First Impressions Blender vs Maya - Animation Workflows!

Maya vs Blender! Today we compare the animation tools to see which features work better for character animation. I also share some of how DreamWorks' software PREMO works, and what I'd like to see Blender add in version 2.9+!

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[SirWade]

Do you agree with my feature requests? What differences did I miss that matter to YOU? :)

[shimoricha]

14:16 Timeline Editor > Keying > "Active Keying set" choose LocRotScale (or the one you prefer) > now every time you press "I" it will automatically key LocRotScale

[Erindale]

• The colours are changeable in the Theme preferences.
• Changing the line weight can be done under Width and set it to Thick. (this will change all lines though, more of an accessibility feature)
• The view pie menu (which includes zoom selection) is on the button to the left of the alphanumeric 1 (normally tilda on US layout).
• You also have Shift+B to do a zoom marquee.
• Add a transform gizmo on the gizmo menu to the left of the viewport overlays. You can even have a gizmo with grab/scale/rotate all together as one gizmo with different handles.
• To change the transform orientation the shortcut is, (comma) or obviously the menu at the top if that's easier.
• Press and hold Shift to make transforms 10x more sensitive.
• Ctrl will snap to the active snapping mode (selectable from the snapping menu at the top (the magnet))
• Shift+Ctrl will snap to 1/10th of the division
• Set the keying set in the timeline so you can just press I to keyframe (or auto keyframe for easy animating)
• (I'm not too hot on animation stuff but) G, S and R all work everywhere in Blender so in the graph editor, grab a handle and press S or G to move it around.
• If you want things (keyframes, nodes, 3D object etc) to snap to an axis while dragging, start dragging and press Middle mouse button and it'll stick to axis. Otherwise, X and Y work to constrain to axis in the graph.
• Select a keyframe in the graph editor and press L (for Linked) to select the entire curve (shortcut works everywhere in Blender)
• You have F-curve ghosts as the button with the square and a diagonal through it t the right of the graph editor header bar.
• The macro stuff, I've seen a lot of people with rigs setup that have those kinds of bone constraints built in and you just set up a custom property with the python data path to give you a slider in viewport. (Blender is 100x more powerful if you're not afraid to spend an hour learning specific python things)
• Jump to first frame is Shift+Left Arrow, jump to last frame is Shift+Right Arrow.
• Left and right arrow move you to previous and next frame respectively.
• Up and Down arrow move you to next and previous KEYframe respectively.
Something I love about Blender is that your shortcuts that you learn in 3D work in the animation tools, in the shader workspaces, in the sculpting workspaces, in the motion tracking workspaces. It's really consistent across the entire (massive) platform. I think it would really suffer from fragmentation if they tried to align certain workflows to other software standards. That being said, I do architectural visualisation and procedural stuff, not animation AND I've used Blender for 12 years vs 1 of Maya and 1 of 3DSMax so clearly I'm acclimatised to Blender. I've probably missed a few things here but it's great to see you giving Blender some coverage! It's an exciting time to be using it!

[velvetdrgn]

if you click the little + icon at the top right, next to all the different layouts in blender you can save the current layout with all it's view settings :)
also when you hit G to move an object, you can press middle mouse button to quickly select a movement axis, instead of using the x y and z keys
for your move sensitivity problem, while moving stuff you can hold shift to do very small movements

[TheRealJerseyJoe]

Sir Wade... just a suggestion here.... when and if you discover solutions to the issues that you have raised within this video it would be MOST helpful if you could produce and update episode showing how you managed to solve them. I'm sure a lot of viewers would be most appreciative. Thumbs-up buddy !

[abdulbasil]

WADE: Opens two software and runs at the same time
ME: Opens chrome
PC: NOT RESPONDING

[brandonverge]

blender hotkeys
shift E - break down poses
ctrl E - push pose
Alt E - relax pose

Ctrl tab - for switching between the graph editor and the dope sheet really fast

[TheJumpButton]

The 'X' key does the same thing as the delete key, you don't need to reach across the keyboard.

[AsaTU]

18:08 You can move the key by pressing G in Blender, just like You would in Maya with the middle mouse button. You can also select / constrain the axis of movement for the key in the graph editor with g + x, y, z like You would in the viewport

[cyanlos]

(Note: I'll avoid commenting on things you've got completely right, such as on Maya's strengths or things from Primo that could be added to Blender. This post only serves to correct you on some things.)
6:00 -- Lol, you can just use the ~ key instead of the numpad.
10:00 -- Hit either G, R or S, then click-and-hold the middle-mouse button to pick an axis, and then leave the middle-mouse button to rotate/translate/scale in precision. But yeah, gimbal customization would be great to have.
14:17 -- What's wrong with having to select what you want to key an attribute you aren't going to key repeatedly? Although, if you want to get rid of needing to select it in cases of keying repeatedly, just create a keyring for what you want to key, and the mean pop-up will go away (Hint: The "Available" keyring is best-boy). Also, fun-fact: "Almost" everything can be keyed in Blender with a "I" by simply hovering over the values, colors, etc.
16:30 -- You're correct on the curves -- the fact that I can't select by curves in Blender drives me up the wall too. That said, I don't agree with you on "deselecting the key to deselect the tangent" stuff; I personally appreciate the decoupling, because it allows me to scale / rotate / translate just the tangents and not the keys, which can be very useful sometimes, especially when I'm doing Motion Graphics in Blender.
18:00 -- ....Just press G like you do in the viewport, man. The hotkeys exist for a reason, but you're still taking the slowest route by doing it with a mouse. The middle-mouse intentionally kept for panning / zooming around throughout the entire interface (not just in the viewport), and that should clue you into Blender's biggest strength when it comes to interface design: Consistency. If something works at one place, it's likely to work at another, hence why it's not really as much as a learning-curve as most people make it out to be. (Edit: Seems like you've already covered this in 25:45.)
21:00 -- You might be correct on this, but honestly, I've never even needed to use the Normalize feature considering I can easily just hold Ctrl + Middle-Mouse to quickly zoom and stretch the graph as I like. It's much more flexible, and faster, for me than having to tell the computer to do it for me, especially in very specific and finicky situations.
22:07 -- This is probably just an interface gripe, that's fine. The other two in the menu are actually useful, especially for cleaning up redundant keyframes. If you're animating fast, this can be super-useful. ...Although, I can understand the reasoning behind getting rid of the other two options now that we have "Add-to-Favorites" menu, which can be configured for speed, and thus you can manually add those other two options to Q.
25:55 -- Yeah, because Blender seems to have been, from the start, heavily hot-key driven, which only started to change from 2.5 onwards. Don't worry though, like you said, somebody would create a patch or add-on or something eventually to make it easier for non-hotkey users. (Also, I've always animated with a mouse because I have no money for a screen-tablet. Why would someone "animate" in 3D with a tablet rather than just drawing, sculpting, or 2D-animating with it is beyond me.)
26:15 -- Yeah. It's "Create Ghost Curves" on the top-right menu of the graph editor. Though, since I've never used it before, I'm probably the wrong person to point this out.
27:00 -- There might be a Blender Theme that you might like that could address this for you. Speaking of which, do start exploring themes. ;)
31:22 -- Blender has a Pose Library (although, you probably knew that).
35:15 -- Unpopular opinion, but gotta say it: Legends animate on spreadsheet. 'nuff said.
Some of the gripes you've had are plenty justifiable, though some are simply a problem of you not knowing of good alternative options that Blender already has. That's understandable though, considering the fact that Blender is MASSIVE, and even I still don't know everything it's capable of doing, let alone somebody who just started using it. And new features keep being added frequently on top of that.

[lawrencedoliveiro]

11:45 No need to hit keys to change sensitivity at all: the sensitivity of rotation and scaling is dependent on how far your mouse is from the object origin at the time you hit the transformation key.

[hookflash]

26:20 - Yes, Blender has "ghost curves" (there's a button to create them at the top right of the graph editor)

[earychow]

Good video! I learned a lot watching it! By the way, some answers to your questions.
9:45 You can hold the middle mouse buttom and it automatically locks the axis (also works for the graph editor), or you can look at the axis gizmos icon on top right to know which axis you want to move along
11:40 hold the shift key after pressing r to make it rotate less sensitively
33:00 In Blender you use Shift + Left Arrow to do that, Sift + Right Arrow take you to the end key, and NumPad 0 takes you to your selected key

[DarkPhantomchannel]

11:45 i don't really know if manipulators sizes in Blender can be changed but if you rotate the object manually (via hotkey) the more your mouse cursor is far from the object the more precise you are XD

Oh and... 8:25 bonus trick for the first AutoKeying keyframe: just hit G, R or S and left mouse quick (whitout actually doing any transformation) to set the keyframe

[Lanaur_]

Hi Sir, I have a few suggestions that might be usefull:

you don't to have to switch from Pose mode to Object mode all the time, you can turn off "lock object mode" in the Edit menu, this thing lets you select objects that are in the same mode, but not the other ones. For example you can go from an armature in pose mode to another armature that is in pose mode as well, but not to an object in sculpt mode, and it's the same thing for every mode. So when disabled, you can click on any object, it will switch to whatever mode it's in. It's cool to have it because it prevents you from misclicking on something behind what you tried to select, and on some occasions waiting for the soft to change the mode, wich can be long sometimes and frustrating depending on the mesh, especially if you misclicked.

Then, if you press Shift Space in a bunch of editors, it will bring a set of tools right under the cursor (move, rotate, scale, and so on), and it's contextual, so in edit mode, the tools shown in this thing aren't the same as in the object mode, even though there are similar ones (move scale rotate once again). It's an active on release type of menu, so when you press it and go to another tool, releasing will active, but if you press shift space and leave the cursor on the tool that was already active, the menu will stay even if you release.

For the precision stuff in the graph editor, I think you already know this, but you have "value" and "frame" sliders to move keyframes with precisions (you can type in numbers), it's in one of the menus when you press N.
You may also know this, to be able to go at the beggining or the end of the timeline, you have to press shift left or right arrow (arrows are used to go frame by frame).

One final thing not related to animation, but to addons if you have some, there's a filter feature in the workspace propertie panel (the top panel in the properties, where you have the modifers, render settings, contraints and so on, it's also in the N menus in the viewport) wich allows you to disable addons on the fly in one project, just so you don't disable them in preferences, wich will disable them in every project you have and will keep them disabled when starting a new project if you forget to reenable them.

[ansonx]

I use Blender without a numberpad on my keyboard, and while it wasn't obvious at first, anything you do with the keypad can be done easily with only the left side of your keyboard and the mouse.
I see lots of comments with help on your other complaints, but I didn't readily see another comment suggesting this, so I'll add this 1 suggestion:
Hold ` (backtick/grave) and you'll see a circle menu that lets you easily switch to any view by dragging your mouse or hitting the associated number, including focusing on the selected object. (It's super fast to hit `3 or press ` and drag the mouse to the bottom right)
You can also hold Alt then drag/swipe the mouse while holding middle mouse to snap to orthographic angles. If you instead drag while holding middle mouse and THEN hold Alt, it'll snap to 45-degree angles, which is also useful.

[evanjohnston]

with the hotkey comlaint about focus on selected: the "~" key brings up a pie menue that lets you do that
also, with the having to aim in the graph editor, you can use g to grab (or s to the handles) and if you press middle mouse while in the grab, it will snap the motion to vertical/horizontal
EDIT: looks like you allready knew this one. also, if you hit "i" over the dopesheet/graph editor, you can choose "all channels" or "all selected channels" rather than selecting location/postition etc.

[rohitaug]

Some useful tips:

G, followed by Shift + X would isolate the translation to y and z axis, Shift + Y would isolate it to x and z, etc.
G, followed by X once translates in global space on the x axis but pressing X again switches it to local space. If you have the default set to something like 'Normal' then it would switch between Normal and Global but in reverse.
This isn't a solution for the undo problem but since I'm used to this I never switch spaces the traditional way unless I need to set a new default space so it's not really an issue for me.
This also works with rotation and scale of course.
I hope the undo thing does get changed though, it doesn't make much sense imo.
As mentioned in another comment, Timeline Editor > Keying > "Active Keying set" lets you select the default keyframe type so pressing I just adds a keyframe of that type directly.
In the graph editor,
Selecting things in Blender is pretty fuzzy so you don't have to worry about aiming at the keyframe exactly.
After you select a keyframe, press L to select the entire curve. Pressing K also selects the entire column of keyframes on the same frame as the selected keyframe.
Once you have the desired keyframe(s) selected, you can use the same transform hotkeys as in the 3D view to manipulate them. So you could do something like press I to add a keyframe and then press G then Y to move it up in the graph. (I guess you knew this one, got a bit further into the video after typing this.)
Blender doesn't have a lattice tool but it does have proportional editing (can be toggled by pressing O) which lets you propagate the transform of the currently selected keyframes to other frames around it by the selected falloff preset.
After pressing G, if you press Ctrl and Shift together then it translates the keyframes at 1/10th of the default increment. This also works in 3D view.
Yes, Blender has Ghost curves. It's the kite like icon at the top-right of the f-curves window.
Blender does have pose libraries. If you select a rig and navigate to it's rig properties (the tab on the right which looks like a running stick figure), you can see a section titled pose library. The functionality sounds exactly like how you describe it.
Blender can do stuff like "Macros" you described using "Custom Properties" and "Drivers". My hand rigs work the same way. It's a bit complicated to set up so I'll just leave it at that.

Good video btw! Probably the most unbiased and fair comparison between Blender and Maya I've seen. I hope the developers see this video and implement some of the features you want. Can you explain that first feature on you wishlist again, though? I didn't really understand it. Maybe someone else can help me out here.

[bahtiyarozdere]

18:12 In Blender Use G while moving keyframes in graph editor. Just like in 3d viewport. You can also use s and r and other shortcuts :)
You can hit G and middle mouse drag drop for locking on axis or you can press y to lock vertical axis.
You can hit ctrl + click to select left or right side of current time
Alt + click to select all keyframes in same time
When you select a keyframe, you can ctrl + rightclick to anywhere to create new keyframe in vertical line
...

[CGElementary]

13:02 to open graph editor in Maya you don't necessarily need to go to "window>animation>graph", you can easily split the view by right-clicking on one of the Layout View buttons in Toolbox, choose "two pane stack " which will split the view like you did in blender, and then change the bottom pane to graph editor. but here is the cool part, right click on one of view buttons again and choose "Save Current Layout" now anytime you run maya single click on that button and it will split the view and open graph editor in buttom pane for you, which is a lot quicker than blender!