After 12+ years using Blender (since 2.5) I moved to Maya and not coming back no matter how many more promises I will hear. Blender is platform for plugins. Nearly every aspect of it needs to be fixed by plugin. It wouldnt be necessary if it was actually good software. Over a decade I was listening to that very same preaching - "it will soon get better!", "look, it is adopted more widely every day!", "look how dynamically it is developed" etc. After 12 years since I started using it - it was still very promising :D Then I moved to Maya and I was amazed how simple can things be. Blender is driven by fanatic community that largely dont see its shortcomings. They are often in love with devs and no matter how unfinished software they get from them - they are still happy with it. Its not worth it - I rather pay for Maya Indie once a year and have great software then broken, half baked platform for plugins.
i moved to maya last year, used blender for like 3-4 years before, and again not gonna go back to blender, maya is lot better with lot of things, people for some reason hate it without even using it, i get it blender has amazing features, but they can't just decide something is bad or good without even using it. blender users are just toxic with maya, if you are gonna make money with something you should invest in something, that's why maya is being used in industry for decades, and blender users will just tell like blender has been used in this movie, film. I was one of them last year, but now i regret what i was saying about Maya back then.
I am actually in the oposite side to you guys, 5 years using Maya (even taught it proffessionaly) and now use Blender. My workflow has sped up by several times. Never would want to model or render in Maya ever again.
I used cinema 4D, Blender, Maya.. The conclusion I came to is that maya and C4D are fantastic for Sub-D modeling but blender is far behind in this topic. But for making cool scenes and fast renders and blocking and concept for your work blender is the key it's very fast and easy even without plugins. Lastly C4D is the middle ground it's easy and professional but unfortunately I was using pirated version to try it so it was crashing and stopped using it.
@@ramyissa20 maybe you need to know how to use sub D modeling in Blender. I think is far superior to that of Maya at least. You can have non destructive supporting edge loops and more options
As a senior Maya user, I moved to Blender recently and can seriusly say that I can not go back to Maya, at least in the modeling department.. Im not the only one ether.. there are so many people in the industry (Games) who are adopting it, simply because is just a lot faster to work with and a lot more intuitive. Now if you add the right addons, then Maya is not even close. I am not a VFX artist, I am in the Games industry. In the games industry Maya is loosing a lot of ground.
I had different experience though, to me it seems blender is dragging behind in modeling & uving. many issues are not apparent to a new user but over time i discovered many pitfalls blender has over maya, sure the workflow is fast but the tools are not well designed & polished. Edge flow is not in Blender only through an addon and it doesn't work well. loop cuts doesn't start from any point, sometimes when you're close to the mesh and start a loop cut it's off screen & you have to click and drag it. The bridge edge loops doesn't work well on a surface along Z axis & doesn't have direction option to change like in Maya, you're only left with using the spin tool which is not direct & intuitive. and the list goes on. The UV editing in blender is basically outdated without using addons like texttools, uv packmaster, magic uvs all this without any visual indication of uv border in 3d viewport or the editor there is a new addon blender still in beta that tries to added these "Maya" feature to Blender called UV flow. without these you're basically gone pull your hair.
@@xox8717 I think you need to learn Blender properly. Is a different workflow but it is a far superior for modelling. Feel free to ask me questioning privately and I can do my best to give you proper guidance
If you want to be a freelance 3D Generalist Artist Blender is perfect. However, regardless how the Industry is (VFX or Feature for example), you should learn Maya. But The software is not the most important thing to learn, it's a just a tool. Both of them need to have a good understanding of the 3D Art. The way to think a good modeling (or Animation for an other example) in Blender is the same in Maya ect...
You forgot about the most important point, most vfx artists earn less than 100k early, and for them, Maya's indie license is about 300 bucks a year and you still get the full software set without trimming down of features. And students can get the full thing for free. So I don't think price is really a problem even for a freelancer, because you will probably end up spending more than than that anyway on paid blender plugins if you are doing any advanced work like muscle sims etc. which is built into Maya. Not a hater, just mentioning a point that most people miss while comparing the software
Yes, the video is for the beginners to understand which software to use. Muscles and skin simulation is a very niche field job. For those tasks there are a bunch of programs such as Houdini, Unity with Ziva dynamics and maybe Maya. Most of the jobs on freelance usually don't require that knowledge. In the studio yes, as i mentioned in the video that's why Maya is a studio tool. But i wouldn't say that you get the full set, for Maya i still have to use third party plugins such as nginskintools and advanced skeleton mesh, which are paid plugins for commercial projects, for Blender there are extremely large amounts of free plugins and paid plugins.
good point. question for distributed rendering, say i have multiple PCs i could set that up with blender for free, but if i choose to go with Maya , do i have to buy mulitple licenese shalll me or my team want to render on multiple machines?
@@herbertng522 You can use it simultaenously on 3 computers with the same license. If you have a big team, it might be worth getting the enterprise license because then you get proprietary support, for eg. in case of a bug you can directly contact the Autodesk team to fix it (something not currently possible in Blender). Also, you could export your scene from Maya to Blender if you wanna render in Cycles, or to Unreal Engine 5 for fast rendering.
20 some odd year Maya user here with formal classroom training. I've recently started to try blender when Maya went to subscription only basis. 3 years on blender and I'm finding it a very difficult program to learn. Just to do some of the simplest things that I do in Maya with just a couple of mouse clicks requires being a rocket scientist to know how to set it up in blender to do those same simple things. I run into walls every turn of the way. I have been able to produce some simple architectural work in blender but that's about it.
Funnily enough, but coming from a blender to Maya i found it to be the other way, things that are easier to do in blender are taking more steps to make in Maya, I'm to this day using Maya for rigging, but i think it makes sense to switch at some point to blender because features are way too OP already. But that's the thing i think it's a matter of perspective, as you had education with Maya you're already used to it, and that's how it is most of the time. By the end of the day the truth is it doesn't really matter which program you use, because it's just a tool, as long as you're feeling comfortable working with it, it's all that matters. Although you do save money with blender if the use of Maya is not required. Do you mostly do modeling?
@@ProjectAtlasmodling the fact that I got productive work done in Maya, vs the fact that to do even a simple camera follow path with banking around turns requires rocket scientist skill levels. Maya is like the car with the automatic transmission. Blender is like the Model T Ford where you have to shift the gears, adjust the choke, turn on/off the fuel petcock, etc. all yourself.
@@basspig or your not doing it write and trying to do it the Maya way inside of blender. Which won't work. Stop fighting the software and start learning it
Mate, I moved from Blender to Maya after over a decade of using Blender and I Was shocked how many things in Maya are actually LOT easier and straight forward. Example - moving pivot. You just push D and you are moving it in Maya. In Blender it used to be that you had to snap 3D cursor to where you want pivot and then move snap pivot to 3d cursor - insanely convoluted for no reason. Later I guess they added menu that you have to choose from to manipulate just pivot, then you had to go back to it to turn it off again... Madness. Or lets say you want to delete face - in maya you select it and push delete and its gone. In Blender after pushing delete you are presented with completely unnecessary choices - 11 or so - instead of deleting bloody face. Blender is just weird for no reason software. Theres million examples like this. Also Cycles is nowhere near Arnold when it comes to results. Blender users are only happy with speed, but why I should be happy with having shitty result quicker? I rather wait for good result. No man, youre absolutely right. And Blender users in its great majority will never admit Blender shortcomings - they are fanatic about it. I used to be one of them - I know. Screw that man, Maya Indie is the way to go. Constant struggle with Blender and waiting for next, next, next version that supposedly will fix it is not worth it.
There are several reasons why maya is still the industry standart, and it's not just because people are used to it. You say that people don't want to learn new software, I can tell you after 10 years in the industry that this is just not true. Sure some people are complacent, but most artists are nerds at the core and are interested in new tech and tools. Now onto the reasons : - Maya has been developped from the ground up in a production context, to be more precise it was tailored to Disney when they were making 'Dinosaur' in 1999. As a result, maya is highly flexible when it comes to developpement, scripting and pipeline, and has an very extensive API with an open architecture, and a decent community of devs and TDs. - Because of this, studios have a whole set of proprietary tools and pipeline already working with maya, and changing that would mean rebuilding everything from the ground up and losing money since you'd have to halt production. - Maya has the best animation performance and rigging tools, and that will probably remain true for quite a while.
Invitator's dilemma The process is which an idea, way of working, or product replaces a previously dominant idea, way of working, or product. This can be slow at first but always speeds up rapidly near it's conclusion. We are seeing this process at work and it will remove Maya and max as the primary general 3d package. Their is not much Autodesk can do about this other than: A) try to delay the inevitable by improving their product B) pretend to be doing something and milk their customers as long as possible to maximize profits You can guess what Autodesk chose
I started learning Blender a week ago. Its shortcut/hotkeys reliant and I think that's the major learning curve. I installed Maya recently and while the UI looks dated, it helps that the navigation looks way simpler. The basic shapes are a click away compared to Blender where you have to use a hotkey and select the shapes you want to use. I do like both though. I made the donut with blender and now trying to make a simple scene with it. Though I'm also eager to learn Maya as most companies use it along with 3DsMax.
You should learn the hotkeys no matter what program you use. It will allow you to work 10x faster so you can transfer your ideas from your brain to the software without losing your train of thought.
I use for max for most of my work then render it in blender, I hope to learn Maya because of its complex rigging capabilities, blender is good but relying on blender alone isn't wise, if something else does the job faster learn it for example procedural textures in blender can require tones of nodes and a lot if time to prepare but in substance painter it's a click away.
maya indie is a lot cheaper (approx 350 - 400 usd per year), and is fully featured (and you can use it commercially with a income limit of 100K) maya's animation tools blows Blender out of the water with ease.. Just fact. In fact, it's the number one animation toolset in the 3d space of any program in existence. (you might laugh, but that because you then are oblivious to the reality). Also it's officially compliant with all kinds of technology used in the industry (plugins, services etc etc), blender does not (just a hand full) And no i am not a maya fanboy at all, but let's keep realistic at what maya does right (and best even)
Can you please give examples of animation tools in Maya that are better than Blender's tools besides rigging? In studio we use Maya and sometimes blender, i do find rigging more comfortable in Maya for myself, altough i have to use nginskintools plugin for weight painting which is not included by standart, altough new update that came out recently added some of those features, and they're quite dope. As i mentioned in the video for the beginner the advanced tools are not going to matter that much, especially if you have to pay for them.
Blender is free, thus its user base is huge and increasing every single day. Yes, most users are amateurs, but a small portion of them will become professionals, trained with Blender, and loving Blender. Blender is improving faster than its competitors. It's still lacking in some areas, but it's getting better... rapidly. The future belongs to Blender, not the near future, maybe, but it's coming. More users, more potential people becoming pros, exponential rate of growth and fast improvement, and free. Blender isn't a toy anymore.
I used for 12+ years. I heard that mantra about Blenders future for OVER A DECADE. Its still unfinished, unpolished platform for plugins. I dont know how long you want to live mate, but over a decade of waiting and still not seeing it happening is enough for me :D Thats why you need so many plugins to fix it - because without them its just a toy. Simple example - importing FBX. Crappy and unfinished. "Oh, but thats Autodesks fault! Its closed format!" say devs. Well, you can get "Better Fbx Importer & Exporter" plugin that has no problem with FBX. Somehow it wasnt a problem to plugin creators. Same goes for nearly everything. UV in Blender is crap - but there are tons of great plugins so its entirely possible to make it well. Same thing with retopo - hacky, half baked way of doing it in Blender itself. Unless you get plugins then is OK. Every damn aspect of that software needs plugin. You want to add object in sculpt mode? Impossible! I mean impossible for Blender devs because for plugin creator it wasnt. The list goes on and on and on... Blender is broken, unfinished, cumbersome. Only if you spend ton of money for plugins - its starts to be half decent. But then you depend on dozens of plugin creators to update them.. Not worth all the struggle.
Why are you saying this as if other 3D softwares won't be getting updates to keep up with industry needs and trends 💀 the dick riding is craaaazzzyyyyy
I'm using Blender since almost 8 years, and have before test a lot of other softwares, and one of my keypoints why I have stick with Blender was the feeling, it just have felt right to use and the Overlay is also easy to understand and work with, and yeah that is my personal opinion on it, everyone has it own and when people like Maya more then it is fine for me becasue everyone works with what he feels more confortable with, ^^ but to make some points, I using Blender mostly for modeling, sculpting, rigging and animating for games, also here and there for render short videos, and for that Blender is free it makes a perfect job there and is in no way behind any other software, sure there are things that could work out a bit more, but the devs are constatly working on it and improving stuff, and for again that it is free it should not be a problem to wait a bit for features, and when you can not work then, and that is one of the biggest advantage Blender has, you can just use Add-ons and since it is open source you can expand it infinitly, ^^ and speaking of Add-ons I have read some comments here that mention the Add-ons as downside and there I just have to say, I not even using extra Add-ons I use Blender in Vanilla state and had never Problems with it, ^^ you only need to know how to use the functions and how to get to your goal, Blender even without Add-ons can do a loooot of stuff, also stuff where people say you have to use other Programs like Z-Brush or Marvelouse Designer, but honestly when the person that says that has not at least a few years of experience then I know that they only say that because tey have heard that you should use these Programs not knowing that the tools in Blender are enough to create what you need, sure Z-Brush and Marvelouse Designer are "expert" Programs, but that means nothing else as that you get stuff in it that is used for specific task that in a normal base for a Game Artist for example are not used often, in case of Z-Brush you have a lot of extra brushes that can be useful but only if you need them, the standart Brushes are still the same as in Blender and you can do the same things, and even you lack something the settings can be changed or the goal can be achieved on other ways, not to mention that Z-Brush is not even a 3D Program it is 2.5D what is the only reason that makes it so performant, and when looking at Marvelouse Designer yeah it is great to make all kind of clothes and it also has some extra features, BUT Blender also has a good cloth Physic and with a few extra steps can be used in a similar way to Marvelouse Designer, ^^ that being said I always hate when people ask me what is the best Program or what should be used, where it is not a question of what other thinks it is, it is more that it depends on what are you willing to spend, time or money, because either you learn the ways in a allround Program like Blender or you spend Money to have more specialised features that you maybe not even often use then, but the most important is still as mention at the beginning, where do you feel most confortable with, when you think Blender is better and easier as I feel it is, then use it, but when you feel better with Maya or other Software then go for it and let no one else say something else to you, becasue in the end you are the Person that has to work with it, and as long it is not demand from the company you work in (if you work in a company) there is no reason why you should torture yourself ^^
I’m in college right now for technical animation. They teach maya for obvious reasons-it’s the industry standard. But I admit every now and then I look at Blender and it’s real time physics and lighting renders and get a little jealous. Don’t think I’ll switch though just because I don’t wanna get too unfamiliar with Maya’s workflow. Great video!
you didn't mention that blender's fbx/obj export sucks @ss (there is a paid plugin and even then bones don't export correctly), blender has a lot of fancy features that almost no one cares but if you want to work have an intention to become a 3d artist you and you are serious about it, you shouldn't really start blender unless if you are on a budget / for some one who started with blender I can tell you that blenders UI doesn't make a lot of sense compare to maya, blender is good for only hobbyist that aren't serious about it you can make good stuff with blender but it's more time consuming and brain numbing.
They started FBX integration in 2011, and Blender is still missing more than 100 FBX functionalities, Blender is not developed for pros, it's developed so a community of hobbyists keeps giving donations to the BI!
to ppl who are new to this would prefer blender but when u start learning maya first you will actually get a better info on how to do this and that than blender does ( i recommend getting maya first if possible and learn it first , even tho maya is very intimidating than blender ,trust me you will learn blender way faster after learning maya not cause its "advanced" well its part of it but it force you to learn in a order in which you can deliver the final product faster ) what i meant is learning curve in maya is very tedious + very much freedom than blender ( i used both software)
As a person who has been learning blender for 4 months just wow lol, there’s nothing easy about blender it’s one of the clunkiest buggiest most frustrating piece of software I have learned, the tutorials on blender on CZcams are ass, most of these “blender tutorialists” just ignore you and then have the nerve to tell me too subscribe. Don’t bother asking for help nobody in the blender community has any idea what there doing meaning for professional work blender will ruin all you’re project’s, blender is ok it has potential but it’s just a toy for now sadly. And people get mad when I say the truth well Duh they don’t do big projects they model 50 poly projects at max lol. I do not tell lies nor hate blender it’s the honest truth. Blenders headaches literally. Stop lying and sayng blender is easy.
It's up to the individual, i personally use on a daily basis, Maya, blender and Houdini. Each one of them has their strong side. It took me 1 year to learn 3d and 1 more year to advance in it. Now i work in one of the biggest VFX studios in Europe. It's up to the individual how they manage their time, skill and talent. Nobody owes you anything in terms of explanation, i was grateful for any tutorial available online. If you keep on going with this attitude it's going to take far more that 4 months for you to learn anything
@@pointlessimon when you do something do you do it half assed or all the way and the correct way that way you’re work speaks for itself???, I don’t know about you but I’d be embarrassed posting dumb ass tutorials were I talked super fast left out all the important details and then have like a thousand comments sayng how much the tutorial hasn’t helped anyone, defeating the purpose of being a “teacher” 😂, yes bro and I work for Warner studios👍🏽
@@higorss if its an ongoing show then its difficult to switch caz the pipe line is build around it and if its a new project where they setting up stuff then its the time you can switch and ppl are not switching that much to make a dent on autodesk . Am only talking about inside the industry, hobbiest and freelancers they have the freedom to switch . You might ask big industries are using blender then its not true they are using blender with support of maya and in very limited use case and that too not in high budgets caz i can tell from first hand i have tried blender and used to for some professional works it still has its limits .
@@higorss Says who, the hype machine that is the Blender Institute, the Blender fans who are everywhere saying that Blender is the best thing since sliced bread?
A minor thing i heard you say, you don't know why the big studios use it. Its because we have built pipeline tools for many years, decades even that leverage maya as part of the engine. So switching to another program would require every single pipeline tool to be recreated. You can imagine the nightmare and cost that would be. Let alone the learning curve for every in house staff member to relearn another piece of software that fundamentally does the same thing.
I needed to stop your video on 1:10 and tel you like 420 lover I like your style of comunicating with people, geting strict to point, honest... Cool bro, I will watch to the end cuz I'm a beginer who wanna know more :D
Blender has been used in low budget movies like "Everything Everywhere All St Once" all the way to big budget blockbusters like Marvel's "Captain America Civil War." As a self-taught 10 yr noob it's cool to see it's potential and the community is the best!!
In these blockbusters its only used for some pre-pre-pre-pre visualization or a concept but Blenderheads like to say "hey, it was used in Captain America!". Because one dude who worked on the movie used it for quick concepting.
@@tlilmiztli blenders fan base are very cult-ish. It’s perfect in every way (even though you need to be buying addons for everything) and everything else is trash 💀
Man blender used for when they need to quickly add few renders during multiverse scene and commissioned few freelancers which they used blender. It's like used in 5 frame alltogether.
VFX artist and 3d generalist here, used both. Blender is better, trust me, and cycles with a proper customization + integrated compositor is almost on the same level as Arnold's output, maybe even better. To me Blender's main problem is pain of managing heavy scenes with lots of polygons. People are saying that Arnold is so amazing, blah blah blah, I wouldn't say so. In maya you have v-ray which runs on both GPU and CPU and you are getting about same level quallty renders within much less time. What I love about Cycles is that I don't need custom maps for masking and I can do my custom shaders in blender without any texture inputs.
Yes Cycles is great, i use mostly cycles and redshift these days. Redshift is extremely customizable and also utilizes power for CPU and GPU, but sometimes it requires way too much of Vram that's where cycles comes in for help
I have moved to blender from Maya and I'd say obviously I'm not switching back but also cuz both are pretty good softwares but blender has a lot more free to learn things online and it's much more fun
Really awesome video! Thank you! Wondering how can I get the student version from Autodesk as I can't seem to find the right link to sign up for it, even though I'm using my edu email and Maya seems like it'd be the best fit for me based on your video. Thanks for any help you can provide!
Hi, yes you on the official Autodesk website there's an education&student access page where you'll have to provide proof of your studies to get the license. It's one year for free
talking about arnold, i will say you are wrong because the VFX guyz of Indian Blockbuster RRR said in a interview that they ported their scene from 3ds max to Cycles for rendering. if arnold was capable, why they will do that.
imo Maya is amateurish and unintuitive. No professional should need 500 little icons to manually click, when it’s faster to use hotkeys and have a clean interface. Modeling a ferarri in Blender can be done with just a keyboard and in 10 minutes. It will take 6 hours and more strenuous clicking in Maya. Maya also lacks a ton of basic functions that Blender has, it’s frankly bewildering. And super buggy.
@@pointlessimon I meant you forget to mention about the plugin feature of blender. Anyone who has never used blender will not know about this feature. Plugins make life so much easier. And loved your video
@@sumitdubey6478 thanks! Ah, i see yes the addon feature which is amazing, Maya also has plugins feature as well. But for blender there is an enormous amount of plugins available making life so much more easier
Tried the 2024 auto retopo tool, crashed again and again. Just so many bug in it now ,still have 2 months of indie sub but just uninstalled in disgust. I have Blender, Zbrush, 3dCoat, Plasticity none of them give me grief.
Yes, i also had the program crash when i was doing auto retopo, it requires a proper setting up before launching it, but most of the time I use either Zremesher in Zbrush or Instant-meshes software for a quick retopo. The 3D coat is also great, but I didn't have time to fully check it out yet
I advise anyone who is using Maya or any Autodesk tool to learn Blender, the experiences that you spend learning such a tool were a waste of time and a real joke for us as artists and the whole industry, when you know that there is a beast production smart tool that can do all that in a fast and creative way and plus it's FREE What are you looking for more when everything in your hand is FREE! Wish you all the best!
No one in professional setting uses blender. Blender can't even playback any mid to complex rigs, or display big scenes, even way to intergrate into houdini for example.
Because there is no one who will be capable of using it to its full potential, Maya is not a good tool for artists in terms of speed and freedom of creativity. Blender is a free tool that can do things none of that software can do with the speed of creativity and freedom that it's only in Blender, it also has some upsides of course but the speed of creativity no software reached yet, even Cinema 4d copied the layout of Blender which this tool I was using before. It's very hard to convince others who was using a tool such as Maya, 3d max, etc for 30 years and then tell them there is a beast tool that can do all that your tools do in a fast and creative way, but when they will see the result they will shut there mouth. Then what's the point to work with people who tell you to do this and teach you their techniques to pay you a salary that can never grow, and stick with their old techniques and tools just to pay that salary, instead of getting out of all these things and create your own company, make your own identity, and bringing a technology that no one in the world can does this is where everyone will see that blender is something else and they will ask you to learn your skills. So don't say anything before you try something. So don't talk before trying and experimenting with something because you really don't know anything about Blender and what this kind of smart tool is capable of doing. But in the end, a tool is only a tool the main answer to all this is the result and how fast and what you can make with it. Good luck
@@maniacarta Blender is crippled with limitations, for starter, it can't handle large scenes, if you have too many polygons, particles, texture, or volumes in your scene, Blender will crash, I can make Blender crash on demand, if you are using Blender, you are literally limiting yourself as an artist, and you are limiting what you can offer your client if you are a freelancer!
I have scene of 60000000 polygon and blender 4 never crashed even once yet so I am not sure what are you talking about here, but anyway tool is only tool the important thing is the result and to be honest I only use blender for every production without jumping to any other tool, and my clients are switching to blender because what I sold to them, so good luck@@gcharb2d
well, tbh you need a looooot of practice to really comprehend a professional project. Creating a bunch of lowpoly models and a meh environment and playing with some preset effects is not even close to a pro level work. Just try out this "old" 3ds max not only in modeling and rendering but also in rigging and particle system then you'll be surprised as hell...that's a promise kido ;)
After 12+ years using Blender (since 2.5) I moved to Maya and not coming back no matter how many more promises I will hear. Blender is platform for plugins. Nearly every aspect of it needs to be fixed by plugin. It wouldnt be necessary if it was actually good software. Over a decade I was listening to that very same preaching - "it will soon get better!", "look, it is adopted more widely every day!", "look how dynamically it is developed" etc. After 12 years since I started using it - it was still very promising :D Then I moved to Maya and I was amazed how simple can things be. Blender is driven by fanatic community that largely dont see its shortcomings. They are often in love with devs and no matter how unfinished software they get from them - they are still happy with it. Its not worth it - I rather pay for Maya Indie once a year and have great software then broken, half baked platform for plugins.
i moved to maya last year, used blender for like 3-4 years before, and again not gonna go back to blender,
maya is lot better with lot of things, people for some reason hate it without even using it,
i get it blender has amazing features, but they can't just decide something is bad or good without even using it.
blender users are just toxic with maya,
if you are gonna make money with something you should invest in something, that's why maya is being used in industry for decades,
and blender users will just tell like blender has been used in this movie, film.
I was one of them last year, but now i regret what i was saying about Maya back then.
I am actually in the oposite side to you guys, 5 years using Maya (even taught it proffessionaly) and now use Blender. My workflow has sped up by several times. Never would want to model or render in Maya ever again.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I used cinema 4D, Blender, Maya.. The conclusion I came to is that maya and C4D are fantastic for Sub-D modeling but blender is far behind in this topic. But for making cool scenes and fast renders and blocking and concept for your work blender is the key it's very fast and easy even without plugins. Lastly C4D is the middle ground it's easy and professional but unfortunately I was using pirated version to try it so it was crashing and stopped using it.
@@ramyissa20 maybe you need to know how to use sub D modeling in Blender. I think is far superior to that of Maya at least. You can have non destructive supporting edge loops and more options
As a senior Maya user, I moved to Blender recently and can seriusly say that I can not go back to Maya, at least in the modeling department.. Im not the only one ether.. there are so many people in the industry (Games) who are adopting it, simply because is just a lot faster to work with and a lot more intuitive. Now if you add the right addons, then Maya is not even close. I am not a VFX artist, I am in the Games industry. In the games industry Maya is loosing a lot of ground.
That's very interesting! Thanks for sharing
Plus it's free. don't forget to mention that
I had different experience though, to me it seems blender is dragging behind in modeling & uving. many issues are not apparent to a new user but over time i discovered many pitfalls blender has over maya, sure the workflow is fast but the tools are not well designed & polished.
Edge flow is not in Blender only through an addon and it doesn't work well.
loop cuts doesn't start from any point, sometimes when you're close to the mesh and start a loop cut it's off screen & you have to click and drag it.
The bridge edge loops doesn't work well on a surface along Z axis & doesn't have direction option to change like in Maya, you're only left with using the spin tool which is not direct & intuitive.
and the list goes on.
The UV editing in blender is basically outdated without using addons like texttools, uv packmaster, magic uvs all this without any visual indication of uv border in 3d viewport or the editor there is a new addon blender still in beta that tries to added these "Maya" feature to Blender called UV flow.
without these you're basically gone pull your hair.
@@xox8717 I think you need to learn Blender properly. Is a different workflow but it is a far superior for modelling. Feel free to ask me questioning privately and I can do my best to give you proper guidance
If you want to be a freelance 3D Generalist Artist Blender is perfect. However, regardless how the Industry is (VFX or Feature for example), you should learn Maya. But The software is not the most important thing to learn, it's a just a tool. Both of them need to have a good understanding of the 3D Art. The way to think a good modeling (or Animation for an other example) in Blender is the same in Maya ect...
You forgot about the most important point, most vfx artists earn less than 100k early, and for them, Maya's indie license is about 300 bucks a year and you still get the full software set without trimming down of features. And students can get the full thing for free. So I don't think price is really a problem even for a freelancer, because you will probably end up spending more than than that anyway on paid blender plugins if you are doing any advanced work like muscle sims etc. which is built into Maya. Not a hater, just mentioning a point that most people miss while comparing the software
Yes, the video is for the beginners to understand which software to use. Muscles and skin simulation is a very niche field job. For those tasks there are a bunch of programs such as Houdini, Unity with Ziva dynamics and maybe Maya. Most of the jobs on freelance usually don't require that knowledge. In the studio yes, as i mentioned in the video that's why Maya is a studio tool. But i wouldn't say that you get the full set, for Maya i still have to use third party plugins such as nginskintools and advanced skeleton mesh, which are paid plugins for commercial projects, for Blender there are extremely large amounts of free plugins and paid plugins.
Exactly - I am freelancing on Maya Indie. I dont want the struggle with Blender shortcomings - I rather pay for a peace of mind.
good point. question for distributed rendering, say i have multiple PCs i could set that up with blender for free, but if i choose to go with Maya , do i have to buy mulitple licenese shalll me or my team want to render on multiple machines?
@@herbertng522 You can use it simultaenously on 3 computers with the same license. If you have a big team, it might be worth getting the enterprise license because then you get proprietary support, for eg. in case of a bug you can directly contact the Autodesk team to fix it (something not currently possible in Blender). Also, you could export your scene from Maya to Blender if you wanna render in Cycles, or to Unreal Engine 5 for fast rendering.
Been on blender for 4 months and I hate it it’s really clunky and I’m starting too buy lots of Addons. It’s really buggy.
20 some odd year Maya user here with formal classroom training. I've recently started to try blender when Maya went to subscription only basis. 3 years on blender and I'm finding it a very difficult program to learn. Just to do some of the simplest things that I do in Maya with just a couple of mouse clicks requires being a rocket scientist to know how to set it up in blender to do those same simple things. I run into walls every turn of the way. I have been able to produce some simple architectural work in blender but that's about it.
Funnily enough, but coming from a blender to Maya i found it to be the other way, things that are easier to do in blender are taking more steps to make in Maya, I'm to this day using Maya for rigging, but i think it makes sense to switch at some point to blender because features are way too OP already. But that's the thing i think it's a matter of perspective, as you had education with Maya you're already used to it, and that's how it is most of the time. By the end of the day the truth is it doesn't really matter which program you use, because it's just a tool, as long as you're feeling comfortable working with it, it's all that matters. Although you do save money with blender if the use of Maya is not required. Do you mostly do modeling?
Every problem has things it does faster than it's competitor or in a more sencible way
@@ProjectAtlasmodling the fact that I got productive work done in Maya, vs the fact that to do even a simple camera follow path with banking around turns requires rocket scientist skill levels. Maya is like the car with the automatic transmission. Blender is like the Model T Ford where you have to shift the gears, adjust the choke, turn on/off the fuel petcock, etc. all yourself.
@@basspig or your not doing it write and trying to do it the Maya way inside of blender. Which won't work.
Stop fighting the software and start learning it
Mate, I moved from Blender to Maya after over a decade of using Blender and I Was shocked how many things in Maya are actually LOT easier and straight forward. Example - moving pivot. You just push D and you are moving it in Maya. In Blender it used to be that you had to snap 3D cursor to where you want pivot and then move snap pivot to 3d cursor - insanely convoluted for no reason. Later I guess they added menu that you have to choose from to manipulate just pivot, then you had to go back to it to turn it off again... Madness. Or lets say you want to delete face - in maya you select it and push delete and its gone. In Blender after pushing delete you are presented with completely unnecessary choices - 11 or so - instead of deleting bloody face. Blender is just weird for no reason software. Theres million examples like this. Also Cycles is nowhere near Arnold when it comes to results. Blender users are only happy with speed, but why I should be happy with having shitty result quicker? I rather wait for good result. No man, youre absolutely right. And Blender users in its great majority will never admit Blender shortcomings - they are fanatic about it. I used to be one of them - I know. Screw that man, Maya Indie is the way to go. Constant struggle with Blender and waiting for next, next, next version that supposedly will fix it is not worth it.
There are several reasons why maya is still the industry standart, and it's not just because people are used to it. You say that people don't want to learn new software, I can tell you after 10 years in the industry that this is just not true. Sure some people are complacent, but most artists are nerds at the core and are interested in new tech and tools. Now onto the reasons :
- Maya has been developped from the ground up in a production context, to be more precise it was tailored to Disney when they were making 'Dinosaur' in 1999. As a result, maya is highly flexible when it comes to developpement, scripting and pipeline, and has an very extensive API with an open architecture, and a decent community of devs and TDs.
- Because of this, studios have a whole set of proprietary tools and pipeline already working with maya, and changing that would mean rebuilding everything from the ground up and losing money since you'd have to halt production.
- Maya has the best animation performance and rigging tools, and that will probably remain true for quite a while.
Invitator's dilemma
The process is which an idea, way of working, or product replaces a previously dominant idea, way of working, or product.
This can be slow at first but always speeds up rapidly near it's conclusion.
We are seeing this process at work and it will remove Maya and max as the primary general 3d package. Their is not much Autodesk can do about this other than:
A) try to delay the inevitable by improving their product
B) pretend to be doing something and milk their customers as long as possible to maximize profits
You can guess what Autodesk chose
I started learning Blender a week ago. Its shortcut/hotkeys reliant and I think that's the major learning curve. I installed Maya recently and while the UI looks dated, it helps that the navigation looks way simpler. The basic shapes are a click away compared to Blender where you have to use a hotkey and select the shapes you want to use.
I do like both though. I made the donut with blender and now trying to make a simple scene with it. Though I'm also eager to learn Maya as most companies use it along with 3DsMax.
You should learn the hotkeys no matter what program you use. It will allow you to work 10x faster so you can transfer your ideas from your brain to the software without losing your train of thought.
I only use Blender for Sculpting, anything else I use Maya 😌
I use for max for most of my work then render it in blender, I hope to learn Maya because of its complex rigging capabilities, blender is good but relying on blender alone isn't wise, if something else does the job faster learn it for example procedural textures in blender can require tones of nodes and a lot if time to prepare but in substance painter it's a click away.
maya indie is a lot cheaper (approx 350 - 400 usd per year), and is fully featured (and you can use it commercially with a income limit of 100K)
maya's animation tools blows Blender out of the water with ease.. Just fact. In fact, it's the number one animation toolset in the 3d space of any program in existence. (you might laugh, but that because you then are oblivious to the reality). Also it's officially compliant with all kinds of technology used in the industry (plugins, services etc etc), blender does not (just a hand full)
And no i am not a maya fanboy at all, but let's keep realistic at what maya does right (and best even)
Can you please give examples of animation tools in Maya that are better than Blender's tools besides rigging? In studio we use Maya and sometimes blender, i do find rigging more comfortable in Maya for myself, altough i have to use nginskintools plugin for weight painting which is not included by standart, altough new update that came out recently added some of those features, and they're quite dope. As i mentioned in the video for the beginner the advanced tools are not going to matter that much, especially if you have to pay for them.
Its $305 in US or less depends on the country of origin. In Mexico its now for $214. So its really bloody good price for full Maya.
@@pointlessimon I would say, do the research without the blender bias hat on. :)
@@mr_don_key I'm actually a Maya and blender user 😊
Blender is actually started to be industry standard
Blender is used alot in small companies
Maya
Strong argument 💪
Blender is free, thus its user base is huge and increasing every single day. Yes, most users are amateurs, but a small portion of them will become professionals, trained with Blender, and loving Blender. Blender is improving faster than its competitors. It's still lacking in some areas, but it's getting better... rapidly.
The future belongs to Blender, not the near future, maybe, but it's coming. More users, more potential people becoming pros, exponential rate of growth and fast improvement, and free.
Blender isn't a toy anymore.
I used for 12+ years. I heard that mantra about Blenders future for OVER A DECADE. Its still unfinished, unpolished platform for plugins. I dont know how long you want to live mate, but over a decade of waiting and still not seeing it happening is enough for me :D Thats why you need so many plugins to fix it - because without them its just a toy. Simple example - importing FBX. Crappy and unfinished. "Oh, but thats Autodesks fault! Its closed format!" say devs. Well, you can get "Better Fbx Importer & Exporter" plugin that has no problem with FBX. Somehow it wasnt a problem to plugin creators. Same goes for nearly everything. UV in Blender is crap - but there are tons of great plugins so its entirely possible to make it well. Same thing with retopo - hacky, half baked way of doing it in Blender itself. Unless you get plugins then is OK. Every damn aspect of that software needs plugin. You want to add object in sculpt mode? Impossible! I mean impossible for Blender devs because for plugin creator it wasnt. The list goes on and on and on... Blender is broken, unfinished, cumbersome. Only if you spend ton of money for plugins - its starts to be half decent. But then you depend on dozens of plugin creators to update them.. Not worth all the struggle.
@@tlilmiztli I wanted to study but now I think
Why are you saying this as if other 3D softwares won't be getting updates to keep up with industry needs and trends 💀 the dick riding is craaaazzzyyyyy
I'm using Blender since almost 8 years, and have before test a lot of other softwares, and one of my keypoints why I have stick with Blender was the feeling, it just have felt right to use and the Overlay is also easy to understand and work with, and yeah that is my personal opinion on it, everyone has it own and when people like Maya more then it is fine for me becasue everyone works with what he feels more confortable with, ^^
but to make some points, I using Blender mostly for modeling, sculpting, rigging and animating for games, also here and there for render short videos, and for that Blender is free it makes a perfect job there and is in no way behind any other software, sure there are things that could work out a bit more, but the devs are constatly working on it and improving stuff, and for again that it is free it should not be a problem to wait a bit for features, and when you can not work then, and that is one of the biggest advantage Blender has, you can just use Add-ons and since it is open source you can expand it infinitly, ^^
and speaking of Add-ons I have read some comments here that mention the Add-ons as downside and there I just have to say, I not even using extra Add-ons I use Blender in Vanilla state and had never Problems with it, ^^ you only need to know how to use the functions and how to get to your goal, Blender even without Add-ons can do a loooot of stuff, also stuff where people say you have to use other Programs like Z-Brush or Marvelouse Designer, but honestly when the person that says that has not at least a few years of experience then I know that they only say that because tey have heard that you should use these Programs not knowing that the tools in Blender are enough to create what you need, sure Z-Brush and Marvelouse Designer are "expert" Programs, but that means nothing else as that you get stuff in it that is used for specific task that in a normal base for a Game Artist for example are not used often, in case of Z-Brush you have a lot of extra brushes that can be useful but only if you need them, the standart Brushes are still the same as in Blender and you can do the same things, and even you lack something the settings can be changed or the goal can be achieved on other ways, not to mention that Z-Brush is not even a 3D Program it is 2.5D what is the only reason that makes it so performant, and when looking at Marvelouse Designer
yeah it is great to make all kind of clothes and it also has some extra features, BUT Blender also has a good cloth Physic and with a few extra steps can be used in a similar way to Marvelouse Designer, ^^
that being said I always hate when people ask me what is the best Program or what should be used, where it is not a question of what other thinks it is, it is more that it depends on what are you willing to spend, time or money, because either you learn the ways in a allround Program like Blender or you spend Money to have more specialised features that you maybe not even often use then, but the most important is still as mention at the beginning, where do you feel most confortable with, when you think Blender is better and easier as I feel it is, then use it, but when you feel better with Maya or other Software then go for it and let no one else say something else to you, becasue in the end you are the Person that has to work with it, and as long it is not demand from the company you work in (if you work in a company) there is no reason why you should torture yourself ^^
I’m in college right now for technical animation. They teach maya for obvious reasons-it’s the industry standard. But I admit every now and then I look at Blender and it’s real time physics and lighting renders and get a little jealous. Don’t think I’ll switch though just because I don’t wanna get too unfamiliar with Maya’s workflow. Great video!
'The Maya interface looks REALLY REALLY old'
...bro the Blender interface is a confusing mess of tabs and windows. Maya is simple. Not old.
you didn't mention that blender's fbx/obj export sucks @ss (there is a paid plugin and even then bones don't export correctly), blender has a lot of fancy features that almost no one cares but if you want to work have an intention to become a 3d artist you and you are serious about it, you shouldn't really start blender unless if you are on a budget / for some one who started with blender I can tell you that blenders UI doesn't make a lot of sense compare to maya, blender is good for only hobbyist that aren't serious about it you can make good stuff with blender but it's more time consuming and brain numbing.
They started FBX integration in 2011, and Blender is still missing more than 100 FBX functionalities, Blender is not developed for pros, it's developed so a community of hobbyists keeps giving donations to the BI!
it doesn't matter if you are a hobbyist or a pro when you can't export shit.@@gcharb2d
UPD: I reuploaded this video as i didn't notice that i had issue with audio, thanks everyone for watching!
:)
Blender edge slide clamp off tool is not available im struggling in maya that I should aline pivot to the the edge and then move it
to ppl who are new to this would prefer blender but when u start learning maya first you will actually get a better info on how to do this and that than blender does ( i recommend getting maya first if possible and learn it first , even tho maya is very intimidating than blender ,trust me you will learn blender way faster after learning maya not cause its "advanced" well its part of it but it force you to learn in a order in which you can deliver the final product faster ) what i meant is learning curve in maya is very tedious + very much freedom than blender ( i used both software)
As a person who has been learning blender for 4 months just wow lol, there’s nothing easy about blender it’s one of the clunkiest buggiest most frustrating piece of software I have learned, the tutorials on blender on CZcams are ass, most of these “blender tutorialists” just ignore you and then have the nerve to tell me too subscribe. Don’t bother asking for help nobody in the blender community has any idea what there doing meaning for professional work blender will ruin all you’re project’s, blender is ok it has potential but it’s just a toy for now sadly. And people get mad when I say the truth well Duh they don’t do big projects they model 50 poly projects at max lol. I do not tell lies nor hate blender it’s the honest truth. Blenders headaches literally. Stop lying and sayng blender is easy.
It's up to the individual, i personally use on a daily basis, Maya, blender and Houdini. Each one of them has their strong side. It took me 1 year to learn 3d and 1 more year to advance in it. Now i work in one of the biggest VFX studios in Europe. It's up to the individual how they manage their time, skill and talent.
Nobody owes you anything in terms of explanation, i was grateful for any tutorial available online. If you keep on going with this attitude it's going to take far more that 4 months for you to learn anything
@@pointlessimon when you do something do you do it half assed or all the way and the correct way that way you’re work speaks for itself???, I don’t know about you but I’d be embarrassed posting dumb ass tutorials were I talked super fast left out all the important details and then have like a thousand comments sayng how much the tutorial hasn’t helped anyone, defeating the purpose of being a “teacher” 😂, yes bro and I work for Warner studios👍🏽
I work in the industry and am gonna give you a simple answer why ppl dont switch. Time is money and the pipeline is maya friendly
but ppl are switching 🤔
@@higorss if its an ongoing show then its difficult to switch caz the pipe line is build around it and if its a new project where they setting up stuff then its the time you can switch and ppl are not switching that much to make a dent on autodesk . Am only talking about inside the industry, hobbiest and freelancers they have the freedom to switch . You might ask big industries are using blender then its not true they are using blender with support of maya and in very limited use case and that too not in high budgets caz i can tell from first hand i have tried blender and used to for some professional works it still has its limits .
@@higorss Says who, the hype machine that is the Blender Institute, the Blender fans who are everywhere saying that Blender is the best thing since sliced bread?
A minor thing i heard you say, you don't know why the big studios use it. Its because we have built pipeline tools for many years, decades even that leverage maya as part of the engine. So switching to another program would require every single pipeline tool to be recreated. You can imagine the nightmare and cost that would be. Let alone the learning curve for every in house staff member to relearn another piece of software that fundamentally does the same thing.
I needed to stop your video on 1:10 and tel you like 420 lover I like your style of comunicating with people, geting strict to point, honest... Cool bro, I will watch to the end cuz I'm a beginer who wanna know more :D
Comparing Blender to Maya is comical... you´re basically comparing paint to photoshop.
What a clear and useful info, thanks!!
I'm glad to help! 😊
How to blend in Maya?
Easier :D
Maya has an easier curve than blender
Wow, seems like Maya is far and away the clear winner, I didn't realize Blender had so many problems.
Blender has been used in low budget movies like "Everything Everywhere All St Once" all the way to big budget blockbusters like Marvel's "Captain America Civil War." As a self-taught 10 yr noob it's cool to see it's potential and the community is the best!!
In these blockbusters its only used for some pre-pre-pre-pre visualization or a concept but Blenderheads like to say "hey, it was used in Captain America!". Because one dude who worked on the movie used it for quick concepting.
@@tlilmiztli blenders fan base are very cult-ish. It’s perfect in every way (even though you need to be buying addons for everything) and everything else is trash 💀
Man blender used for when they need to quickly add few renders during multiverse scene and commissioned few freelancers which they used blender. It's like used in 5 frame alltogether.
Your video is full of half and misinformation
this
VFX artist and 3d generalist here, used both. Blender is better, trust me, and cycles with a proper customization + integrated compositor is almost on the same level as Arnold's output, maybe even better. To me Blender's main problem is pain of managing heavy scenes with lots of polygons. People are saying that Arnold is so amazing, blah blah blah, I wouldn't say so. In maya you have v-ray which runs on both GPU and CPU and you are getting about same level quallty renders within much less time. What I love about Cycles is that I don't need custom maps for masking and I can do my custom shaders in blender without any texture inputs.
Yes Cycles is great, i use mostly cycles and redshift these days. Redshift is extremely customizable and also utilizes power for CPU and GPU, but sometimes it requires way too much of Vram that's where cycles comes in for help
I have moved to blender from Maya and I'd say obviously I'm not switching back but also cuz both are pretty good softwares but blender has a lot more free to learn things online and it's much more fun
As I have no cash, Blender is King!
What is the salary of 3rd animation?
arnold changes now and its faster than cycle in blender
Really awesome video! Thank you! Wondering how can I get the student version from Autodesk as I can't seem to find the right link to sign up for it, even though I'm using my edu email and Maya seems like it'd be the best fit for me based on your video. Thanks for any help you can provide!
Hi, yes you on the official Autodesk website there's an education&student access page where you'll have to provide proof of your studies to get the license. It's one year for free
@@pointlessimon thanks for the super fast reply!
talking about arnold, i will say you are wrong because the VFX guyz of Indian Blockbuster RRR said in a interview that they ported their scene from 3ds max to Cycles for rendering. if arnold was capable, why they will do that.
Arnold is a very slow render, Cycles is much faster
imo Maya is amateurish and unintuitive. No professional should need 500 little icons to manually click, when it’s faster to use hotkeys and have a clean interface. Modeling a ferarri in Blender can be done with just a keyboard and in 10 minutes. It will take 6 hours and more strenuous clicking in Maya. Maya also lacks a ton of basic functions that Blender has, it’s frankly bewildering. And super buggy.
Bro you forgot to talk about blender plugin feature.
Which one?
@@pointlessimon I meant you forget to mention about the plugin feature of blender. Anyone who has never used blender will not know about this feature. Plugins make life so much easier. And loved your video
@@sumitdubey6478 thanks! Ah, i see yes the addon feature which is amazing, Maya also has plugins feature as well. But for blender there is an enormous amount of plugins available making life so much more easier
@@pointlessimon Maya has long had an active script/plugin community. With many items being free. And blender has that too, with over 30,000 items!
Nice!
Keep going, man!
Thanks man! ❤️
Its BiFrost not Bitfrost .....
Tried the 2024 auto retopo tool, crashed again and again. Just so many bug in it now ,still have 2 months of indie sub but just uninstalled in disgust. I have Blender, Zbrush, 3dCoat, Plasticity none of them give me grief.
Yes, i also had the program crash when i was doing auto retopo, it requires a proper setting up before launching it, but most of the time I use either Zremesher in Zbrush or Instant-meshes software for a quick retopo. The 3D coat is also great, but I didn't have time to fully check it out yet
@@pointlessimon Yea I used Zremesher, the Maya auto looks like the 3dsMax version 2022. that one worked fine.
I advise anyone who is using Maya or any Autodesk tool to learn Blender, the experiences that you spend learning such a tool were a waste of time and a real joke
for us as artists and the whole industry, when you know that there is a beast production smart tool
that can do all that in a fast and creative way and plus it's FREE
What are you looking for more when everything in your hand is FREE!
Wish you all the best!
No one in professional setting uses blender. Blender can't even playback any mid to complex rigs, or display big scenes, even way to intergrate into houdini for example.
Because there is no one who will be capable of using it to its full potential, Maya is not a good tool for artists in terms of speed and freedom of creativity.
Blender is a free tool that can do things none of that software can do with the speed of creativity and freedom that it's only in Blender, it also has some upsides of course but the speed of creativity no software reached yet, even Cinema 4d copied the layout of Blender which this tool I was using before.
It's very hard to convince others who was using a tool such as Maya, 3d max, etc for 30 years and then tell them there is a beast tool that can do all that your tools do in a fast and creative way, but when they will see the result they will shut there mouth.
Then what's the point to work with people who tell you to do this and teach you their techniques to pay you a salary that can never grow, and stick with their old techniques and tools just to pay that salary, instead of getting out of all these things and create your own company, make your own identity, and bringing a technology that no one in the world can does this is where everyone will see that blender is something else and they will ask you to learn your skills.
So don't say anything before you try something.
So don't talk before trying and experimenting with something because you really don't know anything about Blender and what this kind of smart tool is capable of doing.
But in the end, a tool is only a tool the main answer to all this is the result and how fast and what you can make with it.
Good luck
@@maniacarta Blender is crippled with limitations, for starter, it can't handle large scenes, if you have too many polygons, particles, texture, or volumes in your scene, Blender will crash, I can make Blender crash on demand, if you are using Blender, you are literally limiting yourself as an artist, and you are limiting what you can offer your client if you are a freelancer!
I have scene of 60000000 polygon and blender 4 never crashed even once yet so I am not sure what are you talking about here, but anyway tool is only tool the important thing is the result and to be honest I only use blender for every production without jumping to any other tool, and my clients are switching to blender because what I sold to them, so good luck@@gcharb2d
@@gcharb2d Hello, I've been learning blender for 1 week. Do you think I should start learning Maya?
well, tbh you need a looooot of practice to really comprehend a professional project. Creating a bunch of lowpoly models and a meh environment and playing with some preset effects is not even close to a pro level work. Just try out this "old" 3ds max not only in modeling and rendering but also in rigging and particle system then you'll be surprised as hell...that's a promise kido ;)
Way too many limitations with Blender, so if I had to choose between those two, I would go with Maya!