Choosing Software For Your Own Personal Art Pipeline
By Neil Blevins
Created On: May 28th 2015
Updated On: June 8th 2026
Software: Any

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, there were plenty of all-in-one 3d packages, 3dsmax, maya, softimage, lightwave, etc, and you could potentially do a lot of your work in a single piece of software. But these days, most pipelines rely on a whole collection of different pieces of software to get work done, everyone from a large vfx studio all the way to a single artist making concept art. The advantage of this de-centralizing of software is smaller software companies can specialize in making the very best software that does X, rather than a big software company producing something that's decent at everything but awesome in none. The disadvantage is now you need to transfer your work between all these different pieces of software, which causes headaches in terms of incompatible features, data loss, and manual labor.

I've done a lot of reflecting on my personal art process, have split it up into a number of tasks, and then matches those tasks with a specific piece of software. And these choices have also changed over time. This discussion goes over how I've split my workflow, which software I used to use for it (2015), and how that's changed over time (2025), and why. By discussing this, I hope to inspire you to make good choices for your own specific needs.

Breaking Your Workflow Into Tasks

First off, what I do. I am primarily a concept artist and art director who combines 3d, photos and hand painting. I also make 3d assets for games and film. So I need a versatile art workflow that can handle both 2d and 3d.

Here's a list of the different tasks I need to do as part of my art workflows:
  1. 3D General
  2. 3D Modeling
  3. 3D Sculpting
  4. 3D UV
  5. 2D Pattern Generation
  6. 3D Shading
  7. 3D Detail Paint
  8. 3D Render
  9. 2D Paint
  10. 2D Comp
  11. 2D Image Viewing
Software in 2015

With this task list, I then match up each task with a piece of software:
  1. 3D General -> 3dsmax
  2. 3D Modeling -> 3dsmax
  3. 3D Sculpting -> Medium
  4. 3D UV -> 3dsmax
  5. 2D Pattern Generation -> Filterforge
  6. 3D Shading -> 3dsmax / vray
  7. 3D Detail Paint -> 3dsmax / Photoshop
  8. 3D Render -> 3dsmax / vray
  9. 2D Paint -> Photoshop
  10. 2D Comp -> Magic Bullet Looks
  11. 2D Image Viewing -> ACDSee
Here's a little more info on my choices. Remember, there is no right or wrong, these are my choices and they're liable to be very different from your own:

1) 3D General -> 3dsmax
I started using 3dstudio DOS R2 back in the early 90s. So I used 3dsmax partly out of habit, and partly because I felt it's a good middle ground between a purely procedural program and a fast program that just gets the job done.



2) 3D Modeling -> 3dsmax
I did all my hard surface modeling in 3dsmax, I'm super addicted to the modifier stack and would only switch for another app that has a similar feature.

3) 3D Sculpting -> Medium
I was a big mudbox user, but switched to medium because sculpting in VR felt so much like traditional sculpting.

4) 3D UV -> 3dsmax
While I prefer to use uvless techniques, when I need to UV stuff, I used 3dsmax's unwrapping tools.

5) 2D Pattern Generation -> Filterforge
Filterforge is a great place for creating procedural patterns. I like darktree too, but darktree hasn't seen an update in a since the late 2000s, so when it comes to an application with a future, Filterforge seems like the best choice.



6) 3D Shading -> 3dsmax / vray
I did all my shading and rendering in the Brazil Renderer years ago, but when it got discontinued, I switched over to vray since I found it had a pretty similar system. And it has a pretty big market share, which means it has a lot of development money going into it, and its not likely to get discontinued like Brazil did.



7) 3D Detail Paint -> 3dsmax / Photoshop
I don't do a lot of painting on organic models, so my pipeline for 3d paint is mostly for hard surface models, and I used a combination of projections in 3dsmax, and then painted the stuff to be projected using photoshop.

8) 3D Render -> 3dsmax / vray
I used vray in 3dsmax for my lighting, camera work and rendering.

9) 2D Paint -> Photoshop
While there's better software out there for hand painting, Photoshop has that great balance of both hand painting and image manipulation in the same program.



10) 2D Comp -> Magic Bullet Looks
Since Photoshop doesn't have much in the way of non-destructive filters, I need a compositor as well. While something like Nuke would be more full featured, its overkill for what I need to do (vignettes, chromatic aberration, post blur, etc) so I've found the simple to use Magic Bullet Looks by Red Giant is the perfect balance for me.



11) 2D Image Viewing -> ACDSee
There's a lot of image viewers out there, but ACDSee is one of the originals for windows, and I use it mostly out of habit because it has everything I need.



Software in 2025

Here we are 10 years later, and my task list is pretty much the same, but my software choices have changed a bit:
  1. 3D General -> Blender
  2. 3D Modeling -> Blender
  3. 3D Sculpting -> Blender
  4. 3D UV -> Blender
  5. 2D Pattern Generation -> Filterforge
  6. 3D Shading -> Blender
  7. 3D Detail Paint -> Blender / Photoshop / Affinity
  8. 3D Render -> Blender
  9. 2D Paint -> Photoshop / Affinity / Procreate
  10. 2D Comp -> Magic Bullet Looks
  11. 2D Image Viewing -> ACDSee
Here's a few notes on the changes...

1) 3dsmax replaced with Blender. While I still use my older perpetual license of 3dsmax 2022 for a few tasks here and there, I've primarily moved over to Blender. The main reason is I do not like subscription only software, and Autodesk went subscription only several years ago. To learn more on why I do not like subscription software, check my essay Why Rental Only Software (The Subscription Model) Is A Bad Thing. Overall Blender has done a great job as part of my workflow. Like 3dsmax, it has a modifier stack (which for my workflow is a must for modeling), it also comes bundled with decent raytrace renderer (Cycles) which allowed me to transition off of vray (another piece of software that's gone subscription). I've managed to recreate many of my favorite materials from max/vray inside of blender. And I hope to have the chance in the coming years to write a few tools for blender to replace the features I still miss from max.



2) Medium, I no longer use medium for sculpting as it's also now been bought by Adobe, which is subscription only. I don't do a ton of sculpting, so the tools inside Blender work fine for my needs.

3) Photoshop, I continue to use my old copy of Photoshop CS6, but I am slowly moving myself to Affinity and Procreate. Procreate is great for anything that can be rough or stylized, like quick painterly concept paintings. And Affinity is almost as full featured as photoshop, except it's free, with no subscription necessary.





So in short, 3dsmax > Blender, Vray > Cycles in Blender, Medium > Blender, Photoshop > Affinity / Procreate. Otherwise my general workflow is the same.

Things To Consider

Some people like changing software often, sometimes on an image by image basis. This is fine, but for myself I like having a bit more of a standard pipeline as my tried and true fallback, and I'll add extra software here or there if I want to try something out. But as you can see, I do make switches now and again, and it will be interesting to see what has changed in another 10 years (2035).

When switching default software, you need to ask yourself is it worth switching? What features do you use all the time, and what are you willing to give up to get new features that your current software doesn't have. It's a constant evaluation. IMO, it's best never to become too dependent on one piece of software because...
Anyways, hope you found this peak into my own personal pipeline interesting. And I hope it gives you the incentive to take a look at your own personal pipeline. As an exercise sometime, try and write down the main tasks you perform, and what software you tend to use the most for these tasks. Then consider some alternatives. It may help you find something you hadn't considered and open you up to new possibilities.

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