As the world's most popular free and open source 3D creation suite, easy to use and easy to use are recognized advantages of Blender. Compared with many paid 3D software, Blender has more functions than others. In addition to its excellent performance in modeling, it also provides a series of production solutions from model sculpting, animation, material, rendering, to audio processing, video editing, etc.
It is very friendly to some junior 3D enthusiasts, with a small learning burden and low cost of trial and error. You can first use Blender to meet your own learning and 3D design needs at work, and then adjust it according to your actual situation. Moreover, unlike the recent toothpaste-squeezing updates of other companies, each update of Blender can be described as full of sincerity.
Blender has previously announced that it will implement a highly-anticipated function development project in 2023. It happened that Blender 3.5 was released not long ago. Next, let’s follow the editor to see what are the five most important function changes in the latest version. !
#1 Instantly sculpt facial features with a single click using vector displacement maps
For digital sculptors, especially character artists, the main feature in Blender 3.5 is undoubtedly support for vector displacement map (VDM) brushes in the Draw brush. This brush feature was previously only supported in professional sculpting tools like Mudbox and ZBrush.
Traditional heightmap displacement can only displace the surface of the model in the normal direction, while vector displacement maps can displace the model in three dimensions. This makes it possible to create more complex shapes including noses, ears, horns and tails with just one brush stroke.
Currently, vector displacement maps only work when using area planar maps, but mirrored and radial symmetry are supported.
#2 Style hair in seconds with the new Essentials asset library
The new curve-based hair toolset introduced in Blender 3.3 takes a major step forward in Blender 3.5. The software now ships with the Essentials asset library: a set of 26 ready-to-use geometry node setups that can be dragged and dropped into the scene.
They simplify the process of common hair grooming tasks, including generating hair curves on the scalp surface and copying or interpolating between guide curves to thicken the resulting hair.
The library also includes settings for styling hair, including generating clumps, curls, curls and braids, smoothing or straightening hair, and trimming it back.
#3 New nodes for procedural modeling and image processing
Other new geometry nodes include Edges to Face Groups, which finds face groups surrounded by selected edges, and Blur Attribute, which blends attribute values from adjacent elements.
There are also new Image Input and Image Info nodes, which open up new creative workflows for working with images. Unfortunately, the experimental simulation branch, which makes it possible to create particle and flocking simulations using geometry nodes, has not yet been merged into the main branch.
#4 New light tree reduces render noise in Cycles
Both of Blender's main rendering engines have been updated in Blender 3.5, and Cycles now uses light trees to more efficiently sample scenes with a large number of lights.
Enabling light trees reduces noise significantly, at the cost of longer render times per sample, with the end result being that most renders converge to an acceptably noise-free state more quickly. The feature is currently disabled on AMD GPUs, but it should work on Apple Silicon, Intel, and Nvidia GPUs.
Simultaneous rendering in Cycles with (left) and without (right) the new light tree
#5 View compositor output directly in the viewport
Blender's real-time renderer Eevee has gained a new viewport compositor shading option, with the ability to apply the results of the compositor editor node tree directly to the 3D viewport. This change lays the groundwork for a truly interactive real-time compositor inside Blender.
viewport compositor off
viewport compositor on
It now supports basic filter nodes like Blur, Lens Distortion, and Flare, however, it's pretty limited and doesn't support multi-pass compositing or advanced nodes.
Eevee's new viewport compositor shading option displays the output of the compositor node tree in the viewport
Not only that, but Blender 3.5 also updates most of the software's other core toolset, such as Mac users getting a new Metal viewport backend. From the benchmark results in the release notes, it's 1.5-3x faster than the old OpenGL backend.
The UV toolset has added an option to copy and paste UVs between quilts with the same topology. This makes it easier to copy UVs between UV channels, between meshes, or even between .blend files.
Changes to animation tools, including new easing operators in the graph editor and workflow improvements to the pose library, including the option to flip poses directly from the context menu.
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