Netflix Animation Studios Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

[BadBadJellyBean]

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.

[crote]

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.

[raincole]

It might sound weird, but I think the key factor is the rise of Youtube.

There is unbelievable amount of Blender content on Youtube. Like, probably more than all the other DCCs (Maya, 3DsMax, Houdini, Modo, etc...) combined[0]. It's beyond the DCC for hobbyists. I've seen people who think it's the only DCC. A few years ago, I met an 2D artist who started integrating 3D workflow and he genuinely didn't know the existence of Maya.

[0] I have no data to back this up. It's just my guess.

[haunter]

>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"

[luma]

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...

[jandrese]

To be fair animated 3D modeling is a complex task so the UI can only get so simple. Even commercial tools require training and have challenging interfaces.

Another example is Gimp. People like to bag on it for having a terrible interface, but when they say Photoshop is so much better I have to wonder what magical version they are using. For me the differences between the two are marginal, but that may be because I learned how to use Gimp first and have to hunt around Photoshop's interface more.

[lynndotpy]

This is my perspective as well. I've been a big FOSS junkie and, in ~2015 or so, Blender had a repute similar to GIMP. (A free, worse version of proprietary tools).

By the time I picked Blender up in 2016 (before 2.8!) it felt pretty mature, but I used it (still) because it was the one that was free and which worked on Linux.

The time and energy I put into learning Blender feels like an investment that has paid off amazing dividends.

(I'd also picked up Godot at the same time, with much the same story of elation on its adoption rate).

[mopsi]

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.

[chuckadams]

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.

[Rapzid]

Not disagreeing but it's crazy 2.8 was going on 7 years ago. That's 1 less year than from the release of HTML to 9/11.

It'd be like saying "Man the internet has been on such an upwards trajectory since HTML" in 2000 ;D

[panarchy]

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/

[dylan604]

Where are all of the open source UI/UX peeps? Why do they not exist? Why are so many devs accepting of the open source concept and yet apparently no UI types are by comparison? The number of open source UI peeps rounds to zero.

What is it about design/artsy types that makes working on open source anathema where coders will do it just for the lulz?

[another_twist]

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.

[lynndotpy]

There's also the 2024 film Flow. Really delightful movie, and is impressively rendered using Eevee (Blender's real-time renderer) and not Cycles (Blender's path-traced renderer).

[tomovo]

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.

[WhoCaresAboutIt]

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.

[roflcopter69]

Yes I think there's still a lot of potential upside.

But check out this collaboration between Blender and Godot https://godotengine.org/showcase/dogwalk/ I could imagine that in the not too distant future we might really have a completely open tools stack for making up to AA games (minus console SDKs which always are under NDA I guess).

[mixmastamyk]

Anyone know why Netflix doesn’t respond to their job site? I applied to several positions where I’m an exact match, with a decade of VFX and another decade of internet company experience in LA. Never heard a single word in response from them, for years. Reqs stay open a long time as well. What are they doing? Are they ghost jobs? They don’t even respond with a “no” form letter. (Lately their site is broken at the verify email stage, pin post returns 403.)

[doublerabbit]

Simply they don't bother taking down the advertisement once hired.

It's the lowest priority of job for the hiring team and the role is normally forgotten about once the hire has been onboarded.

I worked for an animation studio and they didn't take down roles.

[mcraiha]

If someone is wondering who the Aras guy is https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aras/115971315481385360

[skrebbel]

Nesnausk! He made some pretty sweet demos too (as in demoscene).

Eg https://m.pouet.net/prod.php?which=86463

[physicsguy]

How does it compare to Maya these days?

[Joel_Mckay]

Blender still needs about 130 hours of course projects to become useful, but is a lot better in >5 due to better color handling and geometry nodes.

Maya is frozen in time, and that is not necessarily a bad thing...

Great video on getting 3D render preview speeds up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0GW8Na5CIE

Geometry nodes tutorials:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheDucky3D/videos

Blender still needs plugins to be functional for content:

https://tinynocky.gumroad.com/l/tinyeye

https://sanctus.gumroad.com/l/SLibrary

https://flipfluids.gumroad.com/l/flipfluids

https://artell.gumroad.com/l/auto-rig-pro

https://bartoszstyperek.gumroad.com/l/ahwvli

https://polyhaven.com/plugins/blender

https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/mpfb/

Recommended training (Some artists like it, and some don't ymmv):

1. (A) Complete Blender Creator: Learn 3D Modelling for Beginners

https://www.udemy.com/course/blendertutorial/

* Basics of low-poly design in blender

2. (B+) Blender Animation & Rigging: Bring Your Creations To Life

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-animation-rigging/

* Some more practice rigging

* Export to game engine teaser

3. (B) The Ultimate Blender 3D Sculpting Course

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-3d-sculpting-course/

* Sculpting, Retopology, and VDM brushes

* a few outdated examples, and annoying instruction style

* basic anatomy

* covers several workflows

* Instructor is inexperienced

4. (A+) The Ultimate Blender 3D Simulations, Physics & Particles

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-simulations-physics-par...

* Shader/Texture basics

* Geometry node basics

* Boid sprites

* Hair and physics simulation

* Camera FX, and post-render filters

* Focused on Blender v4.3

* Instructions on how to export your assets to Unity 3D and Unreal game engines

[srinath693]

Blender's UX evolution (2.8+, asset browser, USD) shows FLOSS can compete when funded right, Netflix's €240k push helps. Curious if Animal Logic shared their hybrid Maya/Houdini/Blender pipeline details?

[Geonode]

This is great, but they should give more. I would love to see million dollar donations from every major tech company. It's nothing to them, and Blender is fundamentally changing the way we make digital media.

[wateralien]

<3 Blender is a treasure and must be protected.

[dimgl]

I really like Blender and it's an amazing product, but I can't get over the standard Blender keymap. The "industry compatible" workflow is more sane, but then I have to translate tutorials from the Blender keymap to the industry compatible controls, and they're not always 1:1

[Andrex]

That is indeed an unfortunate personal problem.

[flykespice]

"industry compatible"? You mean Maya keybinds ?

[assaddayinh]

We might see a transition of stable market toolware from subscription to open source yet

[m3kw9]

I wonder if devs leverage LLMs can catch up to the big boys in surprising speed. Netflix isn’t dumb

[IshKebab]

Blender's code is far beyond current LLM's abilities. Maybe in a few years... we'll see.

[margorczynski]

How does that translate into real cash?

[zxcvasd]

well, what happens is netflix gives blender real cash. and thats the entirety of the translation