💖Thanks Curtis Excellent overview of the new Blender features! It is incredible how fast they are moving! I can't wait to play with the geo-node tools. This is so powerful!
💖 With the massive updates to grease pencil, as someone interested in getting deeper into mixing 2D with 3D I'd love to see more on the grease pencil and all it can do at this point. Really awesome stuff in general with this update! Love the Light Linking update and diffuse roughness and metallic updates
💖 One of the things I'm the most excited about (aside from the upgrades to the VSE, which I love) is the inclusion of the Gabor texture. I can't wait to play around and experiment with it in procedural materials. That, the new Metal BSDF node, and the new options for volume scattering are all awesome!
so amazing! i am always wishing the best for the development team and all the contributors. i wish that they could keep reaching a brighter future on every update of blender.
Speaking of how many people are using Blender, this morning I was watching a 30th birthday episode of Time Team, while recovering from a fever so I might have been mistaken, but they were modeling a recreation of this Iron Age settlement they were excavating and moving around in it, and I could have sworn they were using Blender to do so.
Cool news. But, have they managed to handle the shading problems for Mac? Since 4.1 i can't use blender for rendering anymore. Anybody got simular issues?
Like they realized that VSE is the last phase of pipeline to keep full story in Blender…one important thing VSE needs is a way to render animation with audio without having to delete all your video strips. Turning video strips off, results in a blank video w/audio. Need to be able to have it render as if there was no Video, but without deleting all your editing work. Can’t find a way to do it yet. If anyone has that figured out LMK.
@@ItsWesSmithYo In the Output properties, under Encoding > Video > Video Codec choose 'No Video'. Set your audio codec to whatever format you like and you should be good to go.
I understand we all have own interests and niches. Faster sculpting is definitely up there for me. But for pete's sake, how high is the demand for grease pencil stuff?
Grease pencil demand is very high at the moment, given the popularity of 2D/3D shows - most people would point to the Spiderverse films or Arcane, which is incidentally one of the most expensive animated shows of all time. So there’s a lot of money floating around these workflows.
Always looking at it, been setting up new channels recently for different parts of the business, one just for products and resource projects. Trying to allocate dedicated time for it.
💘💖 Honestly, there is a ton of things that I'm pretty excited for with this new version of blender... hoooowever. I do need to wait for a few, if not all, my addons to get updated for this new version. One addon I like to use is Turbo Tools, it makes rendering in cycles VERY fast. A few times it renders faster than even Eevee with the same, if not better, quality. However due to it interacting with the outputs of the compositor... yeah, gunna wait before I monkey around with anything in this newer version of blender. I'm already figuring special jump arounds to make sure greese pencil/freestyle, works with Turbo Tools as I want to add that to my style. So, maybe this newer version will give those tools to the addon dev to make a solid addition? Either way, it'll be hard to go back to 10 minute renders for high quality when I was used to minute long ones for the same level. (Depending on the scene, that isn't overselling the addon) And that's jut the biggest one. Oh man the top thing though... that fun shading node that helps with cloth. That I'm going to have a blast toying around with.
They have completely dropped support for AMD Vega and GCN. Looks like they might drop support for RDNA1 in the near future. Not a good look for the project at all. If you are looking at upgrading your hardware, be advised that this software is pretty much nVidia centric for the foreseeable future. I would not consider AMD a stable option.
@@SpeleoDron I'm not sure that's entirely true. I don't think AMD makes substandard hardware. My hardware works for pretty much everything else I need it to do. This is a specific use case that I have been engaged in bug reports with. According to the responses I have received, the Blender devs lack the resources and capabilities to support specific hardware due to their inability to comply with the requirements of the driver SDK from AMD. This is somewhat understandable as Blender is an open source project and resources need to be focused on keeping pace with an evolving marketplace. Unfortunately in my exchanges in the bug reports, they put the blame squarely on AMD instead of accepting their responsibility in the matter. Kind of disappointing. That being said, I'm considering an nVidia RTX 3060 12GB as a replacement for my Vega 56.
@ I didn’t mean AMD makes bad hardware, I meant it never was better option for widest professional usage. Like, I have been working in video production, motion design and CG for many years and since CUDA arrived AMD stopped being an option at all. And with years I observed this situation only deeped . I feel it is less about hardware and more about common approach on hardware AND software as integrated tool specifically designed for professional usage.
@@SpeleoDron I would agree that for professional usage, nVidia is the best option by far. However, Blender is not really software for professional use... yet. If one chooses nVidia for professional purposes, one should also be on the Adobe+Maya+Houdini trend or something similar. I think limiting support from the Blender devs is extremely unfortunate for those of us in the non-professional field. Then again, 4.2 is an LTS. I guess I can just stick with that until I get better supported hardware.
@@erinpatrickdunn1 I just started learning Blender with intention to make it a part of my personal pipeline, since I had a pause in 3D and have already forgotten how to work in 3DS MAX (and haven’t leats Houdini) so I hope it could be viewed as professional tool as well , otherwise I would struggle to find a job since everyone would want specialists on Cinema4D exclusively :). As for the matter of your comment, I think I got your point, it makes sense and sounds reasonable. However, I would rather think it is not because of malicious intentions on blenders team, but either some technical complications , or lack of resources , or poor communication with AMD. I can easily imagine how any of these factors could make them do it. But, off course it’s just my guess :)
Considering I'll be upgrading from 3.3.2 since now that all my legal rope-pulling and smoke-and-mirroring to set up my company and get my visa in order, I'll use what didn't get gobbled up in legal fees to FINALLY upgrade my geriatric computer... I'm excited about all of these upgrades! 🫀 I've already decided what my first project is going to be. And it will be suitably silly.
Creating the Geo-nodes is the least artistic tool imaginable, unless you consider coding as an art. Some painters make their own brushes, mix their own collors, but most artist just buy the ready-to-use geo-node products/addons.
Some puppeteers purchase puppets they like, some give puppet makers specific requests, and some others make their own puppets. I would hardly call those who make their own puppets the least artistic, and a lot of what they do is technical work with measurements, materials, and engineering.
While I agree that it is not for everyone and probably has a higher barrier of entry than other tools in blender, I wholeheartedly disagree that it somehow is a "less artistic" tool. It is a different workflow and yes it is more technical but I very much feel like I created something in an "artistic" way when I build something with a node based workflow, be it GN, a textured or a simulation in houdini.
💖Thanks Curtis
Excellent overview of the new Blender features!
It is incredible how fast they are moving!
I can't wait to play with the geo-node tools. This is so powerful!
So much nicer than just reading the updates page. ♥
I was existed about the grease pencil changes, but knowing that Wrap around is now the default in the text editor is the really game changer 💖
💖 Thanks for the insightful summary! 👏👏👏
💖 With the massive updates to grease pencil, as someone interested in getting deeper into mixing 2D with 3D I'd love to see more on the grease pencil and all it can do at this point. Really awesome stuff in general with this update! Love the Light Linking update and diffuse roughness and metallic updates
💖 One of the things I'm the most excited about (aside from the upgrades to the VSE, which I love) is the inclusion of the Gabor texture. I can't wait to play around and experiment with it in procedural materials. That, the new Metal BSDF node, and the new options for volume scattering are all awesome!
Thanks for the review Curtis!
so amazing! i am always wishing the best for the development team and all the contributors. i wish that they could keep reaching a brighter future on every update of blender.
💖 I've been away from Blender for a bit. Almost like starting over, except that my decades of use mean that I have no fear of interface changes. 😍
💖 thanks so much for the insights lovely work
So happy with the eeve viewport compositor additions and the grease pencil rewrite. ❤
❤ Thanks for this summary. This is huge. Improvements are welcome, but there is also much to learn.
Thanks for the review
💖 thanks for your review!
Blender 4.3 is a huuuuuuuge step forward! I'm quite excited!! ❤ Let's support the development team by donating
This is great. I'm definitely gonna try out my next project at work with this version.
Thank you for the overview 💖
Splendid stuff ❤
Many thanks. 💖
Informative as always.
So much going on it is amazing
Thanks so much!!!
thank you 💕
💓 I think it might be time to try grease pencil - maybe!
I've been consumed with blender so much I haven't drawn anything in years!
Speaking of how many people are using Blender, this morning I was watching a 30th birthday episode of Time Team, while recovering from a fever so I might have been mistaken, but they were modeling a recreation of this Iron Age settlement they were excavating and moving around in it, and I could have sworn they were using Blender to do so.
Cool news. But, have they managed to handle the shading problems for Mac? Since 4.1 i can't use blender for rendering anymore.
Anybody got simular issues?
Same
holy crap they remembered the video sequencer
Like they realized that VSE is the last phase of pipeline to keep full story in Blender…one important thing VSE needs is a way to render animation with audio without having to delete all your video strips. Turning video strips off, results in a blank video w/audio. Need to be able to have it render as if there was no Video, but without deleting all your editing work. Can’t find a way to do it yet. If anyone has that figured out LMK.
@@ItsWesSmithYo In the Output properties, under Encoding > Video > Video Codec choose 'No Video'. Set your audio codec to whatever format you like and you should be good to go.
where did the face selection tool go?
Awesome! 🎈
4.3 is pretty big... pretty pretty big. 💖
I understand we all have own interests and niches. Faster sculpting is definitely up there for me. But for pete's sake, how high is the demand for grease pencil stuff?
Grease pencil demand is very high at the moment, given the popularity of 2D/3D shows - most people would point to the Spiderverse films or Arcane, which is incidentally one of the most expensive animated shows of all time. So there’s a lot of money floating around these workflows.
❤❤❤ EEVEE Compositing ❤❤❤
🧡 ty
💖 Thank you for the overview. As far as I understood 2% of all users donating is their goal. Right now it's about 0.1% if I am not mistaken.
Ah, I would have chosen a different tagline 😅
@@CurtisHolt True, it is a bit confusing.
💖 Wow!
🥦 Already overwhelmed with the current features, but any performance and stability improvement are so welcome.
🎉
🖤
❤️
❤
No modular workspace add-on update for 2024 :(
Always looking at it, been setting up new channels recently for different parts of the business, one just for products and resource projects. Trying to allocate dedicated time for it.
donate to blender guys please let's blender growing up quickly💖💖🐵
Why nobody mentioning bevel update? IMHO much more important than most of this stuff.
👾👾👾
💘💖 Honestly, there is a ton of things that I'm pretty excited for with this new version of blender... hoooowever. I do need to wait for a few, if not all, my addons to get updated for this new version.
One addon I like to use is Turbo Tools, it makes rendering in cycles VERY fast. A few times it renders faster than even Eevee with the same, if not better, quality. However due to it interacting with the outputs of the compositor... yeah, gunna wait before I monkey around with anything in this newer version of blender. I'm already figuring special jump arounds to make sure greese pencil/freestyle, works with Turbo Tools as I want to add that to my style. So, maybe this newer version will give those tools to the addon dev to make a solid addition? Either way, it'll be hard to go back to 10 minute renders for high quality when I was used to minute long ones for the same level. (Depending on the scene, that isn't overselling the addon)
And that's jut the biggest one.
Oh man the top thing though... that fun shading node that helps with cloth. That I'm going to have a blast toying around with.
💞
💘💘
They have completely dropped support for AMD Vega and GCN. Looks like they might drop support for RDNA1 in the near future. Not a good look for the project at all. If you are looking at upgrading your hardware, be advised that this software is pretty much nVidia centric for the foreseeable future. I would not consider AMD a stable option.
AMD was never an option if u considered wide range of tasks. NVIDIA was must have as long as I remember.
@@SpeleoDron I'm not sure that's entirely true. I don't think AMD makes substandard hardware. My hardware works for pretty much everything else I need it to do. This is a specific use case that I have been engaged in bug reports with. According to the responses I have received, the Blender devs lack the resources and capabilities to support specific hardware due to their inability to comply with the requirements of the driver SDK from AMD. This is somewhat understandable as Blender is an open source project and resources need to be focused on keeping pace with an evolving marketplace. Unfortunately in my exchanges in the bug reports, they put the blame squarely on AMD instead of accepting their responsibility in the matter. Kind of disappointing.
That being said, I'm considering an nVidia RTX 3060 12GB as a replacement for my Vega 56.
@ I didn’t mean AMD makes bad hardware, I meant it never was better option for widest professional usage. Like, I have been working in video production, motion design and CG for many years and since CUDA arrived AMD stopped being an option at all. And with years I observed this situation only deeped . I feel it is less about hardware and more about common approach on hardware AND software as integrated tool specifically designed for professional usage.
@@SpeleoDron I would agree that for professional usage, nVidia is the best option by far. However, Blender is not really software for professional use... yet. If one chooses nVidia for professional purposes, one should also be on the Adobe+Maya+Houdini trend or something similar. I think limiting support from the Blender devs is extremely unfortunate for those of us in the non-professional field. Then again, 4.2 is an LTS. I guess I can just stick with that until I get better supported hardware.
@@erinpatrickdunn1 I just started learning Blender with intention to make it a part of my personal pipeline, since I had a pause in 3D and have already forgotten how to work in 3DS MAX (and haven’t leats Houdini) so I hope it could be viewed as professional tool as well , otherwise I would struggle to find a job since everyone would want specialists on Cinema4D exclusively :). As for the matter of your comment, I think I got your point, it makes sense and sounds reasonable. However, I would rather think it is not because of malicious intentions on blenders team, but either some technical complications , or lack of resources , or poor communication with AMD. I can easily imagine how any of these factors could make them do it. But, off course it’s just my guess :)
🦄💙
Mmm yes, more features I don't understand
Considering I'll be upgrading from 3.3.2 since now that all my legal rope-pulling and smoke-and-mirroring to set up my company and get my visa in order, I'll use what didn't get gobbled up in legal fees to FINALLY upgrade my geriatric computer... I'm excited about all of these upgrades! 🫀 I've already decided what my first project is going to be. And it will be suitably silly.
✏ GP3 💖
🫀
Creating the Geo-nodes is the least artistic tool imaginable, unless you consider coding as an art. Some painters make their own brushes, mix their own collors, but most artist just buy the ready-to-use geo-node products/addons.
Some puppeteers purchase puppets they like, some give puppet makers specific requests, and some others make their own puppets. I would hardly call those who make their own puppets the least artistic, and a lot of what they do is technical work with measurements, materials, and engineering.
While I agree that it is not for everyone and probably has a higher barrier of entry than other tools in blender, I wholeheartedly disagree that it somehow is a "less artistic" tool.
It is a different workflow and yes it is more technical but I very much feel like I created something in an "artistic" way when I build something with a node based workflow, be it GN, a textured or a simulation in houdini.
🖤
💖
🫀
💖
💖
💖
❤
💖
❤
♥