3D Modeling & Animation Package Blender 2.80 is Out
chromas writes:
"Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software toolset used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games."
If you had previously taken a look at Blender, but were put off by its nonconformist UI and right-click-select paradigm, well, that's all gone now:
The longest-awaited - and, arguably, the most significant - release in Blender's history has finally been released. Blender 2.80 is now available for download, bringing with it a new interface, a new core architecture for the software, a new render engine, a complete new 2D animation system, and scores of new features affecting everything from modeling to simulation.
[...] The Blender 2.80 documentation lists seven major areas of development, each comprising scores of changes, plus over 30 smaller new features.
[...] The 2.80 release makes Blender look and act much more like other DCC software, adopting industry conventions like a dark UI theme, flat icon design, and left-click being the default way to select objects.
[...] Blender 2.80 replaces the software's old system of 3D layers and layer groups with Collections, used to organise objects in a scene, instance groups of objects, and link groups across .blend files. The old system of render layers has also been expanded into a new system of View Layers, making it possible to create multiple versions of a scene during look development or shot layout, as well as to split a render into multiple layers for compositing.
[...] It's also worth noting that Blender 2.80 is an API-breaking release, meaning that add-ons need to be updated before they will work with it. Many have already been updated: you can find community-compiled lists of compatible tools on BlenderArtists.org and Blender Addons.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.