Back then, I also had a backup copy of Cinema 4D from a friend and it was a lot easier to use, so most of my early 3D modeling and rendering has been in Cinema 4D. I used Blender for the first time in 2008 but it didn’t feel great to use and I made a lot of mistakes. Besides the outdated look, it also had accumulated a lot of bad user experience features over the years. The middle gray might have looked great in the early 2000s, but it looked very outdated by the 2010s and it remained far longer than it should have before it was finally changed in 2019. Maybe that’s true when you are used to it, but it was extremely unintuitive for new users to learn because it went against years of training and muscle memory from other software.īlender’s user interface was also very uninspired in its early versions. They wanted to separate selection from action to create a faster workflow. This is the decision Blender made back in the 90s. “Hey, I have an idea! Let’s go against every common piece of software and use right-click to select something instead of left-click.” As the Blender development continues, more and more companies are starting to integrate it into their workflows. The free and open-source software took a big step to catch up and is now up to par with the other programs (if not better in some areas). However, everything changed with the very impactful Blender 2.8 update in 2019.

Blender wasn’t good enough to compete with the industry-leading programs. This makes it very difficult for beginners to learn and too expensive for most independent artists and developers.įor a long time, there were no good alternatives. Licenses for Maya, Cinema 4D, or 3DS Max cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars per year. A simple scene in the newest Blender version that can easily compete with other 3D programs, image by author.ģD modeling and VFX software is incredibly expensive.

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