[jokoon]

Blender is certainly a great software, but there are still remains of bad UI choices, for example how zooming works

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/644/why-does-the...

They improved the UI already, but maybe they could improve it a little bit more. And this is not the only frustration, I constantly have to ask around for little things like that.

Also important to know, but late blender versions don't support old GPU, which is a bit sad: I can't use late blender version on my old thinkpad which only has a graphics chipset.

[swordsith]

I'd bet your issues with blender could be fixed with configuration or rebuilding the program with older graphics renderers available, it being open source makes alot of the preference issues with blender resolvable imo.

[neonmagenta]

Blender is one of the most infuriatingly un-intuitive UIs I've ever experienced. It's always having to be used with it in one screen, a myriad of guides/forums/etc on the other.

[kilpikaarna]

Do you have a preferred 3D (polygon) modelling/graphics tool where you feel like you don't need to keep up guides and forums?

I've been hearing this complaint since Blender 2.48 twenty years ago, where it might've had some merit. But even then you could still pick it up in at most a few weeks with focused study, and the biggest non-intuitive (in terms of adherence to things like OS guidelines etc) and Blender-specific features and workflows remain the same to this day, and the interface overall is remarkably consistent and effective once you get used to it.

The only thing I can see that comes close to doing the same thing in terms of a general/integrative/swiss-army-knife-of 3D content creation suite are to this day Autodesk Maya and 3ds max, and maybe increasingly UE and Unity. I wouldn't exactly say you can just "intuitively" click around in any of those and high-quality results come out by default. Other software may be better at specific things and perhaps offer a more focused UI for some subset of tasks, sure, but at that point you're using the wrong tool sticking with Blender.

But in basically all cases, as soon as you're doing anything moderately complex, you're constantly referring to the manual/LLMs/tutorial videos. This stuff is just difficult, man, and most of the difficulty is even orthogonal to the software itself!

[summarity]

To answer the question at the top, yes there are countless suites that are instantly resumable even after months away. I used to teach Blender (v3) and I think I could find my way around but the overhead isn’t worth it. I’m also though in a privileged position to be able to afford more, smaller commercial tools.

CAD: MoI (cool kids nowadays use Plasticity, but that is taking on similar feature creep - in any case I own and use both)

SubD modelling: nothing has ever beat Silo. And silo still gets updates, but the workflow is the same. Cheetah3D is also in the same boat.

Rendering (I do products, not character/CGI): Maverick. Fastest path tracer in the world, perpetual license, rivals Vray for product viz. if you’re currently using Keyshot - switch now.

Texturing: 3Dcoat or Marmoset Toolbag 5

What most of these have in common is either the workflow is super intuitive, or you have at least 15 years of training material readily accessible that still applies to the software today as it did back then.

Overall it’s a choice between a kitchen sink pipeline (Blender, Rhino) vs a specialised one. If I were to teach again, I would still use Blender in the classroom, and I fully support the project. My brain just works better with smaller, focussed tools.