Add preferences option to change ( y up ) in blender 2.81

The world base is y up all 3d software in world the y up except blender the main reason that many people not use blender because y not up and this the main reason why big studio like pixar not use blender y not up its not hard to change the developer can do it easey take the chance that blender 2.81 is alpha and make y up its big deal blender make amazing update in tools and have to correct the axes if I can do it by my self I will do it is official blender 2.81 alpha if any developer can contact with me to tell me how to change y to up in official blender alpha we can add this option in preferences

1 Like

Max is Z up, UE4 is Z up and many other softwares are Z up, it all depends on the standard picked by the software, but no, not all the other softwares in the world are Y up :slight_smile:

And BTW this has nothing to do with a big studio choosing or not choosing Blender for their work, nowadays it’s a totally trivial thing that barely affects no one because it’s considered in general in importers/exporters and communication

Also Blender 2.81 was released some time ago, 2.82 is in beta and 2.83 is in alpha :slight_smile:

With all that said, I’m not against having a Y-up option in preferences, but as far as I know it’s not an easy task at all, it requires a ton of work that it’s not worth the effort.

3 Likes

Pixar uses their own Software for rigging and animation, and Maya for the other tasks like modeling
etc also because Maya is the Industry standard so it’s easy for them to release some of their tech since other Studios also use it
 Y or Z UP doesn’t make a difference when using the Software it’s only when you move your data to another one.

No it’s all not that simple as you might think. First, as the others already stated there are quite some other coordinate systems also sort of standard. And having Y up is not the only choice needed to align with others. The next thing is if you want to have z axis direct out of the screen or into the screen. And again both options are common in other softwares. So differences will stay. Coordinate systems are defined as right handed or left handed coordinate systems. If you calculate or store transforms as Euler you will face a gimbal lock, and for different rotation orders in different moments. That has implications for differing systems. Overall the best thing would have been to add an abstraction layer for the coordinate system in between early on, but its not there. So the code is full of implicit assumptions what coordinate system is used, many calculations may rely on these assumptions, like tangents, binormals, and tons of other stuff. And if that would be adapted correctly, you would have to think about being backward compatible to older blend files, you would have to think about collaborative work and file exchanges if the systems on different blender installations differ in case of an adjustable coordinate system.

Believe me, I also would prefer having Y up. And much more I’d wish there were just one standard used that would unify things like this among all softwares, as I partially disagree with Juan, it’s trivial for storing vertices or alike, but it’s more complicated if math is involved to store things implicitly like in not fully baked animations. But he is right, that if an exporter manages to circumvent arising problems than working with different systems is ok. And in fact most softwares do that in the importers and exporters, it’s always an attractive option to do it there, because it’s an isolated area where it will have to be done.

I personally think it’s an annoying part that there’s no common standard for that. And for blender it’s very likely much work to change, and as it’s easier for import/export it’s generally not likely to come at all.

1 Like

Maya is industry standard because Softimage is bought and killed and there is no other commercial software left. Autodesk is really food in penetrating into many media schools.

Easy peasy. Just turn your monitor on its side.

2 Likes

I believe Blender and Maya have opposite handed-ness. Therefore, you also have to look at your monitor through a mirror.

Softimage was sold left and right by companies until Autodesk got their hands on it and of course they’ll kill it since it’s developement stagnated for a long time even it’s core team had big issues internally.

Autodesk is a commercial company that mostly work in manufacturing,Archviz
etc the Entertainment division is a very small part but their marketing team is doing all the job
like it or not this is what put most of their products on the map, while Blender doesn’t have any strategy of that kind ,it’s just out there for anyone to grab if they wish to and for a long time did it’s own thing and didn’t want to conform to any standard.

@John1 Maya is industry standard
 in what industry?

I don’t like at all when people takes the VFX industry as the MAIN AND ONLY INDUSTRY, it may be the most visible, but it’s by far one of the smallest if you conpare it against Viz companies, Maya is kind of widely used for animation, but Max is also widely used, Blender is starting to be used also in a lot of small/medium studios, and you won’t see a single studio of Arch&Viz working with maya at all.

Maya is not industry standard, it’s a commonly used app in VFX/Animation, but not a standard neither the only one, I really dislike the term “industry standard” because it’s completely misleading.

The standards are the procedures used in different tasks, most of them are common to many of the apps. :slight_smile:

If we are talking about 3d Animation Softwares then it’s a standard tool as it’s widely used by VFX,Games, Animation,TV Shows
etc & most job offers require experience in Maya,Max
etc because Artists move from one company to another all the time so retraining them will be less costly, not to forget majority of Schools teach Maya for general 3D & Animation.
like I said the Entertainment division is a small part, as Autodesk also holds big share in other Divisions like Manufacturing ,Archviz, Product Visualization.
You might dislike the term but it’s what people use to describe a very commonly & one of the most dominate 3D Software on the market.

Yes, it’s widely used, as 3dsmax or Cinema4D, Blender is not as widely used yet
 yet :wink:

In any case, what I said is not that maya is not widely used, in fact I said so.

What I said is that “industry standard” without defining the industry is nothing and gives the false impression that the most important 3d app out there is maya, when in fact it’s not, there is much more work being done in Max than in Maya, and I think you all know I’m not a big fan of Autodesk, but it is what it is LOL

I’m not talking about autodesk divisions, I’m talking about the 3D industry in general, and maya is not a “standard”, it’s a widely used tool, as I said the standards are the procedures used, because it does not matter if you animate in max/maya/blender
 they all work the same, you may have some technical differences or performance differences in relation to what you are doing, but animating with Maya is exactly the same as animating with Blender, and in the feature film animation industry not a single big studio uses maya “as-is”, in fact artists usually needs formation to be up to the level of their co-workers because they need to learn (or re-learn) the tool because of the deep customisation it suffers, even the dope sheet or the graph editor may be replaced by custom tools.

What market? because Maya is unknown in the arch&viz territory or engineering visualisation for example, where max or blender are much more used than maya.

It’s not that I dislike the terminology, is that it’s false, and IMHO we should not spread false terminology and we should help to avoid it, again IMHO I think that it’s our responsibility to help changing that misleading terminology, if we get the industries you mentioned:

  • VFX: more Houdini than maya, but some maya, also a lot of Max thanks to thinking particles and other addons that are non-existent in maya, maya is not so used in VFX

  • Feature film animation: Mainly maya, but with a super customise layer that makes it different from one studio to another, also in the real big players no maya is used to animate, custom software is the king there, the important thing is that you are a good animator, not that you animate in maya
    In this case for other stages like modelling, if we leave out Zbrush and other satellite software, yes maya is widely used, but usually not forced into the artists, because for intermediate tasks it’s not so crucial.
    Also regarding lighting and shading, well Arnold is widely used, yes, but not inside Maya, but in other software like Gaffer, is not that maya is not used at all, it’s that it’s not the standard per-se either

  • Games: depending on the budget and size of the company, but this is some maya, Maya LT, Max and little by little more blender.

  • Animation TV Shows: depending on the show, budget, country, etc
 but max is also widely used in this field, also in France Blender is taking more and more positions it seems, Maya is not alone there either

  • TV Shows: well if you mean for covers, intros, and generic tv material, no, maya is not the most used software there, there are super weird 3d softwares, but C4D is very very very widely used there, much more than maya

  • Advertising: well it depends on the studio, but in that case it’s not that it matters too much, generally speaking studios use to follow a trend, but you can find maya/max/C4D all around, not too much Blender that I know of.

  • Arch/Viz: no maya

  • Engineering/Viz: no maya

And I’m sure I leave some other industry that I don’t remember right now.

So that “industry standard” thing it’s a fallacy, and in general we should try to avoid repeating it like a mantra, there is no “industry standard” software, many software are used for many tasks, what there are are “industry standard procedures” or even “industry standard pipelines” or “industry standard workflows”, something that is used yes or yes inside an industry no matter the software you use.
For example the way you animate, the way a character is modelled, no matter if you model in Maya/Max/Blender the flow of the mesh would have to be the same, no matter if you sculpt in Zbrush, Blender or 3D Coat, you will have to reach the same level of detail and you will use very similar tools and procedures.

You don’t say that a Bosch Drill is industry standard, or an Einhel Drill or a Black&Decker Drill, the industry standard could be to use a Drill or how do you use a Drill, not the specific Drill, and each Drill has it’s pros/cons, like any other tool.

It’s our responsibility to eliminate that term from the 3d industry in general, there is no industry standard in tools. :slight_smile:

You seem you want to argue just for the sake of arguing.

the Industry we’re refering to is the Entertainment industry where Maya,Max,Blender & Softimage
etc mostly compete in, of course you won’t see Maya in ArchViz or Engineering it wasn’t built for those, go check it’s history first.

So in that Division ,it’s a fact that Maya is an Industry Standard as a tool that has been used for decades in productions small & big , lots of movies,video games ,Animated film ,TV series, Ads
etc were built, Animated & Rendered within Maya till this day.

Even Pixar,Dreamworks ,Disney,Sony,LucasFilm,ILM,Weta,MPC and others list Maya as a requirement tool for their open positions & of course there are other tools but Maya acts like a central hub in those Studios where they have built their pipelines around it.

If we are going to meassure how Softwares being a pipeline friendly then something like Blender & Zbrush are not, but because Zbrush is the most powerful sculpting software out there who has no serious competitors then everybody had to accept it as the Standard tool for digital sculpting.
And No, no one is going to use Blender for sculpting in production or make it the new Standard in their pipeline excpet for the diehard Blender fans.

There are tons of 3D Softwares that do the same thing but not all of them have similar power and capibilites ,that’s what makes a Software an Industry Standard along side the workflows & the interoperability with the other tools in the pipeline hence Maya is on the list and not Blender, it’s that simple.

1 Like

And Speaking of Animation here is an example from Microsoft where they list Maya,Max & Motion builder as a requirement for the job, so yeah go convince Animators to user Blender instead.

No, but I want to fight against that fallacy :slight_smile:

Why? No one specified here that (unless I missed that), but everyone seems to assume that the industry that everyone talks about is the Entertainment (more specifically Feature Film production).

Anyways the Entertainment industry is big, and full of small/medium and big studios, and the usage of software is diverse.

We could say the same about max, lots of movies, video games, TV series, Ads, and regarding the rendered withing Maya, as I said
 not exactly, other kind of software is being used generally because is better suited to handle big production scenes for feature films, not maya itself, and Maya is not what renders, it’s Arnold or other render engines, but for feature film, lately, Arnold and Renderman (apart from the custom solutions like Hyperion).

They ask for Maya knoeledge, but how many of those artists are actually maya artists? some of them, others are C4D, Max, etc
 they look at the portfolio, not the software, of course if you know the software they use, great! but it’s hard, at Sony they use so many custom tools that maya is not maya, at pixar the don’t animate with maya at all, the same goes for ILM and others, the trend is to make it equal → “Requirement Maya knowledge = good 3d skills in the required area”, the truth is that if you go to talk with the recruiters and you say “I don’t use Maya” but your portfolio is very good the will probably ignore that you don’t use Maya, they want skilled professionals, not software technicians.

That depedns a lot on the specific studio, if you are talking about feature films, then yes and no, Pixar is not maya centric for example, it depends on the specific pipeline and studio.
If we talk about other type of production, then it depends, you know what does Scanline uses?

I never said anything related to that, but that has nothing to do with the “industry standard” terminology.

Again, I never said anything like that, and I think like you in that case, you are right :slight_smile:

And here we disagree, simlar power and capabilities
 well theoretically Maya is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than Blender for rigging, I won`t deny it, but I’m still waiting to a seasoned rigger to tell me the real differences and why is Maya so much better.

Or in other words, what features does Maya have for rigging that we need to implement in Blender.

If the answer is: performance is better, I won’t say a thing, right now is better with complex rigs, but regarding other answers, I see people that know nothing about rigging in Blender saying that Maya is much better, saying that X or Y cannot be done in Blender, then I see other Blender experts saying “it can be done, in a different way
 it’s a different software”

But in any case I have not mentioned Blender in all my argumentation except to express my hopes, not to say that Blender is widely used in any of the industries I mentioned
 yet :slight_smile:

All that you mention can be applied to max for example, is Max the industry standard?

Here is a job that mentions Blender:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/614696

Anyways do you think for that animator position you mentioned they will reject a good animator with a great animation reel because it’s made in Blender and not in Maya? I doubt it.

Bsides they also asks for MotionBuilder and 3dsmax, is that a proof that Motionbuilder is an industry standard?
In fact it’s more standard than Maya, because there is no other tool out there to deal with Mocap like Motion Builder, apart from Iclone, which is growing fast with very good tools.

It seems that all you say seems to be directed towards my will to demonstrate that Blender is the standard, I don’t have such will, not it’s not, I won’t argue that with you at all :slight_smile:

The fact is that the terminology “industry standard” it’s a fallacy, and in any case each time someone mentions it is referring just to:

exactly as you did, but here AFAIK (again I may have missed it, but I was the first one answering here the question and it was not mentioned at that time, maybe later) no one specified feature film production. (In fact, no, no one mentioned that because you already mentioned the “industry standard” term just right after my answer :slight_smile: )

The 3D industry is much much bigger than those big studios, and there is way more work being done in other industries than in VFX/Animation for Feature Film.

The fact is that “Industry Standard” is a fallacy and we should argue against it, it tightens the space in the 3D industry and makes a mirage of the fact that MAYA IS USED EVERYWHERE, when it’s not the case. :slight_smile:

my reply to the other guy was this and you replied to me " Why Maya is the Industry Standard"
etc

Pixar uses their own Software for rigging and animation, and Maya for the other tasks like modeling
etc also because Maya is the Industry standard so it’s easy for them to release some of their tech since other Studios also use it

Autodesk is a commercial company that mostly work in manufacturing,Archviz
etc the Entertainment division is a very small part but their marketing team is doing all the job
like it or not this is what put most of their products on the map, while Blender doesn’t have any strategy of that kind ,it’s just out there for anyone to grab if they wish to and for a long time did it’s own thing and didn’t want to conform to any standard.

And clearly you can read from my comment that i was refering to the Entertainment Industry the whole time, at least that’s what interests me 
 you’re not going to convince me that there is no Industry Standard tools that the Studios require knowledge and experience with, If someone wants to take the risk and go to job interviews and say he doesn’t have that, then it’s his/her problem but from my view and many students/startup Artists this is something to avoid as it lowers your chances of getting a job.

People spend years sharpening their skills both artistically and technically in using certain Softwares like Maya, Zbrush,Houdini these what are considered the tools of the trade, so they can get the chance to work on projects they like 
Industry Standard refers to those particular tools, u can say they’re not but in reality they are.

You’re not going to learn a Software that does something else & it’s not widely used.

Then why are you here instead of improving your Maya skills?

I know I answered you to that post, and you mentioned Pixar saying that Maya is a side-software and then you say it’s industry standard, I don’t consider you are talking just about feature film, but I already stated that “industry standard” is a fallacy even in that industry.

I mean how do you think Maya started to be so widely use? What was the reason according to you?

No, I won’t convince you because instead of seeing the industry as it is you see it as the “industry standard” fallacy tells you it is, because you don’t want to hear that a good artist can be hired anywhere, no matter the software they use, but that’s a fact, and you just have to go to any of those big studios and ask every artist their background, do you know that some of them studied with Blender? Some are old students from Pepe School Land, they learn mainly with Blender :wink:

I’m a well seasoned user, that does not gives me more sight than you, because I don’t know your experience, but it gives me more sight than my past self, and the thing is that I‘ve been for a long time in this industry, I met very talented people over the years and some of them are amazing people that did amazing things in those companies, not a single one of them would reject a good artist for their team no matter what software they use on a daily basis.

You need knowledge and skill which is not the same as knowing where the menus are, the menus are always the same with slightly different name, even with Zbrush, it does not matter, it’s a matter of a few days to be on pair on the software side of things, specially if you have experience in your back, it’s a matter of years to develop the skill for every specialty.

No I won’t convince you, it does not matter, the fact is that “industry standard” is a fallacy and you will discover it by yourself at some point in time.

Anyways you did not answer to my questions regarding motion builder or what does Scanline uses :wink:

In the end the fact is that “industry standard” is a fallacy and it’s demonstrated because no matter what software an artist uses, that artist will be hired if the portfolio is a good one :slight_smile:

I learned both Softwares, Blender was first since it was free and now Maya, why should i limit myself to just one Software anyway.

There is a long history around Maya, we’re not going into that rabbit hole but it’s easy to understand it, there were few 3D Softwares back then that did well and Maya offered more control with it’s scripting capabilities to expand it beyond what comes with the package among other things.

I have been hearing that all the time from Blender fans but have yet to see it proved on a larger scale.

If you think Software is just buttons and menus then you’re completely wrong and it will take more than few days to understand the paradigms,workflows and concepts behind.

Who said you should?

Again it feels like you are trying to fight a ghost that is not there,I’m not arguing about the usefulness of learning as much software as you can, I’ve been a 3dsmax expert for more than 15 years, beta tester since max 2010, charter tester, also Maya beta tester since Maya 2012 and Motionbuilder beta tester, I know how to program in different languages, programmed several apps and serious games in java, objective-C and in Unity and UE4, I’m all in favor of being proficient in several packages in different areas :slight_smile:

So good for you if you are now learning Maya.

But that has nothing to do with the fact that "industry standard’ is a fallacy.

It seems you were not around when Maya 1.0 was born, I was, and the main reason was that Maya was the evolution of an already used software from Alias, but the king there at that time was Softimage, not XSI, but the actual original Softimage
 no undo if you know what I mean.
Check what was the software used to produce Jurassic Park :slight_smile:

But the main reason was not the scripting possibilities, that was already there, and MEL was not as powerful as it was going to be several years ahead, the main reason was that it was fresh air, renewed interface with a renewed concept for handling scenes led to a renewed and more efficient UX, but it was not the king in one year or 2, it took quite a bit of time to make it one of the most used softwares in the feature film animation production industry, but all that new fresh air that Maya used to bring to the table with each release stopped several years ago, Maya is living from it’s own inertia, and seasoned Maya artists are more and more looking at other places because Maya has become so unstable and so stagnated that they need what Maya use to carry on, fresh air.

If you’ve been hearing that just from Blender fans then you’ve not been hearing too much, I’ll give you an example from just yesterday, Alberto Moreno, Lead 3D Artist and Senior Scanning Artist at Epic Games, said this words on twitter:

“Eso de la herramienta tambiĂ©n es porque la falta de experiencia llega a puestos de responsabilidad. Alguien que es bueno en Unity lo es en Unreal pese a no haberlo usado nunca. un buen a artista de 3D en Max sigue siendo bueno aunque tenga que usar Maya y necesite una semana de aprendizaje”

I’ll translate it for you:

“The “tool” thing happens also because the lack of experience reaches responsibility roles. Someone that is good at Unity it’s good at Unreal even if he never touched it. A good 3D artist in Max it’s still good even if he has to use Maya and needs a week of learning”

You can check his twitter timeline whenever you want, he is @MrGrihan

The general idea amongst experienced artist is that the tool is not important, the procedures and results are, as I said you model equally in any software, no matter what the software is, no matter if you have to use some nodes or a modifier, modelling is modelling.

Yes, it’s not that I think so, it’s that I treat software as that, because in the end the workflows are pretty similar, as I said I’m proficient in several packages and when someone works with us it’s not so important that knows blender or not, as long as it’s a medium/long term project, for a short term project, something that it’s not done in the companies and industry you keep mentioning, we may need someone with a bit of Blender knowledge, but not an expert in Blender, but an expert in the role we need, modeler, animator, lightning/shading artists, etc


In general Junior artist tends to think like you express, usually they are emotionally biased towards the software they learn, because actually learning the first software with proper concepts and workflows is always a big effort, and nearly all the junior artist believe in the “industry standard” fallacy because they feel that if they are not learning the "industry standard’ that the school sold to them they won’t find any job, it’s a big emotional hit with all the time and money invested.

The fact is that the software does not matter at all, a software may have more convenient tools for a task than other, may be a bit better than other in some areas, but it’s not true that there is an “industry standard” software, there are only industry standard procedures or pipelines, even “industry wide” exchange formats, usually broken by companies developing new ones (Alembic → USD )

The fact is, as it has always been, that “industry standard” is a fallacy that we better eliminate from any 3D related conversation, it’s misleading, an oversimplification and basically a lie :slight_smile:

Yep, definitely a big No-Go for many.

That should be in blender 2.83 ToDo list because, indeed, the industry in CGI is 90 percent Y up axis.

And people please stop comparing to Unreal, Unreal is not a DCC, it’s a game engine, Blender is not a game engine software. Valve Source too is Z up axis but they are a different type of softwares.

We can argue all day but the most important point is that the Industry uses certain softwares for certain task and the dominate ones are clear Maya, Zbrush,Photoshop,Houdini
etc so it doesn’t matter if they are called “Industry Standard” or not you have to learn them and be efficient especially if you’re going to do technical stuff then their importance raise otherwise everyone would have used Blender.

this is wrong , for example I tried to animate in Blender and found tons of little gotcha that made it unintuitive and hard to use for Character Animation, how slow the Armature modifier with dense meshes, Autokeying and keying set are hard to set up in comparison to the ones in Maya, the graph editor missing so many basic functionalites like just autoframing to channels which i have put a request
etc, because of those i went straight back to Maya.
you might think the workflow is the same but the fraustration that comes along the way is different from one software to another & to use it for actual work it might have a huge impact on the quality of the results or even the emotional state of the Artists.
Industry standard is there for a reason as it exemplifies tools that have been proven to work in a production and can be trusted as long as the ones using them have the necessary skills.