release of the free 3D modeling package , which includes over 1250 fixes and improvements made over the three months since its release . The main focus during the preparation of the new version was on performance optimization — the operations of undo, sketch pencil, and rendering preview have been accelerated. The Cycles engine now supports adaptive sampling. New sculpting tools like Cloth Brush and Face Sets have been added. A noise suppression system with support for NVIDIA RTX accelerators has been implemented. Initial support for virtual reality based on the OpenXR standard has been provided, along with the ability to import OpenVDB files.
Blender 2.83 is noted as the first LTS (Long Term Support) release in the history of the project, serving as a stable foundation for which updates addressing critical bugs will be over the next two years. Corrective releases will be named 2.83.1, 2.83.2, and so on. This practice will continue in subsequent branches. For example, after Blender 2.83, the development of the Blender 2.9x branch began, which plans to release four versions — 2.90, 2.91, 2.92, and 2.93. Release 2.93, like 2.83, will also be an LTS. In 2021, a release of 3.0 is planned, which will mark the transition to a new continuous version numbering scheme.
In Blender 2.83:
- Support for importing and rendering files using the new object "". OpenVDB files can be generated by Blender from the cache of the gas, smoke, fire, and liquid simulation system, or passed from external applications such as Houdini. The OpenVDB format was proposed by DreamWorks Animation and allows efficient storage and manipulation of sparse volumetric data discretized in three-dimensional grids.
- Initial support for virtual reality, currently limited to inspecting three-dimensional scenes with VR headsets directly from Blender (only in viewing mode, content modification is not yet supported). Support is based on the implementation of the , which defines a universal API for creating virtual and augmented reality applications, as well as a set of layers for interacting with hardware, abstracting the specifics of particular devices. Blender can be used on any platform that supports OpenXR, such as Windows Mixed Reality and Oculus Rift on Windows and on Linux (SteamVR is not yet supported because it does not implement OpenXR).
- The Cycles engine has implemented the ability to use the OptiX noise suppression mechanism in during previews as well as in final rendering. The OptiX implementation, open-sourced by NVIDIA, utilizes machine learning methods, operates faster than previously available noise suppression techniques, and supports hardware acceleration on .
- A new sculpting tool called "Cloth Brush" has been added, which utilizes physical simulation methods to create realistic folds in clothing and automatically form naturally looking curves.
In the brush settings, properties for mass and damping simulation have been implemented, with additional sliders to limit the effects of simulation, seven brush deformation modes with radial and flat falloff types.
Additionally, in the sculpting tools, a new brush called "Clay Thumb" has been introduced, which mimics finger deformation of clay and accumulates material during strokes. The "Smooth Brush" has been added, also available in Mesh Filter, which removes surfaces while preserving the object's volume. The "Layer Brush" has been completely revamped, now featuring a height preview of the layer indicated by the cursor, improved mask support, and has been made artifact-free during multiple changes in one area. A new edge processing mode (Sharpen) has been added to the Mesh Filter, which compresses edges while automatically smoothing flat surfaces.
A new "Face Sets" system has been proposed for managing the visibility of individual parts of the polygonal mesh in sculpting and painting modes. Face Sets are suitable for brush-focused modes, automatically hiding surface parts and allowing for greater control when working with polygonal meshes of complex shapes and overlapping surfaces.
- Fully The implementation of the sketch pencil (Grease Pencil) allows for creating sketches for 2D animation.
The toolkit has become significantly faster and better integrated with Blender. When manipulating objects in Grease Pencil, the familiar workflow used for polygonal meshes in Blender is now applied. Edge colors are no longer limited to a single material, and each point can have its own color. A new rendering engine has been added, providing the ability to combine. Effect modifiers have been revamped to enhance quality, performance, and flexibility of use. In the quick strokes mode, automatic line smoothing is enabled to prevent breakage and sharp angles. Performance with files containing a large number of sketches has improved by about two times, and smoothing during quick drawing has also been accelerated. - In the Eevee rendering engine, which supports physically accurate real-time rendering and uses only GPU (OpenGL) for visualization, support for 10 additional passes for compositing has been added. The update to the lighting cache implementation has eliminated artifacts at seams and fabric stretching effects. The ability to apply high-quality normals has been introduced, which helps to resolve inadequate texture display due to low normal resolution on dense polygonal meshes.
In the material preview mode, the adjustment of the HDRI background blur level has been simplified. When processing hair geometry, support for mixing with alpha hash, transparency mode, and shadow blending modes has been provided. - The built-in video editor (Video Sequencer) has been enhanced. A disk cache implementation has been introduced, allowing cached frames to be stored on disk instead of in RAM. Support for opacity and the ability to preview sound on strips has been provided. A new panel for adjusting the last operation has been added.
- The Cycles rendering engine has added support for adaptive sampling, automatically reducing the number of samples in areas with low noise levels. This results in increased rendering speed and a more uniform distribution of noise.
- The implementation of shader nodes. The Wave Texture node has introduced new modes for selecting wave movement direction, the ability to control phase offset, and increased detail for noisy textures. Improvements have been made to the White Noise Texture, Math, and Vector Math nodes. Settings have been added to simplify the rotation and folding of vectors, and the white noise generator now supports color output.
- The collection management plugin has added support for scene collections and a new QCD (Quick Content Display) screen, allowing configuration of up to 20 collections in a slot form for quick viewing through the widget.
- Many modifiers have been expanded and updated, including
Corrective Smooth, Ocean, Remesh, Solidify, Surface Deform, and Warp. - A significant number of performance optimizations have been implemented. The operations for undoing changes in the 'Object' and 'Pose' modes have been accelerated.
In sculpting mode, deferred updating of the viewport has been implemented, allowing for faster navigation through polygonal meshes with a large number of cells. The new collision resolution mechanism allows for cloth simulation to be executed up to 5 times faster. The simulation of liquids and gases in Effector objects has been notably accelerated. Load times for files with particles and polygonal meshes in liquid and gas simulation systems have been reduced. - In the 3D Viewport, operations for selecting large numbers of small objects have been improved, and the color management system has been revamped (compositing is now performed in linear color space).
- The ability to export metaballs in USD (Universal Scene Description) format as computed polygonal meshes has been added.
Export and import in glTF (GL Transmission Format) have been improved. - The file manager now features a quick file search mode (Ctrl+F), support for file attributes, and hidden files.
Source: opennet.ru
