Blender 4.0 is a massive update to its renowned 3D software
After four months after the release of Blender 3.6 LTS, The Blender Foundation announced the release of Blender 4.0, which is considered a major update, including Node tools, UI improvements, highlight and shadow linking, revamped early BSDF, and more.
Of the highlights of Blender 4.0, we can find the Voronoi texture node, which has the ability to add fractal noise and specify multiple layers of detail, and also three new types of input data: detail (the number of layers to be calculated), roughness (the degree of influence of the upper layers on the result) and lackarity (coefficient).
Another change that stands out is that New keyboard shortcuts and layouts have been added to create a familiar environment for people who have worked on other 3D packages. The Hotkeys have been unified in different modes. The Tweak tool has added the ability to move multiple objects at once with the mouse. For quick access to settings, the Ctrl + comma combination has been added. To proceed with renaming the labels, you now only need to double-click the mouse.
In addition to this, it is also noted that added Hydra Storm plugin with the implementation of a rendering system based on the OpenUSD platform. The new renderingr can be used as an alternative to Cycles, EEVEE and Workbench. In terms of capabilities, Hydra Storm lags behind EEVEE rendering and is primarily aimed at previewing before exporting, allowing you to evaluate how the scene will look on other systems that support the USD format.
Animation tools offer a collection of articulations (Armature Bones). The pose library has been ported to the new asset system and can now be accessed from the 3D viewport.
Linking lights and shadows is another new feature in Blender 4.0 and allows you to configure lights to affect only specific objects in a scene and control which objects act as shadow blockers for a light.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- Added support for AMD RDNA2 and RDNA3 APUs, expanding the software's hardware support for rendering processes.
- The BSDF node now supports an expanded range of material types, thus improving the material creation process.
- The introduction of the AgX view transform aims to improve color accuracy, particularly in overexposed regions, replacing the previous cinematic view transform.
- For macOS users, an HDR display option is now accessible for those with HDR-compatible monitors.
- Performance has been optimized, exemplified by a XNUMXx speed increase for the Curve to Mesh node under certain conditions.
- Added interactive sliders to the chart editor to perform “Match Slope”, “Merge to Ease”, “Merge Offset”, “Cut Keys”, “Scale Average”, “Time Offset”, and “Nudge” operations. /throw".
- Compatibility with the CY2023 specification, which defines the VFX reference platform utilities and libraries, is guaranteed.
- The font in the user interface was changed to Inter, which made it possible to achieve high-quality display, regardless of the size and resolution of the screen.
- When displaying text, correct subpixel positioning and suggestions are guaranteed.
- Added options to settings to enable subpixel anti-aliasing.
- A new version of the Human Base Meshes set has been proposed with a collection of human body models.
- Multiple Scatter GGX Implementation for more efficient rendering in Cycles, resulting in Less power usage during rendering.
Finally for those interested in getting the new version, they should know that the builds are ready for Linux, Windows and macOS.