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I was reading this article yesterday: 'The best 3D modelling software in 2022'

As a blender studio subscriber & hobbyist, I'm so grateful such incredible software has no barrier to entry, especially for creatives in developing countries.

You can see this reflected in this great video of the worldwide blender community from last years blender conference https://youtu.be/uEjmbsiflMU?list=PLa1F2ddGya_8Wzpajwu1EtiS8...

  Autodesk Maya $4590 per year
  Zbrush $895
  Houdini $4495 per year
  Cinema 4D $3495
  3ds Max $1700 per year
  Modo $1596
  Lightwave $995

https://www.creativebloq.com/features/best-3d-modelling-soft...

⬐ archerx

To be fair you can get 3DS Max or Maya for $250 a year with a hobby licenses. You can get Houdini for free or super low price as well.

⬐ erichocean

For Houdini, you listed the price for the version used by major VFX studios.

Houdini Indie (with no feature limitations) is only $269 per year, and you can also learn Houdini for free too with Houdini Apprentice (again: no feature limitations).

Independent VFX artists earn well under the $100K/year revenue ceiling for Houdini Indie, so $269/year is their actual "cost."

⬐ ohgodplsno

Zbrush and Houdini are still in their own category, untouchable though. Blender is getting close to the sheer pleasure that is sculpting in Zbrush, but there's still quite a ways to go. And Houdini's particle work is unequaled.

It's well worth watching and discussing the entire video, including Ton's introduction and close, bracketing all the amazing contributions by blender artists and developers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24951550

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEjmbsiflMU

I think he saved the important personal news to discuss at the end, so it didn't distract from the virtual conference's focus on Blender itself, its community, and developers.

Ton is an unstoppable lucky force of nature: First he survived a vicious ceiling attack, now he survived leukemia!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJwG-qt-sgk&ab_channel=Blend...

In the introduction, Ton says that it has been a year of introspection and renewal, and describes how the Blender organization has been restructured.

That's followed by a series of mind blowing videos by a diverse worldwide bunch of talented Blender artists and developers.

In his closing statement, Ton tells what has happened to him in the past months, explains his change of perspective, and the implication and changes at the Blender Foundation.

Ton Roosendaal's BCON2020 Blender Conference closing address transcript:

https://youtu.be/uEjmbsiflMU?t=5427

I think it is a quite common effect in films.

Imagine, you are standing in the middle of a waterfall.

It is noisy, it is messy, it is colorful, it is wet.

You see everything is falling down.

Suddenly stops, the jets are coming down.

You see a bit of splashes.

You are standing there in the darkness.

On a black mirror.

That's how it feels when the doctor tells you that you have leukemia.

On February 24th, this year I was urgently hospitalized because I was developing bruises all over my body.

I started to bleed on my mouth.

The doctor said go to the hospital. Ton, we have to examine you.

At midnight I got the infamous bad news delivery by the doctor that I have acute leukemia of the quite rare kind.

It is called APL, which is not very common, but it is very lethal.

So usually you don't survive two weeks with this, unless, of course, the treatment works.

So that's what happened.

They immediately gave me blood transfusions and chemotherapy, and luckily after a few days I was recovering.

So I quickly moved from the critical phase to the phase of that you may get cured.

Four weeks later I was released from the hospital.

I was strong enough to join the rest of the world in the ... lockdown, staying at home.

After five weeks I had my first bone marrow test, which was extremely good.

And cancer was in remission, the doctor said. We are going to take you to the next phase, to cure you fully.

And that's called the maintenance phase.

Maintenance, right?

Then he said, well ... actually it is 7 months of treatments in which you have to be four months in hospital.

Not full time. But imagine in the afternoon you go to the hospital, they hook you up with the bag of poison, you wait three hours, you get sick, you go home, go to bed, in the morning you feel a little bit better.

And in the afternoon you go back to the hospital.

They hook you up, and you get sick again.

That's for 4 weeks, and then you get 4 weeks to recover, another 4 weeks getting sick, and 4 weeks to recover, another 4 weeks to get sick, another 4 weeks to recover, another 4 weeks to get sick!

It was last Friday, the last of the chemotherapy.

And this morning I went to the doctor again to discuss the tests I had.

And luckily my blood is fantastic, the bone marrow is looking really good, I could be declared cured.

But there was one little test they are still waiting, is the DNA test, which will take another 2 weeks to get.

But the doctor said I shouldn't worry about that.

I'm recovering extremely well.

So basically I've got my life back

So ...

And oh, how much I would have loved to sit together, today, at the conference with everyone because there would have been a conference and we would have thrown an enormous party not this year.

So I'm telling you this because this whole experience has had a profound impact on me, on my personality, on my life of course, plus I had time to think.

And I learned a couple of lessons.

First, getting cancer and surviving it it is not a fight. It is not something you win, something you lose.

You only need one thing. A little bit of discipline of course, to take care of yourself, eat well, do some exercises.

But what you need is luck.

And I was lucky.

I was lucky that science found the right treatment for me.

This is only 15 years old. This treatment for people with this kind of leukemia.

I was lucky to have family, friends around me to stand by.

I was lucky to have a team here in the company to stand by and to have.

Francesco Siddi to replace me for 8 months, doing fantastic job on it.

So I was lucky to live in the Netherlands, where there is a universal health care for everyone.

So there was not a moment that I had to worry about what would the treatment cost, and the doctors didn't have a moment to think other than what can we do for Ton, to help him, to cure him, and to make it as good and easy as possible for him.

So next time if you see people having cancer, don't wish them strength, or in Dutch "sterkte", just say good luck, and I wish you well, or a good day, a good evening.

Other things that I learned was that I want to start taking better care of myself, and I want to, I have a feeling that I was sacrificing myself too much.

So I want to put myself more forward, and also take care better of myself in a way that I can pay myself a little bit better. So I can afford a little house outside of Amsterdam with a garden.

I also mentioned last year that at some moment I have to step aside from Blender, for the future, to allow other people to come in.

And the process is been sped up, but not so much that I want to step down, but to get very strong people around me to help making Blender strong, and keep it strong, and move on, and step forward.

Because the main thing I learned was that I was really really not ready to let that go.

I couldn't let go of Blender, because that' s my life' s work.

Blender is life, right.

Blender is a community.

It is a team of people here.

It is everybody who is contributing.

It's the developers.

The bug fixers.

It is the people that make add-ons.

It is even the people who complain, or the people use Maya and don't like Blender.

It is the forum trolls.

And even the people who want to have the game engine back.

So all of them are the people I love.

And all of them I feel like is my family.

And I would never let go of that family.

So, enough drama, right?

I want to end with a little more happy note.

As you all know 2020 is not very nice.

It is a year that we are going to forget.

But the happy message is that 2020 didn't get me down, and I want to spread that positive vibe with everyone.

So please take care of yourself, take care of each other, and a little bit of Blender.

And I see you next year in Amsterdam, or somewhere else.

Bye Bye!

Cut.

⬐ mkaic

Loved this conference, and love the Blender community! I’m really hoping to be able to actually go to BCon Amsterdam next year

⬐ bmer

I am a bit confused. Is the conference only 1 hour 38 minutes long?

⬐ codetrotter

Seems like it yes. There are very many people in the video though according to the timestamps in the description of the video, but each of them only have a very short amount of time. I’m currently at the very start of the video. Will be interesting to see what the people in the video are going to say in such short time.

⬐ cturtle

Yes. Instead of the typical 30 minute live presentations over three days they decided to have users and developers send in 2 minute video submissions. The live conference is always a highlight for the community, and they didn't feel like an attempted online recreation would be as successful, so they kept things smaller. There is an additional video [1] that was live streamed before the "conference" video was made public.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCR2VYSViQw

⬐ unwind

If you have never gone, and feel even the slightest connection to Blender, it is really recommended.

It truly is a warm and welcoming community, that of course combines deep technical/programming skills with artistic magic. Fun!

Also, Amsterdam is just amazingly great.

⬐ IanCal

I went back when I was about 16 I think, though it seems weird to write that now. Really lovely community and was great to put faces to names on the old forum.

⬐ morpheus1729

What a lovely video! Enjoyed it thoroughly.

⬐ scarredwaits

Ton's closing remarks were very touching, he was clearly emotional about planning his succession. I admire him greatly for all he has offered over the years.