Well, Blender 4.0 was released as a stable release a few days ago and as you know, there are some new features and changes, but not all of them are good. I would also like to give my unqualified opinion on this. I have to admit that I have come to really love Blender, but that wasn’t always the case. I come from a Maya background and I only got into Blender when they released version 2.8, which was about 5 years ago.

Since then, I’ve really become a big fan of Blender and the Blender Foundation. But I’ve been following for a few weeks now on YouTube, in the communities and on social channels that Blender is being over-hyped. Don’t get me wrong, I love Blender and it’s a great piece of software, but this talk like „Blender is better than Maya or Max combined“… „Blender is better than Cinema 4D“ or „Blender can do it better here or there“… all complete nonsense.

Sure… in some places Blender and the Foundation actually do things better than other software developers. But that doesn’t mean that Blender now beats every other software in the 3D universe by far just because they have introduced „Light-Linking“ in Blender. You could already do this „Light-linking“ in Maya 20 years ago, even under „Mental Ray“. This function has also been available for several years in Cinema 4D, VRay and Corona, to name just the most important ones.

What else do we have? Oh yes… the much-discussed „Geometry Nodes“. Well, to be completely honest… as a Blender fan and user, I’m certainly very excited to see where the journey will take us in this regard. But at the moment, I see the „Geometry Nodes“ as more of a nice gimmick or a big playground for the add-on developers or for smaller and larger automatisms, but nothing more. I haven’t yet seen a video or examples where the functionality of the „geometry notes“ has knocked my socks off, nor anything that could really be used in real everyday life. It may be that I still don’t know much about this, but I do understand the principle behind it.

Blender is definitely great and Blender is also fun for me. The fact that you can explore the 3D world with Blender in an almost playful way, whether you are a beginner or an advanced user, is wonderful, inspiring and fascinating at the same time. But to hear on almost every major channel and in what feels like every second video that Blender will soon knock Maya, Max or Cinema off their thrones is more than exaggerated at the moment and a little over the top for my taste.

It may be that I have no idea, it may also be that I have overlooked something… or not understood something properly, quite possibly. But I think… the best conclusion on my part here would be… Guys, calm down and take a deep breath. As long as Blender doesn’t one day make your coffee in the morning and bring it to your bed… Blender will unfortunately remain just a great tool. On that note, have a great start to the week. 😉