The Blender 2.80 documentation lists seven major areas of development, each comprising scores of changes, plus over 30 smaller new features. In reality, it would take three years longer: work made possible via crowd funding from the Blender Development Fund and last year’s Blender 2.8 Code Quest.

Where it differs is in the proposed work on the Blender Game Engine – about which, more later – and in its assessment of the timescale: at the time, Ton thought it might mean a break of “9-12 months” after Blender 2.76, and ship some time in 2016. Looking back at that original proposal, it seems remarkably prescient, identifying many of what would become the key changes in Blender 2.80, including UI work, a new physically based viewport render engine and asset management and linking. At one year, 10 months and 13 days since the last numbered version – but hey, who’s counting? – it represents the longest period in Blender’s history that the software has gone without a major update.īut the origins of Blender 2.80 actually lie even further back: all the way back in July 2015, in fact, when Blender Foundation chairman Ton Roosendaal proposed what he termed a “workflow release”: a chance to stop scrambling to add new features to the software and focus instead on larger, more structural, long-term development goals. But first, a little history… Over four years in the makingīlender 2.80 is, quite literally, the most-awaited release in Blender history. To mark this milestone release, we’ve put together an overview of the five major changes in Blender 2.80, and picked out five lesser-known features that could change the way you work, plus some things that have actually been taken out.

Blender 2.80 is now available for download, bringing with it a new interface, a new core architecture for the software, a new render engine, a complete new 2D animation system, and scores of new features affecting everything from modeling to simulation. The longest-awaited – and, arguably, the most significant – release in Blender’s history has finally been released.

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