.com/
  - homarp 1y ago
    and now there is a second one https://blender-mcp-psi.vercel.app/ https://blender-mcp-psi.vercel.app/ and https://github.com/pranav-deshmukh/blender-mcp https://github.com/pranav-deshmukh/blender-mcp discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374
cultofmetatron 1y ago
blender is the python of 3d animation. Its the second best tool for everything. Which btw is not a digg. its really hard to be that level of reliable accross an entire workflow.
Joel_Mckay 1y ago
Maya hasn't changed much in a decade, and that is a wise choice for training/documentation. They focused on the content part which is its value proposition. Blender has always had the perpetual Beta problem, as many boring core design issues were never really given priority. Fine for developers, but a liability in commercial settings. Houdini is interesting, but with Blender Geometry-nodes now working it is unclear how another proprietary ecosystem will improve workflows. =3 The Entagma channel covers a lot of Houdini and Blender bleeding-edge features with short lab tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos
- raincole 1y ago
  Geometry node is not Houdini (yet) though. The main reason people use Houdini is it's easy to transfer data between modeling (SOP) and physical simulation (DOP) contexts. And they're working on integrating rigging/animation too. Geometry node is quite a separate thing from what Blender already has. Last time I checked one couldn't even create vertex groups in geometry node, and there was no way to create an armature there either. (Not sure if it changed since I checked though)
  - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
    Indeed, Geometry nodes is new, and I have also found documentation on many operations sparse. That being said, it has proven itself very capable. The mini labs on Entagma's channel were very helpful for parametric surface operations =3 https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos
  - 2944015603 1y ago
    I think you should've be able to access vertex groups from the initial version of geometry nodes. Certainly, at this point, you can dynamically access (and set) arbitrary vertex groups, including loading the names of the vertex groups you want to access from a csv file, or otherwise synthesizing the names using string operations.
    - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
      Indeed, but it is non-obvious how to handle it... I found the Entagma lab videos very helpful in understanding how to parse geometry with nodes. It is not obvious (unless you already get CLI pipes), but so worth it when things finally work... =3
    - deadfoxygrandpa 1y ago
      its actually funny, the first version of geometry nodes was actually more powerful in that way. it didnt provide many built in nodes, but the nodes it did provide were arbitrary property setting/getting. the current and newer geometry nodes system based on "fields" is way easier to actually work with but they don't give you raw access to properties. so like in the first version of geometry nodes you could write custom mesh normals just by setting the "normal" attribute with some vectors, but then from blender 3.0 to 4.4 you could no longer set custom normals in geometry nodes and they only added a set normals node in 4.5
mrandish 1y ago
> Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. I get the concern and the reasoning behind it but having spent most my adult life and career in digital content creative tooling (2D, 3D and video), I believe AI will be short-term disruptive but also a long-term net positive. It should make skilled pros faster and more productive while helping non-pros achieve more of their creative vision on their own. For over 30 years progress in tools has been about giving creative people the power to realize their visions. To create more and do it faster, cheaper and at higher quality. Of course, they don't always choose to use that power well but the concern that "these new tools are just enabling bottom feeders to create more bad content" has remained a pretty constant refrain since I started in 1989. Even back in the 90s I said "Sure, these new tools will enable 95% more crap but they'll also unleash 5% that's great which wouldn't have existed before." I think that's just as true today as it's always been.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  I don’t see much risk to creatives and workers (hold the number of workers constant and have them all get more productive, and the world is a better place). But, I do wonder about smaller teams accomplishing more, which the unit of work-doing-people can be much smaller. The org tree can shrink, probably knock out some levels. Maybe a team of 4 that does the work previously done by 10 finds it easier to just have someone directly interface with the customer, rather than needing a layer of project managers and customer service to receive customers messages and distribute them. I’d be worried if I was… anywhere above an IC really.
  - mrandish 1y ago
    > Maybe a team of 4 that does the work previously done by 10 Interestingly, I heard similar ratios were being discussed (or feared/lamented) in the mid-90s as computer-based non-linear video editing swept the post-production industry and in live TV production as computer-based all-in-one production switcher, effects, titler systems like the Amiga-based Video Toaster disrupted everything. I still remember hearing about how the Toaster was giving unionized TV stations problems because union rules said the switcher guy wasn't allowed to touch the graphics/titling system or the editing system. So three guys would be standing around one chair depending which tab was up on the Video Toaster screen :-). Having been around the content creation tooling business for so long has given me perspective. Since at least the late 80s it's been one never-ending disruption. And, despite the constant predictions of jobs lost, today there are far more jobs in content creation than there were then. Of course, the job descriptions, types, skills required, divisions of labor and which roles were more or less valuable have never stopped changing and probably won't. Yes, this ends up displacing some people in some roles. Back in the 90s highly-paid senior video engineers with deep expertise in how to wire up and synchronize analog video systems initially laughed at us "young kids" with our "toy" digital video systems. Then they resented needing to call us in to get computer-based gear installed, interfaced and working. Then they resented that us "new kids" were paid less due to being less senior but becoming increasingly essential. Some of them learned the 'newfangled' digital systems while others didn't and opted to retire or do something else. Over thirty years later, I'm now the highly-compensated "old guy" with once-invaluable expertise that's depreciating by the minute and proven skills at doing increasingly irrelevant things. The particulars change but the theme remains the same, which is why I don't think the shift to integrating AI in content creation will be significantly different. There will be skills that become less valuable and job types that go away and entire industry sectors which get disintermediated but at the same time new kinds of work, industry sectors and business opportunities will emerge in different places and ways. As always, the new job types won't be 1:1 replacements for the old, and this will cause as much angst as it always has. They'll not only look different and have different kinds of trade-offs, they may even have different business and compensation models. It's Schumpeter's process of "Creative Destruction" and renewal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction). The destruction part is fast, loud and shocking as what exists today combusts in flame. The creative renewal part tends to be more gradual, unfamiliar and at first may not even seem related. From time to time, even the definition of "the industry" ends up changing along with the jobs and roles. I'm pretty sure the old-school TV station engineers I learned from wouldn't consider a digital nomad working full-time editing 30 second clips on a mobile device for YouTube, Instagram and TikTok influencers as even being "in the TV business."
spookie 1y ago
> *: Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. The current state of things leaves a lot to be desired. I have yet to see a model, or technique that actually tackles real 3D content creation problems, aside from animation of course. Most solutions are trying to solve things completely orthogonal to what you really need in the real world. They produce bad meshes, if meshes at all, have bad topology or inconsistent point sampling, and are extremely prone to parroting their training data. It's kind of incredible how far we have come but seriously, to understand a problem space you need to try to use the existing tools. Only then, do new, and useful ideas pop up that solve real issues. But man, nobody in the space seems to have a clue. Believe me, 3D modelling software is REALLY good at what it does, it is really hard to try and dethrone human and machine working together in these really well thought out pieces of software.
egeres 1y ago
> Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. Even if genAI were to kill the cinema/animation back-end industry, I still think 3D software would be needed to continue videogame development, and godot is far behind in modelling/animation capabilities compared to blender. Hopefully they can latch on this in the long term if it happens that AI keeps eating artists lunch.
tmaly 1y ago
My daughter did the Blender donut tutorial and put her 3d animation into the year end art show when she was 10. Having a great community and resources behind the project makes if very easy for students to pick up.

minimaxir 1y ago

Due to Blender being OSS and scriptable with Python (https://docs.blender.org/api/current/info_quickstart.html https://docs.blender.org/api/current/info_quickstart.html), it wouldn't surprise me if a future iteration of genAI/agents works with Blender directly.

homarp 1y ago
There is a Blender MCP server https://blender-mcp.com/ https://blender-mcp.com/
- homarp 1y ago
  and now there is a second one https://blender-mcp-psi.vercel.app/ https://blender-mcp-psi.vercel.app/ and https://github.com/pranav-deshmukh/blender-mcp https://github.com/pranav-deshmukh/blender-mcp discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622374

cultofmetatron 1y ago

blender is the python of 3d animation. Its the second best tool for everything. Which btw is not a digg. its really hard to be that level of reliable accross an entire workflow.

Joel_Mckay 1y ago

Maya hasn't changed much in a decade, and that is a wise choice for training/documentation. They focused on the content part which is its value proposition. Blender has always had the perpetual Beta problem, as many boring core design issues were never really given priority. Fine for developers, but a liability in commercial settings. Houdini is interesting, but with Blender Geometry-nodes now working it is unclear how another proprietary ecosystem will improve workflows. =3 The Entagma channel covers a lot of Houdini and Blender bleeding-edge features with short lab tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos

raincole 1y ago
Geometry node is not Houdini (yet) though. The main reason people use Houdini is it's easy to transfer data between modeling (SOP) and physical simulation (DOP) contexts. And they're working on integrating rigging/animation too. Geometry node is quite a separate thing from what Blender already has. Last time I checked one couldn't even create vertex groups in geometry node, and there was no way to create an armature there either. (Not sure if it changed since I checked though)
- Joel_Mckay 1y ago
  Indeed, Geometry nodes is new, and I have also found documentation on many operations sparse. That being said, it has proven itself very capable. The mini labs on Entagma's channel were very helpful for parametric surface operations =3 https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma/videos
- 2944015603 1y ago
  I think you should've be able to access vertex groups from the initial version of geometry nodes. Certainly, at this point, you can dynamically access (and set) arbitrary vertex groups, including loading the names of the vertex groups you want to access from a csv file, or otherwise synthesizing the names using string operations.
  - Joel_Mckay 1y ago
    Indeed, but it is non-obvious how to handle it... I found the Entagma lab videos very helpful in understanding how to parse geometry with nodes. It is not obvious (unless you already get CLI pipes), but so worth it when things finally work... =3
  - deadfoxygrandpa 1y ago
    its actually funny, the first version of geometry nodes was actually more powerful in that way. it didnt provide many built in nodes, but the nodes it did provide were arbitrary property setting/getting. the current and newer geometry nodes system based on "fields" is way easier to actually work with but they don't give you raw access to properties. so like in the first version of geometry nodes you could write custom mesh normals just by setting the "normal" attribute with some vectors, but then from blender 3.0 to 4.4 you could no longer set custom normals in geometry nodes and they only added a set normals node in 4.5

mrandish 1y ago

> Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. I get the concern and the reasoning behind it but having spent most my adult life and career in digital content creative tooling (2D, 3D and video), I believe AI will be short-term disruptive but also a long-term net positive. It should make skilled pros faster and more productive while helping non-pros achieve more of their creative vision on their own. For over 30 years progress in tools has been about giving creative people the power to realize their visions. To create more and do it faster, cheaper and at higher quality. Of course, they don't always choose to use that power well but the concern that "these new tools are just enabling bottom feeders to create more bad content" has remained a pretty constant refrain since I started in 1989. Even back in the 90s I said "Sure, these new tools will enable 95% more crap but they'll also unleash 5% that's great which wouldn't have existed before." I think that's just as true today as it's always been.

bee_rider 1y ago
I don’t see much risk to creatives and workers (hold the number of workers constant and have them all get more productive, and the world is a better place). But, I do wonder about smaller teams accomplishing more, which the unit of work-doing-people can be much smaller. The org tree can shrink, probably knock out some levels. Maybe a team of 4 that does the work previously done by 10 finds it easier to just have someone directly interface with the customer, rather than needing a layer of project managers and customer service to receive customers messages and distribute them. I’d be worried if I was… anywhere above an IC really.
- mrandish 1y ago
  > Maybe a team of 4 that does the work previously done by 10 Interestingly, I heard similar ratios were being discussed (or feared/lamented) in the mid-90s as computer-based non-linear video editing swept the post-production industry and in live TV production as computer-based all-in-one production switcher, effects, titler systems like the Amiga-based Video Toaster disrupted everything. I still remember hearing about how the Toaster was giving unionized TV stations problems because union rules said the switcher guy wasn't allowed to touch the graphics/titling system or the editing system. So three guys would be standing around one chair depending which tab was up on the Video Toaster screen :-). Having been around the content creation tooling business for so long has given me perspective. Since at least the late 80s it's been one never-ending disruption. And, despite the constant predictions of jobs lost, today there are far more jobs in content creation than there were then. Of course, the job descriptions, types, skills required, divisions of labor and which roles were more or less valuable have never stopped changing and probably won't. Yes, this ends up displacing some people in some roles. Back in the 90s highly-paid senior video engineers with deep expertise in how to wire up and synchronize analog video systems initially laughed at us "young kids" with our "toy" digital video systems. Then they resented needing to call us in to get computer-based gear installed, interfaced and working. Then they resented that us "new kids" were paid less due to being less senior but becoming increasingly essential. Some of them learned the 'newfangled' digital systems while others didn't and opted to retire or do something else. Over thirty years later, I'm now the highly-compensated "old guy" with once-invaluable expertise that's depreciating by the minute and proven skills at doing increasingly irrelevant things. The particulars change but the theme remains the same, which is why I don't think the shift to integrating AI in content creation will be significantly different. There will be skills that become less valuable and job types that go away and entire industry sectors which get disintermediated but at the same time new kinds of work, industry sectors and business opportunities will emerge in different places and ways. As always, the new job types won't be 1:1 replacements for the old, and this will cause as much angst as it always has. They'll not only look different and have different kinds of trade-offs, they may even have different business and compensation models. It's Schumpeter's process of "Creative Destruction" and renewal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction). The destruction part is fast, loud and shocking as what exists today combusts in flame. The creative renewal part tends to be more gradual, unfamiliar and at first may not even seem related. From time to time, even the definition of "the industry" ends up changing along with the jobs and roles. I'm pretty sure the old-school TV station engineers I learned from wouldn't consider a digital nomad working full-time editing 30 second clips on a mobile device for YouTube, Instagram and TikTok influencers as even being "in the TV business."

spookie 1y ago

> *: Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. The current state of things leaves a lot to be desired. I have yet to see a model, or technique that actually tackles real 3D content creation problems, aside from animation of course. Most solutions are trying to solve things completely orthogonal to what you really need in the real world. They produce bad meshes, if meshes at all, have bad topology or inconsistent point sampling, and are extremely prone to parroting their training data. It's kind of incredible how far we have come but seriously, to understand a problem space you need to try to use the existing tools. Only then, do new, and useful ideas pop up that solve real issues. But man, nobody in the space seems to have a clue. Believe me, 3D modelling software is REALLY good at what it does, it is really hard to try and dethrone human and machine working together in these really well thought out pieces of software.

egeres 1y ago

> Assuming genAI won't deliver and make that world disappear entirely, ofc. Even if genAI were to kill the cinema/animation back-end industry, I still think 3D software would be needed to continue videogame development, and godot is far behind in modelling/animation capabilities compared to blender. Hopefully they can latch on this in the long term if it happens that AI keeps eating artists lunch.

tmaly 1y ago

My daughter did the Blender donut tutorial and put her 3d animation into the year end art show when she was 10. Having a great community and resources behind the project makes if very easy for students to pick up.