Blender 3D Modeling System

Main article: CAD Computer-aided design systems

2022

Blender 3.4

On December 8, 2022, it became known that the Blender Foundation presented the release of the free Blender 3.4 3D modeling package, suitable for solving various problems related to 3D modeling, 3D graphics, computer game development, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, sculptural modeling, animation and video editing. The code is distributed under the GPL. Ready-made builds are built for Linux, Windows and macOS. At the same time, a corrective release of Blender 3.3.2 was formed in the long-term support (LTS) branch, updates for which will be formed until September 2024.

Blender 3.4

As reported, among the changes added to Blender 3.4:

• Support for the Wayland protocol has been implemented, which allows you to directly run Blender in Wayland-based environments without using the XWayland layer, which optimizes the quality of work in Linux distributions that use Wayland by default. To work in Wayland-based environments, you need a libdecor library to decorate client-side windows.
• Added the ability to build Blender in the form of a module for the Python language, which allows you to create bindings and services for visualizing data, creating animation, processing images, editing videos, converting 3D formats and automating various works in Blender. To access Blender functionality from Python code, the "bpy" package is offered.
• The Cycles rendering system has added support for the "Path Guiding" method, compared to the path tracing technique, which allows, when consuming the same processor resources, to achieve higher quality when processing scenes with reflected lighting. In particular, the method can reduce noise levels in scenes in which it is problematic to track the path to a light source using path tracing techniques, for example, when a room is illuminated through a small door gap. The method is implemented through the integration of the OpenPG (Open Path Guiding) library prepared by Intel.
• Sculptural Modeling optimizes access to the automatic masking settings that are now available in the 3D viewport header. Added features to automatically mask bumps, viewpoint, and selected area. To convert an automatic mask to a regular mask attribute that can be edited and rendered, you are prompted to use the Create Mask button.
• The UV Editor offers an updated Relax brush, which allows you to optimize the quality of UV scanning by achieving a more accurate correspondence of 3D geometry when calculating texture mapping parameters on a 3D object. The UV editor also adds support for uneven grids, pixel intervals, top grid anchoring, UV scan rotation with alignment to the selected edge, and quick setting of random scaling, rotation or displacement parameters for the selected UV islands.
• Viewport Overlay is provided to display geometric nodes, which you can use to preview, debug, or test attribute changes in the node tree.
• 8 nodes were added to extract data from mash and curves (for example, defining face joints, vertex angles, setting the curve normal, and checking control points). Added a node for sampling UV surfaces, which allows you to find out the value of the attribute based on the coordinates of the UV scan. In the "Add" menu, the resources of the node group are displayed.
• The capabilities of the Grease Pencil 2D drawing and animation system have been expanded, which allows you to create sketches in 2D and then use them in a 3D environment as three-dimensional objects (a 3D model is formed on the basis of several flat sketches in different angles). Added a contour modifier to generate a perimeter stroke based on the camera view. Added the ability to import several SVG files at once. The fill tool has been modified. Another method of filling is proposed, which uses the radius of the circle to determine the proximity of the ends of the lines during filling.
• The .mtl files provide support for physically correct rendering (PBR) extensions.
• Fonts are optimized.
• The ability to extract personnel from video in WebM format has been added and support for encoding video in AV1 format using FFmpeg has been implemented.
• The Eevee engine and eport on the Linux platform provide the ability to render in headless mode.
• Optimized performance of the Subdivision Surface Modifier, creating objects in batch mode, calculating disabled modifiers, creating thumbnails in WebP format. Optimizes the performance of sculpting in situations where masks and face sets are not used^[1].

Blender 3.1

On March 12, 2022, the company Blender Foundation published the release free 3D modeling of the Blender 3.1 package, suitable for solving various problems related to 3D modeling, 3D graphics, development, computer games simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, sculptural modeling, animation creation and video editing. The code is distributed under the GPL. Finished assemblies are formed for,, and. Linux Windows macOS

Blender 3.1

According to the company, among the added changes to Blender 3.1, the following can be distinguished:

• The Cycles rendering system implements a backend to speed up rendering using graphic API Metal. The backend was developed by the company Apple to speed up Blender's work on Apple computers with graphics cards AMD or - ARM M1 processors.
• It is possible to render Cloud a Point Cloud object directly through the Cycles engine to create entities such as sand and spray. Point clouds can be generated by geometric nodes or imported from other programs. Significantly optimized memory efficiency of the Cycles rendering system. A "Point Info" node has been added to allow access to data to individual points.
• GPU is used to optimize the operation of the Subdivision modifier.
• Optimized editing of polygon grids.
• Indexing is implemented browser in plug-in elements (Asset Browser), which optimizes work with various additional objects, materials and environment blocks.
• The image editor provides the ability to work with large images (for example, with a resolution of 52K).
• The speed of exporting files in.obj and.fbx formats has been optimized by several orders of magnitude, thanks to the use of multithreading, optimization of algorithms and rewriting code for exporting from Python to C++. For example, if earlier it took 20 minutes to export a large project to an Fbx file, now the export time has been reduced to 20 seconds.
• The implementation of geometric nodes reduced memory consumption (up to 20%), optimized support for multithreading and calculation of nodal circuits.
• Added 19 nodes for procedural modeling. This includes Extrude, Scale Elements, Field at Index, and Accumulate Field. Additional tools for modeling mesh are proposed.
• The graph editor offers updated animation tools.
• The user interface is optimized. It is possible to automatically display a list of filtered nodes when dragging sockets with the mouse, which allows you to see only those types of sockets to which you can connect. Support for defining your own dynamic attributes has been added to the instances.
• It is possible to mark groups of nodes as connected elements (Asset), as well as move in drag & drop mode from the browser of connected elements to nodes of geometry, shading and post-processing.
• Updated modifiers have been added to the Grease Pencil 2D drawing and animation system, which allows you to create sketches in 2D and then use them in a 3D environment as three-dimensional objects (a 3D model is formed from several flat sketches in different angles). The Fill tool allows you to use negative values for incomplete fill along a path to create edged effects.
• Expanded capabilities of nonlinear video editor. Added support for dragging data blocks and items in drag & drop mode during preview.
• The modeling interface provides the ability to give individual vertices arbitrary sharpness.
• Added support for Pixar OpenSubdiv technology for modeling, rendering and exporting in Alembic and USD formats.
• Included is the Copy Global Transform add-on to bind the transformation of one object to another to provide their connected animation^[2].

Notes