Nerd Rant: THE BESTEST 3D App

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In part two of their highly scientific and grown up debate about 3D DCCs, Manu and Mo go knee deep in apps to find out what's THE BEST 3D APP (!!!) on the market.

[@ideascortes]

I’m switching from C4D to Blender but I’m in no hurry so I’m learning it slowly. I would love a channel dedicated to Blender and Houdini workflows.

[@Maplecook]

I use a different kind of blender! hahaha

[@punmije]

haha you should not switch from C4D to Blender, you can use both in their strengths! I learned Blender first back in the days when it was too complicated to use. Blender is awesome now. I reallly want to learn cinema4d and houdini now. These 3 programs can work together very well.

[@NickShaheen]

Awesome podcast! I’ve been slowly switching from C4D to Blender over the past 6 months, as there are fewer and fewer reasons to keep paying for similar features list. Hopefully incorporate Houdini into my workflow as well.

[@MattMeersbergen]

Modo is still being used in many high end studios by concept artists. Also a lot of people use it for product modeling and renders. I still use it :)

[@MattMeersbergen]

@@jack_vance_ Yep , for sure!

[@0Jebus0]

@@jack_vance_ Modo is the most complete modeler. If Softimage was alive then maybe that would've been a contender. Blender, Maya, Houdini is not. If you buy 10 addons for Blender it becomes a messy reasonable contender. For anything that's not modeling, nah.

[@ironscavenger]

Interesting talk, as always! Since you mentioned it: Here's another C4D user switching to Houdini and Blender :D And interesting to hear Manu's attitude towards approaching 3D. It's basically the same I told my students today on their first day of 3D. Although we are using C4D. If I wouldn't leave university to the end of the year I'd also have switched my courses to Blender for the future.

[@volkertroy2559]

Another MODO user here! MODO is still alive and under development. Maybe not visible from a TD POV, but in the field it's being used, it really shines

[@charliejolly6022]

One of the important things about Blender is the fact that your data is not locked in behind proprietary code. It has short comings of course but it gets better all the time. Also, don't forget Grease Pencil.

[@alexdelker]

This is a great talk. I'm one of those graphic/ad people who switched from C4D to Blender. Love y'alls geometry nodes content!

[@MaxChe]

I am also a C4D user who switched to a blender, I think this is the right choice, it was as if my hands were untied after the C4D

[@JSZ69420]

I think grasshopper and Houdini could learn a lot from each other. They’re both node-based and similar in many ways.

[@mark-horgan]

Grasshopper got me into Houdini. Houdini nodes are lot more high level but Grasshopper is easier to use if you use mostly the core nodes. But then there are lots of plugins to master - most with next to no documentation.

[@lambda3374]

Grasshopper user too and the node system is a bridge to start Houdini perhaps

[@efex5720]

:D , well i cannot give comments on the best, but i know for me the worst, it is maya. I work in pipeline and as td and have to do daily with maya and houdini, also some other packages here and there but those are our main tools. And maya is customizeable and basically does not really lack any features, the bad thing is that it is by far the most bug infested software i know. I am convinced that a third of the time by anyone using maya goes into debugging and finding workarounds. This software caused so many delays and roadblocks in our production that we arrived at a point where we try to get rid of it. Which as you pointed out is really difficult since with no other software you can quickly like find 30 animators or so, I am very curious to see if the new animation workflow in houdini or maybe Blender might cause a shift and even out the artist pool.

[@hectorescobar9450]

Not to mention its extremely annoying and clunky History system..

[@kvickart]

This is the main reason I switched from maya to blender, the number of times I've searched for solutions to problems and got the same 'delete your prefs' response as if that's some kind of real solution was driving me insane having to re setup my whole workflow sometimes weekly or daily. Blender I feel is so close to being great for animation workflow for my area(games) I wish it would just push a bit further in the UX and exporting department. Or if the industry could shift away from FBX as a standard so that blender would make a solid implementation of an import/exporter that could be used in unreal

[@efex5720]

@@kvickart hahah yeah tell me about it, if i would get one euro everytime i have to say "did you try delete your prefs" i would be rich by now. also sadly a very common thing is that you run into a bug find a solution in the forum only to discover that this post is 5 years or sometimes even older, autodesk knows about it and does simply not care about fixing it. Sometimes i really get the feeling that maya is actually an abandoned software

[@milansvancara]

Nice podcast!:) I've tried basically all of these, but ever since geometry nodes were introduced, I've settled on Blender. It was at that moment it covered most of my needs on top of extremely friendly UX, plus I'm convinced that open-source programs are the future, especially considering how much faster development they have... I only hope that Houdini is getting a UX update soon because working in Houdini feels like when I have to turn on my decades-old truck with a diesel engine to do the heavy-lifting my city car can't do, I really don't enjoy using it even tho I can do a thing or two there:D Also in terms of C4D, I feel like most people you included include all available C4D plugins when rating the program, C4D by itself is really lackluster nowadays I'd say, especially for the price...

[@spetauskas]

love headdphones you are using in video. looks really nice.

[@David_Fernandez]

Ahh! Finally you didn't talk about the Blender + Houdini binomial! And please sync the voice and image, it's always weird feeling to watch you talking. Much love !

[@kvickart]

This is always a fun conversation. I think it's also worth mentioning some highly specialized 3d tools like marvelous designer. While most programs have an option for cloth simulation marvelous is the only program I've found that is focused on actually designing clothing which I think is interesting and works amazingly well. Also photogrammetry and mocap have proven to be extremely valuable tools that even people with little to no 3d experience or knowledge can dip their toes in and make a meaningful contribution to the process. I still feel like there is a massive opportunity in VR to make a next-gen 3d DCC package, I've messed around with some but they have a lot of growth to do to become real production tools. I would also love to see more people exploring performance capture akin to how MIDI controllers are ubiquitous in the audio world. We need some more expressive hardware controllers and integrations for 3D animation in my opinion. The game Dreams is a really interesting showcase of simple motion controller based puppeteering as a content creation method, although it's crude I do think the extreme ease of use makes it appealing for really simple or blurred out background characters and can always be polished. If you want a handheld camera effect having a little usb motion controller would work wonders if the integration and UX was smooth as hitting record and moving a little controller around.

[@graphicINmotion]

Great episode! Thank you guys.

[@bcrbdb]

In my 10 year old machine, one of the first Intel i7, fluid simulations and smoke simulations in Maya were very slow. In Houdini , even with a very old machine, they were reasonably acceptable in terms of time of processing. Houdini Rocks in terms of performance. The BEST!!

[@lambda3374]

Thanks for this podcast, very usefull to me. I'm a Rhino user for 17 years and so have habits like all of us. Something I noticed over years, with my coworkers, also using other 3d software like SolidWorks, Maya, Modo etc...some are more or less formatted in the way of thinking 3d. So my point of view is that ok basics have to be assimilated but switching from SolidWorks to Houdini is a kind of erease all and start again from zero Maybe the step is lower when you come from Maya or c4D to Houdini (AKA the beast)

[@StrangerObjects]

I'd immediately studied at your place, Manuel :), love your approach. Things I had to learn the hard way, :D BTW. Love this channel!!

[@rajis92]

From a VFX point of view Maya is the standard for "asset generation" i.e modelling/UVs, animation, rigging (this is also done in Houdini) and camera work. You'll never be short of high quality professional tutorials for all the disciplines except FX or Mograph which no studios use Maya for that. But most studios don't use it for "shot execution" anymore such as lookdev/lighting and final render. Smaller to mid sizes studios may still use Maya for that but most companies just port the assets to Houdini, Katana or Clarisse. Scanline is one of the rare few VFX places that finishes in Max.

[@kokoze]

Yep there isn't one. You have to look at each category. Zbrush for sculpting, Houdini for dynamics, substance painter for painting,...

[@unicornhuntercg]

And blender for a little bit of everything ;)

[@_m3atball]

I totally agree. I use Houdini for all my dynamics/complex animations (honestly most of my object animation now) then build all my scenes in cinema because lookdev, camera animation and dealing with a bunch of "stuff" seems to be easier there... and I use blender for 3D tracking, oddly enough.

[@joekim8459]

Personally I think Blender just overtook ZBrush

[@emilkeshishian5282]

love your podcasts, keep up the great content :D

[@FaddyVFX]

Here the community is very supportive, i learned alot, and your channel is no exception, eveey video is a new things to leaen, i wish you successful journey.

[@avmfilms1101]

keep doing this content, its amusing hear you ranting about

[@audiodrocher]

I really liked Softimage XSI when it was around. Kinda miss it.

[@intothevoid2046]

Still using it ;) Pure polygon editing is still a bit behind and too complicated in Houdini and Softimage is still more advanced than Blender because of the nonlinear modelling workflow.

[@periskop]

Long time Maya user here, on and off since Maya 2.5 on SGI machines. It is very feature rich, and most versions have been quite buggy until service pack 2. It is quirky and consistent at the same time. It is a shame Autodesk killed off XSI, which was (imho) very similar, but quite more elegant.

[@BillRey]

XSI was the best all-round DCC out there. Still in most areas unmatched, even so long after it has been discontinued.

[@modelenginerding6996]

I enjoy designing small steam engines using Grasshopper/Rhino. Loved trying Houdini as a hobby for fun particles/fractals. Blender introduced me to 3D and eventually into a job. Substance was the most artist friendly to me. Zbrush is so awesome, with a ridiculous amount of "force" to get through that awful 2.5d/interface. hehe Not all of us use these tools for entertainment or games! 😉

[@fcojavier142]

Since the arrival of platforms like KZbin and thanks to initiatives like yours, Houdini is enjoying greater light in learning, which is fundamental to know it, if these aids existed in the 90s, Houdini would be an indisputable leader, the world of Cg should be procedural, because this opens the doors to total control of geometry without restrictions, but the lack of documentation and production tutorials from start to finish, relegate Houdini to being a software Mysterious. There is still no structured, project-based learning path.

[@AdamBelis]

i realy like this disccuions but have a small request could you tone done your VO processing ? Base is so boosted that my speekers vibet table when you speak :D

[@ValRenfer]

Do you think that SideFx will be making Houdini for new M1 processors?

[@ceesh5311]

I'm buying the new macbook m1 pro, does anyone know if houdini will become ARM native in the near future? thanks in advance

[@Kumodot]

Max is more procedural than maya in many ways. I amusing it for +20 years, and still love to model on it, do scene assembly, tyflow is a little bless and beast. I was a maya user for 3 years , didn’t like it much. But I like to do UVs in maya. Still using for work, c4d is fun, I use it at work too from time to time, and now I am using Houdini more than ever and loving it. Didn’t started in blender yet. Maybe someday 3 yrs from now… :)

[@3dkiwi920]

In my experience I started with Milkshape 3D, then quickly moved to 3DSmax, then was forced to learn Maya as per the Tertiary education I attended. Tried blender once in 2005-ish and could not grasp it's chunkiness. When 3D Sculpting software came along in the early/mid 2000's I found that not only the confusing new workflows made it difficult; but my personal lack of traditional art skill/talent held me back; people who were "real" artists and were learning it from scratch tended to thrive, but then fell over when it came to things like rendering, topology and animation. 3DS max is supported by a huge community of tutorials and is heavily embraced by the ArchViz community; it is however held up in this regard by Third Party Plugins which are unreliable and costly. It is also very counter-intuitive to use for anyone experienced with other software. Maya is a dinosaur which continues to be patched, but very powerful, USD seems to be the way to go. I have decided to take up Houdini based on what I have seen on this channel. The best thing to learn is the the fundamentals, regardless of software. I learned the same across many industries. For example after using a 3D printer I ended up building a CNC router, then purchasing and restoring an old manual lathe. That being said for anyone starting out I'd say Blender is the way to go, I still have not gone back to it but have seen it grow into something very cool very quickly, although it does try to do too much at once.

[@iamYork_]

Coming from an art/design background Houdini was a bit more difficult for me to grasp as my programmer experience is very minimal... I love the software and think it is king but for me I feel 30 steps in Houdini will be 5 steps in C4D for example on most basic projects...

[@nobody-u-know]

The Modo chapter is named Moto.

[@3d-illusions]

Oculus medium is the most incredible voxel sculpting program.

[@NicolasRouelle]

super podcast series, i look at omniverse because of blender integration they made and the physics 5 power inside omniverse

[@andreybagrichuk5365]

Cool stuff, guys !!!

[@zeeyannosse]

You are awesome !!!. love the vibes and flow of your show. and connect totally with the kind of ... well historical list of software !!! hahahah ... discovered digital pixels with a commodore 64 on a black TV ! hahaha !!! from Lightwave on Amiga, to 3d studio on DOS, 3ds max, maya and then Cinema 4d for VFX/Motion graphics... same awkward look from people discovering c4d under the hood ! hahahaaa !!! ... and very recently transitioning to BLENDER. Just a note > on this c4d to blender thing >>> LOVED this quote from FLIPPED NORMAL >>> " JUST EMBRACE THE WEIRDNESS of BLENDER" ... transition. change. new tools to learn !!!!! life is beautiful !!! Maybe one day Houdini...

[@ZacFarmer]

Two year blender user here, what about Unreal Engine? The whole program is real time and becoming adopted by the industry very quickly.

[@_m3atball]

Great podcast! Do you guys have any online recommendations for starting to learn those underlying principles?

[@emirunalan1287]

Their own KZbin channel and Patreon account?

[@yaminglin8607]

My english is not good， but your voice is amzing.I can learning Houdini and also English with watching your video.

[@milansvancara]

Yeah I'd say that germanic English accents are extremely easy to understand for the worldwide population:) There is a certain clarity...

[@psclip3309]

I really like Houdini. Addicted work with their node and procedural, and i'm shock about all the node houdini have, maybe houdini can replicate all cinema 4d Mograph fetaures. It will be awesome for mograph

[@MarcelDeneuve]

I would say you need at least two blender or maya as a general tool and a specialized package like zbrush or houdini

[@avmfilms1101]

nerdy old topic, but is entertaning because you are talking about

[@avmfilms1101]

we are waiting the next rant 😌😛

[@hectorescobar9450]

I believe, Blender and Houdini is the perfect marriage. They complement each others strengths and weaknesses, they are also the most future driven 3D tools considering their architectural nature and not to mention that you are only paying for one package. Blender not having the massive procedural power Houdini has and Houdini not being the most Artist friendly nor being the fastest tool to come up with designs really quickly like you do in Blender, so.. there you go.

[@orphydiancg7759]

Stop associating yourselves with mature commercial software to get more legitimacy and taking shelter under their umbrella...

[@Borsilive]

Idk what the future holds, but as of now blender is horrible to use in a pipeline. It starts with simple things like baking out textures and use uv's. Uv's are completely messed up cause of the different coordinate system. Blender can do some things but it's not stable and has major flaws in the most basic tasks.

[@hectorescobar9450]

@@Borsilive have not had issues with any of that. Baking maybe, I generally use a more dedicated tool for that such as Marmoset Toolbag. Uv's are quite awesome in my opinion, I i generally have no issues with them. Is actually the fastest part of the pipeline. the only times I really struggle with Blender, is with complex rigging setups and drivers. That's where the program start showing weaknesses for me.

[@hectorescobar9450]

@@orphydiancg7759 The heck are you on about?? I get that you are a little triggered from people generally bashing on Autodesk. Don't take it personally. Autodesk doesn't care for you to defend it with shield and honor. Tools are tools

[@Borsilive]

@@hectorescobar9450 Okay, I certainly have these problems when using Blender :^=

[@FlameForgedSoul]

Just an FYI, Form Z is still around guys. Lightwave(somehow) is too. Selling out to the foundry ruined Modo IMO.

[@joekim8459]

For me, blender would take first place if they focused on: Animation UI, Hair Grooming, Cloth Modelling & Multi-Layer Painting. These areas are horrendous almost unusable out of the box.

[@fakecubed]

Most of these are on the roadmap, but they need knowledgeable people to provide feedback and discuss design proposals. And then of course there's the code.

[@0Jebus0]

@@fakecubed Not to mention animation itself, rigging, and fx. Blender has a very interesting path forward though, it's becoming a race between Houdini and Blender for the most complete package. Maya with its outdated architecture can go and drown itself, thanks.

[@collger]

I think dcc is like car，one will never fit everwhere. Pick two or three to form a tool set would be much much better.

[@mikeben9587]

A houdiniengine for Blender would be nice

[@yousefyaghoobi282]

do a podcast about houdini and bledner combination

[@Gareth_Mayers]

@hjf4a2 it would be nice to know how both can be used together effectively. Not just how to do stuff, but were you should start with one or the other and end. That kind of thing

[@arnoldtim3628]

I want ask which university do you teach at？How lucky the students are

[@Entagma]

Manu is Professor for CGI at Nuremberg Tech (TH Nürnberg). Cheers, Mo

[@PaulColton]

I do wonder if Houdini's Solaris will evolve enough to allow for all final lookdev and rendering and not have to rely on another DCC (i.e. Clarisse, C4D, Blender, etc.).

[@zunainfaisal]

Solaris has replaced Katana in lookdev and layout in a lot of production pipelines. H19 made it very similar to Clarisse and I believe many more studios will be willing to adopt it now.

[@sams_3d_stuff]

Notification Squad!

[@hadriscus]

Still have to find a package that beats Amapi

[@tcheadriano]

I never see someone that migrated to Blender and got regret.

[@ArgoBeats]

Softimage|XSI

[@FlameForgedSoul]

RIP

[@ArgoBeats]

@@FlameForgedSoul yes, unfortunately...

[@vanjakapetanovic7013]

I think there is no necessarily “the best” per say as it depends on what someone is after. However, it’s quite clear which ones will get you jobs and which ones won’t. Blender is ok but if someone is shooting for the stars just start with whatever is the industry standard in your department. Why learn Blender when you will never use it in production just start with a standard. Unless hobbyist. Then by all means do Blender as it’s excellent but not used in the current industry pipeline.

[@heinblues]

Houdini all the way

[@maayaa77]

Community.. without Community software dies. oh and Price heh

[@odkhuu5723]

modo is doesn't support 4k display, eye killer

[@MrDebranjandutta]

No SketchUp? Probably the easiest surface modelling tool especially when Google owned it. Still great for archviz

[@milansvancara]

Sketchup is a CAD program, that is a whole different category... also SketchUp is decent only for architecture since it is really lackluster compared to for example Autodesk products for engineering stuff... But it really sucks for visuals, motion graphics, and VFX, which is the category this channel is based around I'd say:) don't get me wrong, it's a decent amateur architecture software, it does good what it's meant for:)

[@degibocu]

I think unreal engine just Get better day by day. In almost all the dcc áreas, i stay with blender and combine with UE.

[@pizola3285]

Houdini ftw

[@Willopo100]

Didnt watch the video. I am guessing they said Houdini. Was I right?

[@Entagma]

Betcha! No clue why the video turned out so long though. We just speak reeeeeaaaalllly slowly.

[@raimuhammaduzairfareed7628]

Blender + Houdini = Blendini . It is most powerful piece of softwares.😊

[@stan5995]

Poor 3ds max, it does so much and gets so little love.

[@YiChi457]

It's not only about being able to do things, it's about doing things the right way. And that's where this software is just a atrocity.

[@stanislawmenschow2625]

@@YiChi457 Depends very much on what you're trying to do and how skilled you are at doing it.

[@shaman4evah]

Crocotile 3d is the bestest

[@angrians2762]

Guys don't forget about wetam

[@i_am_a_real_cat1443]

Counterstrike is the best software

[@borbling]

I think Maya is quite overpriced and slow compared to other modeling tools

[@vytasrauckis6703]

Maya has quite a few "Animation" schools to teach character animation in Maya, which does not exist to any extent for any of the other DCCs. This is because the animation studios use Maya exclusively (even the custom software they create is usually based on Maya). So education-wise it is very good for Maya.

[@khomatech6428]

B R Y C E

[@alligatoralligator]

the white background is quite annoying.

3ds Max is the same as it was 200years ago

[@shillingv6289]

It is impossible to listen the speech, a huge amount of unnecessary sounds from articulation. Decrease microphone sensitivity, please.

[@retromograph3893]

Stop listening on $4000 headphones!