Judging by what I see for sale here and at Rendo and RDNA, I think there are a lot of women using Studio and Poser. Lots of doll like characters, pixies and fairies. I don’t think there’d be as much stuff like that if it wasn’t selling. Seems to be someone mentioned some stats or info once in an earlier dustup on one of the old forums here.
I think ease of use along with the artistic qualities play into this - you don’t have to be heavily into tech to get things done in a lot of the more hobbyist oriented CG programs along with programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and the like.
...As to Blender, specifically…how can you ‘quantify’ the typical Blender user, when the user base is so diverse?
Thank you, I’ve been thinking exactly this since the beginning of this thread. To quantify any group of people with one set of characteristics is not only overly simplistic but a disservice to the community. It also builds walls between people, the same thinking that is often referred to as prejudice. Any community is a collection of values, very diverse. From my experience, the strongest characteristics of any community are only shared by 60% of the population at most.
It’s easy to look at characteristics that stand out when looking at a community of people (or animals, etc) but those characteristics partially stand out because they are stronger in the most vocal of the population, not because they are population wide to any massive degree. People like myself who find it hard to speak out often get underrepresented
My wife is not among them…and she freely admits that fact. She gets flustered if you change the desktop color scheme (now, if she changes it, then it’s okay…but first she has to remember/be shown how…every time she wants to change it).
Yes. I have hopes for my Grandaughter though, as both her Mum and Dad are teccies. My Son was training Teccies in fact. Now, after redundancy he is currently at Uni as a mature student, studying for a BSc and teaching degree. He then hopes to teach IT, preferably to disadvantaged and learning challenged youngsters.
My GD has grown up with a mouse in her hand, and is quite used to seeing computers in various stages of completion.
As to Blender, specifically…how can you ‘quantify’ the typical Blender user, when the user base is so diverse? I guess the one item is individuality….
Actually Andrew Price did a very interesting survey of Blender users a while ago, and posted a video of the results and his analysis on his website, blenderguru.
The average Blender user is a young male, 18-25 years old, a hobbyist, relatively new to Blender, who also uses 3DS Max, and tried Blender mainly because it’s free. And less than 25% have made money with Blender.
I kind of assumed that described pretty much the average DAZ Studio user, as well as the average Poser user. And probably the average Carrara user, too.
It does not. Blender represents a very small, insular,and in some ways rigid community within 3d at large. I’ve gone to a few of the conferences locally. Usually I was the only female, and the other one was a Maya user who left partway through (which I finally did at the last one I attended; the moderator was a fairly hostile sexist). The art students in the area of the college that surrounded us were of both sexes, even though it was a 3d area.
Gaming is almost half female now. A lot of that is social, admittedly, but all of those are women who participate in a 3d-based activity, and some of them are going to be interested in 3d art as well. Do not assume FPS gaming and porn - which skew heavily male in both users and developers - represent all of 3d.
And as for Poser and DAZ Studio… Cookie. Chip. Mavka. How many 25-year-old males do you think are using those? I bet almost none. Yet these are and have been viable figures in this market. Why? Because women do use these programs, and many women prefer cute renders to pretty ladies in miniskirts. The fact that the “this stuff is sexist” argument even comes UP in these forums about all of the scanty content is pretty good evidence women are a significant demographic. I’d like to think that there are enough mature guys to be causing that effect, of course. It’d be nice.
Oh, and by the way, what the hell is a “mod”? It’s a video game thing, right?
It meant something very different back in the 1960’s.
Anyway, I see it mentioned a lot in the 3D world. I guess a lot of guys who play video games use CG software to make their own stuff for the games or something?
I’ve actually never played a video game, so I’m clueless. Unless you consider a flight simulator a video game. But I got bored with that real quick.
A mod is a plugin or add-on to a game that adds content or makes changes to the base feature set. When I modded for Oblivion, I added armors to the game that were darker and more appropriate for undead characters, and I created undead races to play. I use many mods for Skyrim that adjust the gameplay and leveling, add a neat house for my characters, add some more armor and quest options, etc.
The Elder Scrolls series has been fairly mod-friendly since Morrowind, which is why many people have learned 3d in order to be able to use its toolset and add their own content to the games. With Blender, Max or Maya and the NIF script plugins, people could make things in their 3d program and add it to the game with a toolkit released by the videogames’ developer. With Skyrim it’s more difficult at present, but it’s still around and the mod community is just as large as for previous games.
Oh, and by the way, what the hell is a “mod”? It’s a video game thing, right?
It meant something very different back in the 1960’s.
Anyway, I see it mentioned a lot in the 3D world. I guess a lot of guys who play video games use CG software to make their own stuff for the games or something?
I’ve actually never played a video game, so I’m clueless. Unless you consider a flight simulator a video game. But I got bored with that real quick.
A mod is a plugin or add-on to a game that adds content or makes changes to the base feature set. When I modded for Oblivion, I added armors to the game that were darker and more appropriate for undead characters, and I created undead races to play. I use many mods for Skyrim that adjust the gameplay and leveling, add a neat house for my characters, add some more armor and quest options, etc.
The Elder Scrolls series has been fairly mod-friendly since Morrowind, which is why many people have learned 3d in order to be able to use its toolset and add their own content to the games. With Blender, Max or Maya and the NIF script plugins, people could make things in their 3d program and add it to the game with a toolkit released by the videogames’ developer. With Skyrim it’s more difficult at present, but it’s still around and the mod community is just as large as for previous games.
My oldest son is eagerly awaiting the updated NIFscripts…
