free vs paid

Free vs Paid 3D Softwares

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Table of Contents

Today on this topic you’ll learn everything you need to know about free vs paid 3D softwares. We’re gonna see the comparison between Autodesk Maya & Blender

Maya is a 3D computer graphics application, developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned by an Auto desk, Inc. It runs efficiently on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Maya is used for creating 3D applications that include a wide range of products, like video games, animation movies, TV series, visual effects, etc. In this topic, we are going to learn about Maya vs Blender.

Blender is an open-source and 3D computer graphics software toolset developed by Blender Foundation. It is used for creating animated movies, visual effects, 3D models, and video games. It is available on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Free vs Paid 3D Softwares

Maya provides a comprehensive suite of tools for 3D creation work ranging between modeling, animation, etc. Developers can edit and create 3D models in various formats and then animate those models using animation tools provided by Maya’s suite. Photorealistic imagery and animated visual effects based upon animated 3D scenes can be rendered efficiently with tools offered by Maya.

Blender Foundation is a non-profit group that actually keeps Blender going and organize this open-source project. It has a wide variety of tools that are suitable for almost any kind of media project. Animated feature films, games, interactive applications including kiosks and scientific research can be efficiently created by using Blender.


Speaking of tools, Maya has recently updated its already robust selection of tools that range from modeling, exporting, and development to animation, rigging, and rendering.

Blender has also updated its 3D design tools as well as improved on its Grease Pencil tool, allowing artists to draw and animate 2D objects in a 3D space. This makes it easy to incorporate 2D and 3D designs seamlessly. Maya does not have this feature.


Maya offers very impressive renderers in its suite, such as V-Ray, Octane Render, and NVIDIA Mental Ray (discontinued in 2018) that allows for Hollywood-grade visual effects. One of the most popular rendering engines on the market now is Arnold. It helps designers render heavy-duty graphics efficiently and quickly. Though a standalone renderer, Maya can make use of Arnold through a plugin. Blender does not have Arnold available to it, but comes with its own set of engines in Workbench, Cycles, and most recently, Eevee.

Like Arnold, Cycles is well-known in the industry. A powerful path tracing rendering engine that provides state-of-the-art lighting and shading configuration. It has multi-GPU support, suited for NVIDIA CUDA and AMD OpenCL rendering.

Newcomer Eevee is a physically based real-time renderer working both as a renderer for final frames, as well as the engine driving Blender’s real-time viewport. Eevee materials are also created using the same shader nodes as Cycles, so it’s easy to render scenes originally meant for Cycles.


Rendering animation in Maya can be a tedious, time-consuming process. Designers are required to double-check that everything is properly set up or the scene may render incorrectly. Rendering animation is very different from rendering a still frame, so a lot more precautions need to be taken.

Blender makes rendering animations much easier and much more efficient by providing a simple set of options in the Render Output Properties tab and the Render Settings dropdown menu. “Render Image” will render whatever current frame is shown in the viewport, while “Render Animation” will render a series of frames that can easily be changed in the Output Properties tab. Even a first-time user can render animation with ease.


Maya is an industry standard for 3D animation is used by professionals all around the world whereas Blender lives under the shadow of Maya, and quite useful for freelancers and small start-up projects.

Which Should You Choose

Autodesk Maya is without a doubt one of the most robust, comprehensive and reliable 3D applications out there. It sets itself apart as an industry standard and offers a deep library of features and tools to help you create beautiful and impressive visuals.

How does Blender hold up beside Maya? Quite well, actually. Blender offers an alternative that’s free and open-source with equally competitive features and capabilities.

Blender is practical and user-friendly; however, if an experienced designer or animator needs to get work done, perhaps for a studio or for a larger production, Maya may make more sense — granted it doesn’t come cheap.

After looking at all the factors, it’s hard to say if one is better than another. The best suggestion would be that you choose the one that best suits your budget and needs, based on your understanding of 3D modeling and design, your hardware, and your skills.

Wanna learn about Unity and Unreal.

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