State of 3D 2024

State of 3D 2024

The 3D industry is fragmented. Blender users don’t talk to Cinema 4D users, and VFX users barely know Archviz users even exist. Yet as an artist, you’re expected to know which tool is right for which job.

So last month I created a survey that aimed to answer the age old question: Which software is best for what user?

Survey Sample

There were 6,251 respondents , which came from the following sources:

  • X - 150,000 followers. Due to my channel, they skew towards Hobbyist generalists.
  • LinkedIn - Posted to 20,000 followers. They skew mostly professional, and a wide mix of industries.
  • This Week in 3D Newsletter - Posted to 284,000 followers. A mix of software, with professional and hobbyist users.
  • Poliigon - 820,000 artists, who skew primarily towards archviz.

Demographics

Software Usage
Recency of Adoption
Professional Usage

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

Industry Usage

The following two charts are worth remembering for the rest of the subsequent graphs, as each software prioritizes use in a different industry. So a user from a non-prioritied industry (eg. VFX in Unity) will likely rank the software more negatively.

Media and Entertainment
Technical Visualization

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.

Capabilities

Whether a software is meeting your needs depends heavily on industry alignment. For example, a VFX artist will have very few of their needs being met in 3ds Max, as it’s not designed for it. So any broad userbase is harder to satisfy than a narrow one. For this reason, it’s an amazing achievement that Blender users needs are so well met despite having the widest usage by far.

It’s encouraging that despite all the grumblings on forums, every userbase on average feel their needs are being met at least “Somewhat well”.

Surprisingly, filtering to only Professional users yield almost no difference. Which challenges the idea that professionals reach the limits of software more than hobbyists.

Feature Strengths and Weaknesses

Two questions were asked back to back: Which of these features are the software’s strength, and which are it’s weaknesses?

These charts do not reveal which software has the best feature, only which features it’s users like or dislike.

Blender
3ds Max
Cinema 4D
Houdini
Maya
Unity
Unreal Engine

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.

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User Experience

Now we’ll explore the role that user interface, ease of learning, performance and stability play in satisfaction.

Usability
Ease of Learning
Stability
Performance
Cost

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

Development

Speed of Development
Confidence in Developers

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.

Recommended Usage

To help answer the most important question, users were asked which industry is the software best suited for. Animation, Advertising, Games, VFX, Architectural Visualization, Industrial Design, 3D printing, Scientific/Medical, Education.

Unlike the previous industry charts, this reveals which industry users of all industries would recommend to others.

Importantly though, these graphs reveal consensus not superiority. Features that are suitable to one niche are likely to have a higher percentage of consensus than a software with a more scattered userbase. So while the responses relate to the software’s features, it’s also a reflection of the software’s marketing, community reputation, and nicheness.

Media and Entertainment
Technical Visualization

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.

Overall Satisfaction

One of the most important benchmarks in understanding the loyalty and growth of a product is the gold standard Net Promoter Score or NPS . The score is calculated by asking the question “ On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend this product to a friend or colleague?

Responses are then categorized as either promoters (9-10) or detractors (0-6). Passives (7-8) is ignored. The final score is calculated as NPS = % Promoters − % Detractors .

It produced a rather shocking divide…

Overall Satisfaction

The difference between positive and negative scores are stark. It appears there are two camps: Software that users enjoy (Blender, Houdini and UE), and software that users are disappointed in (Unity, Cinema 4D, Maya and 3ds Max).

Most concerning is that a negative score signifies that users are likely to active persuade a friend away from the software. So unless the score improves (or market size grows despite this) it’s userbase can nosedive quickly.

Blender was the clear winner here, but it’s also the only software that is 100% free. And free is a very forgiving price point. Making it all the more impressive that Houdini users love it so much, because it’s not cheap or easy to use. Unreal Engine is the most loved game engine by a long shot, driven in part by groundbreaking developments like Lumen and Nanite, which were largely possible due to the success of Fortnite.

The followup question asked users what the software could do to obtain a higher score. The top three responses in order of frequency were:

  1. Blender : Improve the user interface, increase stability and improve simulation tools.
  2. Houdini : Improve the user interface, modelling tools and increase education availability.
  3. Unreal Engine : Improve the user interface, increase stability and improve the modelling tools.
  4. Unity : Improve the user interface, increase stability and improve pricing.
  5. Cinema 4D : Improve the pricing, stability, and user interface.
  6. Maya : Lower the cost, improve the user interface and increase stability.
  7. 3ds Max : Improve the user interface, lower the costs and improve the speed of development.

One takeaway from this is that almost every software would make it’s users happier by focusing on improving the user experience.

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