[Bf-funboard] Blender in the workplace

[Tom M]

While I think Matt did a poor job of presenting his claim, let me see
if I can restate.

>From a commercial perspective, the value of software is in how
efficiently an artist can accomplish his work.  Both in that the
artists time has a value per hour, and in that other parts of the
commercial pipeline may be dependent on the work of the artist.  There
are currently tools available in both commercial and non commercial
software that are not available in Blender, and some of these tools
can allow the artist to much more efficiently accomplish his task. 
Some of these tools are of only a moderate cost (ie Silo) or even free
(Wings3d), others range from slightly expensive (Hexagon) to
moderately expensive (Modo).

While we are all aware that blender can be blazingly fast in the right
hands.  It is no secret that there are still plenty of tools that
Blender has either no implementation of (Silos retopologizing) or
implementations that are significantly less robust than what is
typically available in other modeling packages (vertex, edge, and face
beveling).

For many commercial artists, these lacks will leave Blender completely
out of consideration, since the cost in time of doing without the
additional tools will be greater than the percieved value of getting
Blender for 'free'.

Many of the individuals who use Blender commercially started out with
Blender because they couldn't afford (or didn't wish to spend) the
cost of a standard commercial package.  After using Blender they came
to appreciate its power and flexibility, and now that they can afford
other commercial packages forgo them because they are comfortable and
skilled with Blender.

If widespread usage of Blender in a commercial setting is a goal, then
attention to Blenders modeling tool set to give it a breadth and depth
comparable (or better!) than commercial alternatives should be
considered.

LetterRip