I know this topic has come up before and indeed I did a search on the forums for information and opinions. However, I am interested in opinions from people who have used Blender AND Maya/Max about whether or not Blender is a serious contender for modelling and animating professionally for commercial games. Is it really a contender? I know of user interface concerns, but is there anyone who has made the effort to get beyond this and seriously compare features of the packages? For me, as a programmer I need a cheap package that I can start with and produce some simple models myself - enough to keep me rolling on my own engine (which means more complex than the donuts and spheres and other regular shapes I can generate in code - which I am now bored of). I wouldn't do much modelling beyond this, but if I go to the trouble of integrating Blender into my tools pipeline I will likely write a lot of custom plug-ins for it, including those which may potentially assist in level editing. What I don't want to do is start out doing this on something that is going to deter great artists from working with me in the future. I am artistically clueless as a programmer, hence the need to question experts in the field. BTW: Even in the event where Max/Maya is clearly where I should go in the long term (when I have more cash), if anyone has an experience of converting Blender into a level editor using custom plug-ins and using it as part of the game asset pipeline in addition to traditional use of Max/Maya...I would be interested in your thoughts.

I'm not really sure what you're asking when you say "contender". Is it feature rich and highly flexible? Uhmm... yes. Does the interface make any sense whatsoever to anyone who has used practically any other package? No.

Due to that second point, and the fact that Max and Maya have both been around for quite some time and so have had more time to entrench themselves into industry standards, a lot more artists use Maya and Max than Blender.

Another topic seen to much like "DX vs OpenGL".

In my opinion with MAX, I hate its UI way more than blender. Like any software, you need to learn it, but blender is way more user friendly. You dont really have to deal with the UI in blender at all, which makes it faster to model in than anything I know of.

Youtube: Big Buck Bunny and Elephants Dream, and then you have your answer.

Wether you arent good or are good, blender will do all that max and maya will do for free, and unless you already have your heart on a piece of software that costs money, then get blender. But dont open it, and bitch that you dont understand any piece of software without reading a tutorial (not directed at the above reply, just to ppl in general complaining). They have the entire blender guide that I bought (600 pages), for free online!

And I may add that it also has sculpting, you know like Z-Brush does... I'm not sure if max/maya support that at all.

There are other packages than Max, Maya and Blender :)
Wings3d & Google Sketchup - both are easy to use. None of them supports animation though.
Milkshape and Truespace - both supports animation, truespace is free and milkshape is cheap.

Blender is great once you get used to it, Max is not really easier, but since its been around for much longer, more 3d artists are familiar with it. Personally, I am not a fan of the Max Modifier Stack, whats the use of a modifier stack when every time you want to make a change in a lower stack level, you're told all the upper levels will be fuxored? and Biped is horrible, try scaling a fully skinned and rigged character, and you'll see what I mean. OTOH Blender Armatures are great to work with.

I've used all three programs, and I must say... it really comes down to choosing one and getting used to the interface.

With Blender, you pay for what you get. Yes, Blender has user interface issues. But you can get used to them very quickly if you stick with it long enough. My main issue with Blender is how limited customizing the user interface is (i.e. you can't configure your own hot keys...) and that there's no built in way to render out a wire frame mesh. But I have gotten used to using it and it's what I have installed on my computer. It's as fully featured as you can get without paying a dime.

Max's modifier stack can be a real pain. That and, unlike almost every other program alive, pressing SHIFT to make multiple selections actually duplicates the current selection. It also took them 8 full version to figure out that users don't want to download a third party plugin to export their UVs to an image file. But in my opinion, Max has the best smooth group system out of all three packages, which is good for making low poly models look great. You select a few polygons, assign them a smooth group and can even type in the value.

Maya is probably the most widely used. Accessibility wise, it's easy to find what you need (if you know it exists) just by holding down the space bar. I've also heard that they've integrated Python to the same level as MEL Script in the newer versions, which may attract some developers, but I didn't dive so far as to mess scripting. But Maya is a beast with a lot to offer, maybe more than you'll ever need.

In regards to the key customisation thing that esrix mentioned they are working on that for version 2.5 of Blender, though I wouldn't expect that till sometime in 2009. I have also used all 3 programs, but never got on with Max, was a Maya user for a while and finally settled on Blender, which I prefer. It is just a matter of preference though - once you have learnt a program most people don't bother to learn another, and this is what gives Max/Maya the edge, as zer0wolf said.

The one thing I would say is that for making low resolution models Blender has recently gained some really useful features - primarily the baking of normal maps, displacement maps and texture maps from a complex model onto a simpler model - this is key to making really good 3D models for a game. Its armature system is also really nice, as is its UV handling, so for game developers I think its a decent choice. If you want an example of it being used in a computer game go look at the apricot project - http://www.yofrankie.org/ - a blender foundation project to use it for just that.

I think it has one of the worst interfaces on the planet -- but when it comes to features, it's basically on par with the commercial stuff. The only big problem I'm aware of is that it only supports GLSL shaders, so Cg/HLSL authoring is right out. Max and Maya can both handle HLSL, I'm pretty sure.

Actual you can render to wireframe mesh, its in the material settings, bottom left it says "wire"

Quote: Original post by dpadam450
In my opinion with MAX, I hate its UI way more than blender. Like any software, you need to learn it, but blender is way more user friendly. You dont really have to deal with the UI in blender at all, which makes it faster to model in than anything I know of.

Blender is easier because it hasn't got a proper UI? Next you'll be telling me Vi is a decent text editor [wink]