State of 3D 2024

This chart represents sample sizes, not popularity. A more accurate representation of popularity is Google Trends.

Though all 3d softwares are at least 19 years old, the userbases have very different levels of experience.

To the right, you have experienced userbases - 84% of 3ds Max users started more than 2 years ago. On the left, the exact opposite - nearly half of Unreal Engine and Houdini users started less than 2 years ago!

There are several factors that could influence this including retention, marketing and sector growth. But it’s also likely driven by users switching from one software to another.

Interestingly, a whopping 87% of 3ds Max and Cinema 4D users are using the software professionally, compared to just 50-ish% of Blender, Unity and Unreal Engine. I suspect this is partly due to the previous Recency of Adoption graph, since most beginners start learning in a hobbyist capacity.

The outlier though is Houdini which despite it’s new user base, have a high 70% already using it professionally. This means either the Houdini skillset is so desirable that everyone can find employment immediately, or that most users were encouraged to learn it by an existing employer.

A few takeaways:

• Houdini has the widest usage across Media and Entertainment, but obviously the largest userbase in VFX.
• Cinema 4D has most users in Advertising and Animation.
• 3ds Max has the fewest users in Media and Entertainment, but fairs better in Technical visualization.
• Blender widest userbase is Animation. Filtering for professional users reveal higher usage in Advertising and VFX.
• Maya has the widest usage in Animation.
• Unity and Unreal were obviously largest in Games, but Unreal Engine had wider usage in other categories like Animation, Archviz and VFX.

A few takeaways:

• 3ds Max is clearly prioritizing Architectural and Industrial Visualization, with little else representation.
• Blender has the largest 3D printing userbase.
• Unity has a surprisingly large Educational usage base.
• Maya and Houdini have very little adoption in Technical Visualization.

Reaction from Andrew Price of Blender Guru :

It makes sense that users like Modelling. The hot key based workflow allows you create a lot with fewer clicks than other software. And the recently added “Geometry Node Tools” (node based workflow to create repeatable single actions) will likely give it an even greater advantage in the coming years.

But Simulations are without a doubt Blender’s worst feature. The fluid, smoke, fire and rigid body tools are buggy, broken and completely unusable for production (as I quickly discovered in my Shining tutorial). In my opinion, these tools should either be fixed or removed entirely, because they reflect poorly for the software.

Interestingly, users have polarizing opinions on UV editing, Sculpting and Rigging, which I’d put to the user demographics. Hobbyists would likely find the tools competent enough, but professionals could find them lacking compared to what they’re used to in other software.

Reaction from Nathaniel Capaccio of Digital Spaces :

I am pleased to see that modeling is ranked as a top strength for 3ds Max—it wouldn't be nearly as useful without it! On the other hand, it's no surprise that sculpting is noted as a weakness. Autodesk is also the developer of Maya, which seems more deserving of a tool like Sculpting than 3ds Max.

It is intriguing to note that the internal rendering engine (Arnold) is rated higher than animation and scripting. I was unaware that it was so widely used and accepted (I typically use V-ray and Corona). I am curious if the ratings for rendering strength would be even higher if the survey considered rendering with plugins, as I personally find Corona Render to produce some of my favorite visuals.

It's disappointing to see scripting ranked so low. At Digital Spaces, we've developed complex MaxScript functionalities, including integration with our web servers for one-click updates. Leveraging ChatGPT for MaxScript writing has been beneficial. MaxScript presents a steep learning curve, due in part to poor documentation and limited forum support; however, its capabilities are profound once mastered. For those looking to dive even deeper, development in C with their SDK is an option!

Nick Campbell from Greyscale Gorilla's Reaction:

Cinema 4Ds ability to build complex scenes using cloners and fields with just a few clicks really is still one of its most powerful and artist friendly features. Mograph tools still feel like magic every time I use them. And, now that Redshift is built in, you can get some truly amazing results without needing to buy another renderer.

The latest Simulation tools are getting more powerful with every release. The new pyro and particle system is a great first step towards built in particle and simulation. And the upgrades to Cloth and Rigid Body over the last few years have really reduced the “I need to learn Houdini” feeling people got when they used to hit C4Ds limitations.

I can definitely see how UV and Sculpting are at the bottom of the list. But some of these features may get better pretty fast now that Maxon owns ZBrush and are acquiring other 3D tech at a rapid rate.

Houdini is obviously the king of Simulation and Procedural tools. But has very little love in Sculpting and most importantly, Modelling.

Reaction from Henning Sanden of Flipped Normals :

Maya is widely regarded as the industry standard for rigging and animation, so these results are not surprising. Nearly all professionals use Maya for animating and rigging. Its modeling and UV mapping tools are also robust and feature-rich, arguably among the best out-of-the-box features available in any 3D software. When used with scripts and plugins, Maya becomes exceptionally powerful for modeling and UVs.

I'm surprised by the low rating of the internal render engine and shading, considering that Arnold is the default engine. Arnold is an incredibly powerful engine and is extensively used in VFX. While it's not the most flexible in terms of optimization, it is feature-rich and has been thoroughly production-tested, and produces excellent results.

The sculpting tools in Maya are basic but useful for quick adjustments, like using the grab brush to deform a model or the smooth and relax brushes to refine the mesh. However, they are not advanced enough for detailed sculpting tasks, unlike the capabilities you find in ZBrush.

Noel Widmer (12 years Unity experience), had this reaction:

I would disagree that Scripting is Unity’s strength. Because garbage collected languages result in slower games, hotter devices, and higher energy consumption. And this is made even worse on mobile, which happens to be mostly developed in Unity.

Interestingly, many users say the rendering, shading, and materials are it’s weakness, but I disagree. Unity has a very capable rendering engine, but it does require more work upfront to set up compared to Unreal.

Unity's Simulation physics, Animation, and procedural tools do exist, but they’re fairly basic. You’ll quickly reach the limits of these systems and find unpleasant quirks that require work arounds.

Rigging, modeling, UV editing, and sculpting receive a low score because they simply do not exist at all in Unity.

Unity suffers from mountains of technical debt that they seem to be unable to clean up. The engine receives buzzword features that few asked for, while decades-old bugs are forgotten and half-finished features are no longer worked on. Developing in Unity is uncomfortable at best. It’s skating by on past successes, that for now is enough to maintain market position.

Reaction from Matt Workman author of Cine Tracer :

It make sense that Rendering is UE’s most widely agreed upon Strength. Unreal Engine 5 is renowned for Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps, which combine to create very realistic results for real time. They even offer an offline Path Tracer engine which improves every version.

Unreal Engine is C++ at its core, but it has an incredible, fully featured visual scripting language called "Blueprints." I personally have shipped projects that were entirely written in Blueprints. UE5 also has Python support for automatic pipelines for import/export/etc.

Unreal Engine has been pushing hard to bring the traditional 3D animation pipeline completely in engine. Sequencer is the backbone for animating and Control Rig allows for creating all of the normal Maya animation rigs in the engine but they perform insanely fast for run time. I personally can't live without the new IK Retargeting tools which automates biped retargeting and supports all of the major MOCAP skeleton systems.

Modelling, UV Editing, Skeleton Creation, and Skinning has actually gotten surprisingly good in the most recent UE5 versions. I know that the UEFN community uses the in-engine modelling tools quite a bit. For simple models with basic skinning needs, you can definitely use the engine. But for a professional that is used to Maya, Max, Blender, and ZBrush the UE5 toolset isn't quite there yet, but it's improving every release.

Cinema 4D comes out on top, followed closely by Blender and (surprisingly) Houdini. 3ds Max and Maya have the most work to do.

This highlights the quality of documentation, availability of tutorials, community support and of course the user interface. Cinema 4D maintains its reputation as the easiest to learn, and Houdini reinforces it’s reputation as being the hardest to learn by far.

Not surprisingly, all softwares users scored lower when filtering to new users with less than 12 months experience. Showing that professionals often forget how hard it is to be a beginner.

All software showed a small reduction in stability scoring when filtering for professional usage. Which makes Houdini’s first place ranking even more impressive, as the majority of it’s users are using it professionally.

Not a huge variance, but Houdini, Blender and Unreal Engine users rank it as most performant. Maya and 3ds Max the least.

This question reveals not just price sensitivity but perceived value delivered.

Not surprisingly Blender users are extremely happy with it’s $0 price tag. Similarly, Unreal Engine users are happy that most of them don’t have to pay anything. And despite a similar fee structure, Unity came in lower than UE, likely due to the recent pricing debacle.

Cinema 4D, Maya and 3ds Max rank the worst by a considerable drop.

It’s interesting that the ranking of this question maps almost 1:1 to the overall satisfaction (NPS) of the software (revealed further down). Proving that in the 3D space, users expect rapid development.

Though this question specifically asks about the developers, it’s likely also a reflection of the users thoughts on it’s leadership, as the two are usually intertwined.

3ds Max and Maya at the bottom of the back reveal that Autodesk have the most work to do.

Not surprisingly, users of Houdini unanimously agreed it was best for VFX (98%). It was surprising to see it also rank quite heavily for games.

Most Maya users agree it’s best at Animation (89%). Cinema 4D for Advertising (83%), and obviously Unity & Unreal Engine for games (98%).

Although not first for any industry, Blender users recommend it for a widest range of uses.

3ds Max users don’t rank it strongly for any category. But it does much better in the Technical Visualization industries.

85% of 3ds Max users say that it’s best at Architectural Visualization. Which makes sense, as it’s the go to software for that niche, with many workflows for importing CAD data. Though interestingly, Blender and Unreal Engine received a sizeable recommendation too.

3D printing received poor consensus for all software, but Blender was the highest at just 36%. Education is a poorly understood category, but Blender users reached the highest consensus at 51%. Surprisingly 43% of Houdini users ranked it highly for Scientific / Medical visualization, yet only 5% of users previously stated they were in that industry.