undefined | Better HN

0 pointschongli6y ago0 comments

That's the whole point. If you're a carmaker, you want gasoline to be a cheap, widely available commodity. Gasoline complements cars.

3D modelling software has had a long history of expensive, esoteric, difficult-to-use applications. Epic, hoping to make money from large numbers of Unreal Engine licenses, would like to see that situation change. Ideally (for them), 3D modelling software would be free and easy to use for everyone, thereby lowering the barrier to entry for those who might make 3D games using UE.

By donating to Blender, Epic hopes to achieve two things:

1. Blender becomes better and easier to use, allowing more developers to enter the market and buy UE licenses.

2. Increased competition puts downward price pressure on commercial 3D packages such as Maya, thus making it more affordable for small-to-medium sized game studios, potentially freeing up budget for more UE licenses.

0 comments

7 comments · 1 top-level

soulofmischief6y ago· 6 in thread

My question is about OP's assertment:

> Unreal Engine, like Unity, right now has to be used with Autodesk products like 3DS Max or Maya

I am asking why they think this is the case. Not the circular reasoning of "most professionals use it" but I am interested in what they feel the Blender is missing.

sprafa6y ago

There’s huge costs to using a non-standard choice like Blender over 3dsMax or Maya. They both have loads of proprietary tools (and are constantly adding one more every couple of cycles or so). 3D DCCs are not equivalent to each other. Financing Blender is indeed a good move for Epic if they believe (and there’s good reason to) it might make Game production toolsets more available.

Wowfunhappy6y ago

I was under the impression that Blender was fairly common in the modeling industry. Not a de-facto standard like Microsoft Office or Creative Suite, but one frequently used option among many.

Not true?

1 more reply

rishav_sharan6y ago

UX. I just gave up trying to convert my architect wife to Blender after nearly a month of effort.. "its just too hard!"

tomaskafka6y ago

Yes. Years back as a kid, I taught myself a pirated copy of 3DS Max pretty well, but Blender seemed just almost impossible to use.

soup106y ago

Blender supports FBX exports so you can bring models from there to unreal, but Maya is the much more popular program with artists for modelling and rigging, there's a whole lot going on with these programs so I doubt its any one thing, if it were close i'm sure a lot of people would be happy to not pay for Maya considering how expensive it is.

soulofmischief6y ago

> Maya is the much more popular program with artists for modelling and rigging

This is the circular reasoning I'm trying to avoid.

I'm not looking for any one thing either, I'm looking for any shortcomings OP can think of. I've used Blender+Unreal for a number of years and Blender itself for over fifteen years so I could rattle off issues I've dealt with in integrating Blender into the pipeline, but many have been dealt with so I'm curious about OP's particular pain points.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse