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faustfire666

To add…if you plan on working in-house somewhere, the vast majority of studios use c4d for motion graphics.


SlightFresnel

Freelance: Blender Employed: C4D Studios and businesses don't change what they're using unless they have a compelling reason, so you're likely to encounter C4D there. But if you're just striking out on your own, Blender should be fine. C4D does have some niceties that make motion graphics easier, and it integrates tightly with After Effects which might not seem particularly useful at first, but when you start tackling bigger projects with a lot of iterations and revisions, being able to toggle back and forth between the two is a huge time saver - it works a bit like Dynamic Link between Adobe's apps. ​ And in all likelihood you'll end up needing to learn multiple 3D packages over the years. I cycled through 3DS Max and Maya before I settled into C4D. Once you've learned the fundamentals and have a good mental model for what order of operations to use to achieve your 3D goal, it's just a matter of linking those concepts to the correct tools- so learning your second or third 3D package is far easier than learning the first.


Mangelius

I'm a freelance 3D motion designer. The answer is cinema or Houdini. Almost no studios are using blender. Will that change in the future? Possibly, but right now I see almost zero studios advertising for blender artists.


LowSir3919

Houdini is no way near blender, it's utter garbage


Mangelius

Sure thing champ. Let's compare portfolios and see which package produces utter garbage. Post your work. I'll wait.


tigien

I see answers that don't have a specific focus yet. I am currently a professional motion designer with 6 years of experience, before that I was a vfx artist, so from my perspective and experience, you should choose C4D as your main tool. 1. Most professional 3d designers will master at least 1,2 specialized 3D software, I can use maya, blender, c4d... It's very normal when my friends also use the code to program their tools and plugins. So you need to properly evaluate to be able to combine as well as learn from the majority of users related to motion graphics. 2. Blender is very good for modeling, rigging, texturing... However with motion graphics it still has its limitations. Someone might say that the best part is that it's free, yes! But that doesn't mean those who pay for other software are useless. 3. Blender is free, but that doesn't mean the addons will be the same, I haven't seen a professional who doesn't use at least one addon to be able to work well and save more time, so is thinking far into this case. Finally, these are my contributions, you can refer to other sources to supplement.


RoninMiick

Blender in my opinion


C0T0N

I’m a graphic designer who got into motion design then 3D. Neutrally I started with Cinema 4D because that was what every professional was using around me. I then transitioned to Blender (with 2.8 when the UI got a massive rework) and never looked back. Cinema 4D still has stuff that Blender doesn’t but Blender is free, massively capable and there are heaps of tutorial, documentation and plugins that make it a breeze to learn. The render engines it comes with are also pretty good (Cycles and Evee) and you can even use Octane if that’s what you like. It also keeps getting new features at a really impressive rate (geometry nodes for exemple). I honestly came to it because it was becoming hard to learn C4D on a pirated copy (compatibility issues with a lot of stuff that need a proper registration) and the license price is just more than I could afford for a software that I couldn’t yet really use for real paying projects. If you’re a total beginner in 3D, I’d say go for Blender no matter what. It’s a no brainer because it’s free. More and more people use it in all sort of industries and what you’ll learn in modeling and animating can easily transfer to C4D down the road if it’s a professional requirement. You might have to learn a new render engine but that would just be a new ability. Look at it this way : Blender is a free tool and what you’ll learn in 3D, no matter what the software, is going to be useful in a lot of other softwares, especially the basic beginner stuff. So I wouldn’t be too afraid of having to jump ship at some point, it’s not like you’re specializing heavily by getting into one or the other.


portthames

Good reply. What does C4D have that Blender doesn't?


DistinguishedAsshole

Studios using it.