Why We Recommend Blender: A Pipeline Decision, Not a Fanboy Take
Production case study — Mad Saturn Interactive When we started what's now Mad Saturn (back then under the name Mantra Animation), the software question wasn't philosophical — it was financial. Maya and 3ds Max cost more per license, per year, than most indie studios bring in over several months. But cost alone doesn't make a good recommendation — plenty of free software is free because it's incomplete. After five years producing Nodisea 2000 in Blender, here's what actually convinced us, with real examples from that production. The unified pipeline isn't marketing — it's saved time Modeling, sculpting, UVs, shading, rigging, animation, simulation, and compositing all live in one application. For a two- or three-person studio, that means not having to export a rig from one program to another and hope the deformation doesn't break along the way. On Nodisea 2000, a character's entire workflow — from initial blocki...
