Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron(www.blender.org)

179 pointsby vidyesh7 hours ago5 comments

BadBadJellyBean3 hours ago
I think especially since the UI overhaul in Blender 2.8 the project has been on a steep upwards trajectory. The software was always amazing, especially since it was free and open source, but the new UI and all subsequent improvements really put Blender on the map as a serious tool and not just an alternative for when you don't have money for the big players.
- crote9 minutes ago
  It's a self-reinforcing loop. Once a FLOSS tool becomes good enough, it'll start to attract professional users, who are willing to invest in it, which makes it even better. And it is quite hard for commercial players to compete with free.
  But FLOSS software is mainly made by developers. Who like writing new flashy features, but are awful at UX, and making sure all the small kinks are worked out.
  So most FLOSS software gets stuck in a "death by a thousand papercuts" scenario, where it has enough features to technically be usable but it is painful enough to use that no professional would ever adopt it.
  Blender got out of it. I really hope more projects will follow their example.
- haunter22 minutes ago
  >I think especially since the UI overhaul in Blender 2.8 the project has been on a steep upwards trajectory.
  100% agreed. I know a lot of people don't like that but sometimes I feel that FOSS projects are intentionally sabotaging themselves by ignoring industry standard options/conventions and instead they are following open source ideas just to be different. UI/UX is the main symptom of that. Blender could move forward and wish others could too.
  Krita is another example of a good project
  CAD is the next frontier where we need a "Blender moment"
  - BadBadJellyBean9 minutes ago
    We have to keep in mind though that many open source projects started as something that someone wanted and then made. It probably worked just like that person wanted and then it grew. Maybe it is because they weren't too versed in UI/UX design.
    Another thing is that many classic open source projects don't have a "I want to grow my user base" mindset. Why would they. It's not like they get paid.
    Big overhauls also always have the risk of alienating current users. I learned Blender on the pre 2.8 UI and because I use it rarely I still sometimes struggle with the new shortcuts.
    Blender clearly benefited from the change but the real spirit of open source is: you don't like it then help fix it.
- luma17 minutes ago
  The Blender project is the model I hope FreeCAD can eventually follow. Like digital animation, the 3D digital design field has a pretty rough selection of tools and the UI on all of them leaves a lot to be desired. FreeCAD has been on an upward trajectory in the past couple years as more people lean into the project out of frustration over increasingly hostile pricing from the commercial solutions. KiCAD has seen incredible advances since CERN started pouring resources into it, I'm sure Netflix money is going to help Blender. Now to get some large engineering shop to consider FreeCAD as their exit path to Siemens/et al...
- chuckadams5 minutes ago
  I remember when Blender first forked from NeoGeo's old code: it was clunky, alien and just plain weird. But even then the slashdot crowd was remarking about how snappy the UI was, once they figured out how to use it.
- panarchy22 minutes ago
  Other open source projects should take note. It seems like UX is a complete afterthought for most and any suggestions for QoL improvements are met with hostility by the small fervent community telling everyone to go fork themselves.
  Somewhat relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1172/
- mopsi2 hours ago
  That shows the importance of listening to users. I too tried to learn Blender before the UI overhaul, but with prior 3ds max experience, Blender was infuriatingly counterintuitive; for example, it used the right mouse button instead of the left to select objects. Felt like those deliberately annoying demo pages that make you select phone numbers from drop-downs and click on moving buttons to submit forms.
  - whizzter43 minutes ago
    The context was also weirdly random, probably with some logic for longtime Blender users but just weirdly random.
    The usual context for modelling, [[[ Mode(model/uv/anim) -> Object/Mesh selection -> Face/Line/Vertex selection ]]] that is found [[[ (top-to-bottom)-(left-to-right) ]]] since Blender 2.8 and most other programs used to be placed [[[ middle of screen-top of screen-middle of screen ]]], just an insane order and that stuff was actually defended by Blender-die-hards (that probably used keybindings for these context switches anyhow).
    There is still things placed "weirdly", but once we got past that it became immensly better (and not rage-quit worthy).
another_twist4 hours ago
Brilliant. Some of the animations that are put as showcases on the Blender site are absolutely phenomenal. This one https://studio.blender.org/projects/spring/
particularly is my all time favorite.
- tomovo2 hours ago
  I loved Coffee Run and the BCON24 Identity. Brilliant stuff. When it comes to Blender itself the only regret I have is that they ended support for Intel Macs but I understand it's a burden to support older platforms.
WhoCaresAboutIt2 hours ago
Very cool news.
Personally, I'd love to see some more focus on game-dev workflows. The game asset pipeline still feels janky: texture painting exists, but not great, and baking textures/previewing results or baking from high poly to low poly involves a lot of manual node fiddling and rewiring. Export/iterate/build/test cycles are also pretty painful still.
wateralienan hour ago
<3 Blender is a treasure and must be protected.
physicsguyan hour ago
How does it compare to Maya these days?