I felt like the title was appropriate. I've worked in 3ds Max for so long now that I really needed a change of scenery. But what does that even mean when it comes to modelling and creating art? Am I just jumping ship because a bunch of other industry professionals are or is there some substance to the switch? Well, the answer to both of those questions is yes.
You see i’ve worked with 3ds max since the very beginning of my career, which isn’t that long in comparison to others. Nearly 8 years. But I’ve used 3ds max for everything since then. Weapons, vehicles, props, characters you name it. I’ve loved it. But over time it’s got a bit monotonous and flat. Why? Well, i don't feel like there’s been any substantial updates to 3ds max that innovate on tools that game devs really want and thus i’ve been using the same tools for a very long time. I’ve remedied this by incorporating plugins and addons over time that speed up workflows and make the whole asset process a bit more intuitive, responsive and accessible because let’s face it, there’s a lot of good tools in 3ds max but they’re at times hidden and drowned in the convoluted ui.
To note, one of the best addons I've used for 3ds max is RappaTools. It’s seriously good stuff and worth the purchase, It’s a comprehensive toolset that makes a lot of processes easily accessible. However, the addons’ only really mitigate the underlying issues for me. It’s become a bit boring to model assets in max and i don’t see it getting that much better soon. I don’t really know how else to put it. There’s some really cool stuff coming to 3ds max though, like machine learning uv’ing and the addition of 3D booleans which I can only imagine means something like HardOps/Boxcutter for Blender, which is pretty incredible. But I can't help but think it's too little too late, y'know? Maybe I'm being too dramatic? Maybe I'm just wanting to mix things up a bit in my workflow to refresh things?
Plugins and Addons!
It’s actually this that drew my attention to Blender the most. HardOps/Boxcutter is incredible. There is a difference between Blender and 3ds Max when it comes to plugins and addons. Now you can see it in two ways; cost and then functionality. Cost-wise it makes total sense to switch to Blender, 3ds max is expensive (like nearly £2,000 for just 1 years access or £5,000 for 3 years!) plus the worthwhile plugins/addons on top of that, well it’s not realistic, is it? This is of course under the assumption that you don’t pirate the software...Blender however is free. It’s free and updates to the application are free too, there’s no premium version, no lite version. It’s all free. What makes Blender great isn’t that it’s necessarily free but the plugin/addon library available at places like BlenderMarket is heavily stocked and documented. The only money that goes towards Blender are the addons that would make it such an effective piece of software for modelling which has only cost me - what, nearly £100? Cost-wise it’s a no-brainer. Duh, of course you’d take the time to learn Blender! Especially if you’re a business. However, that’s not really why I now use and call Blender my home. It’s the addons and what comes with that.
Blender is a pretty decent modelling application in its vanilla state however as others have said, the power of Blender comes by the utilization of addons & plugins. And because of these additions modelling has become fun again. It’s really, really fun. And quick, which is pretty important when you have to iterate a model based on feedback. This isn’t a promotion of anything, and if it is then it’s Blender itself but here’s a list of the plugins i use if you’re thinking of jumping ship:
HardOps/Boxcutter Ultimate Bundle ($27.50 as of writing this)
UVPackmaster2 ($29)
UV Toolkit ($19)
Poly Source ($0.99)
Textools (free)
F2 (free, already in Blender and needs activating)
LoopTools (free, already in Blender and needs activating)
And that’s it.
HardOps and Boxcutter is incredibly well documented and I use these for boolean/chamfer modelling as opposed to my old 3ds max workflow of subd modelling. It massively reduces the time to model complex geo.
UVPackmaster 2 is awesome. It uses clever algorithms to sort and pack your uv for you. I’ve tried a lot of these addons/plugins/apps but this is hands down the best uv packer out there. It’s pretty essential to my workflow now.
UV Toolkit is neat, it helps me sort and organise my uvs before packing them properly and it’s super easy to align islands if i need to offset some. Not essential but useful nevertheless.
Poly Source just tells me info about the mesh; NGones, quads and triangles and allows me to select them for quick editing.
Textools is pretty well known but i really only use it for the checkerboard mapping to check for distortions in the uv - i used this extensively in 3ds Max for unwrapping - namely for the texel ratio tools.
F2 extends the native functionality of creating faces. It allows you to create a face from a single vertex selection or a single edge selection, while retaining all the built-in functionality.
LoopTools, amongst other things, allows me to do some nice functions like circularise an edge loop or relax a section of edges.
This is all I use and you can see how inexpensive it is to have Blender as a perfectly acceptable modelling application in comparison to the very expensive 3ds Max. It’s incredibly functional for artists. Native Blender + these tools have made modelling great again. I recently made this water gun for Rust.
I was able to model this in less than half the time than it usually would. The speed at which I can iterate models now based on feedback is ridiculous. Before I got to this point I made around 2-3 other variations, the first done within a couple of days. All thanks to my new workflow. My usual workflow would to be to model the base mesh of an asset and then model some boolean shapes if the model is too complex to subd model it in, bring that into zbrush and use the boolean operations there to add or subtract shapes - but that's a destructive workflow and it means me having to use another piece of software when it shouldn't be necessary. This means that I can stay in Blender and boolean all day long!
Transparency + Support
This was a big thing for me. Transparency. Every week I'm able to read dev notes on what's going on in Blender development and it's so encouraging. And it's not like there's a really cool feature they've got going like a cloth simulation sculpting brush (which is AMAZING!) and we're having to wait a year or two before it's released. These new features are usually accessible to us in beta releases of the software which are freely accessible to all. 3ds Max however, like with the AI machine learning UV tool, we're having to wait a very long time before anything is released to the public, and even then will it be worth it? Will it work? Mmmmmmm well I'll leave that one for you to decide.
I feel like i have a lot of confidence with the Blender developers. I always have something to look forward to and they seem to really take on user feedback and the way it's going it seems they are incredibly focused on game development tools, whereas with Autodesk, it seems they've got so comfortable being the industry standard that they've perhaps slacked a little over the years? Not only this but everything is so well documented for native Blender and also the addons listed. It really is extensive. Anything and everything that I've initially struggled with in Blender I've found a quick solution to. Not only this but 'how-to...?' videos are abundant on YouTube and there are some that are dedicated to switching from 3ds max or maya to blender. Which is really important. One thing that helped the switch was the use of industry keymap which makes it easier for 3ds max or maya users to work with Blender. The only downside to this that every Blender tutorial is using native Blender keymaps so you're going to have to do some interpreting there.
All this combined makes it a clear and obvious choice to switch to. Modelling in Blender is fun and fast (check this short timelapse of some dude detailing a corridor section), it's substantially well supported not only by the devs but by the community with the extensive addons/plugins available. I almost feel like by using it I'm contributing to the development of better art tools. And not only this but it's encouraged me to explore other areas of game development that I've always wanted to try, like weapon animation (video below doesn't have audio for some reason so click the link!).
Conclusion
For me, it was so worth transitioning over to Blender. Modelling is fun again and it's incredibly quick. Was it necessary? Depends on how you look at it but i feel like it was. I've only ever seen a benefit from doing so. Would I write 3ds Max off entirely now? No, and I never would unless they decided not to improve the toolset for artists and bring something new to the table. 3ds max is really good and it's really good at what it does but Blender just makes so much sense now as an artist, and it's a modelling application that i would recommend to everyone to try. I'm constantly bombarding my works 3d art chat channel with blender updates and i think the evangelism is working.
I moved over to Blender slowly. Deadlines for work was one hurdle - preventing me from getting in there and working things out (but in the end I just went all in on a bigger asset to really get to grips with it), and as you can imagine, I am very comfortable in 3ds Max. However, I dabbled in Blender in my spare time, figuring out if i could transition certain workflows to Blender to make sure it was a good and worthwhile switch. The biggest hurdle really for me were springs. Blender creates them differently and it's the only process that takes longer than it does in 3ds Max, but it's no biggie. And if you're considering the switch I'd advise you to do the same, make sure your workflows - y'know the way you like to make assets can be easily transferred over. There's no point if the whole process takes longer, right? I started off by making smaller assets first, like the fireworks in Rust and then gradually I changed to it completely.
The thing is if you're reading this and are wondering if whether or not to switch the only thing I can say at this point is that why not just try it? It's not like you have to pay for Blender, and if you do it's not even $100. There are a lot of devs that are switching to using Blender for development like Ubisoft and i believe I read some Naughty Dog devs are using it too? But there is also big industry backing behind Blenders development. Companies are joining the development fund assuring it is progressing well, because what they are doing is being noticed throughout the industry, big time.
I don't think I'm just jumping ship because I've heard other have done the same but because, well, Blender is actually awesome, man. Try it.
There's more I could write, I did have an earlier version of this where I detailed a few things wrong with 3ds max but i dont think that's entirely helpful but I would love to know your experiences with 3ds max and Blender. If you have any questions also, I'd love to help. I hope this was somewhat articulate and helpful to whomever reads this.
Peace out, and God bless dudes and dudettes.
