Software > Animation 3D > Blender 2.79

New in Blender 2.79

Denoise
Get rid of render noise while preserving visual detail as well as possible.
Same render time, buttery smooth.

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10 samples. No Denoise.
10 samples. With Denoise.
The Dweebs - cloud.blender.org
Filmic Color Management
A new Filmic view transform has been added, for more photorealistic results and better handling of high dynamic range.

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sRGB
Filmic
Andrew Price - blenderguru.com

PBR Shader
Based on the Disney model, the principled BSDF is a new surface shader node. Combining multiple layers into a single easy to use node.

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Faster OpenCL
Blender 2.79 features much faster AMD OpenCL rendering and feature parity with NVIDIA CUDA. Including support for Subsurface Scattering, Volumetrics and optimized transparent shadows.

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Shadow Catcher
Combine CGI elements with real-life footage easily with the new Shadow Catcher feature for Cycles.

Any object in the scene can be a shadow catcher. Controlled by the “Shadow Catcher” option in the object settings. This option will make the object to only receive shadows in a way that it could be composed onto another image.

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More Cycles Improvements
Shaders compilation is now multithreaded, a new light sampling threshold feature was added, speedups up to 20% for CPUs that support AVX2, brick textures have now smoothing and a long-waited feature: texture coordinates for point, spot and area lamps!
Modeling & Modifiers
New Modifier! Surface Deform, transfers motion from another mesh.
Plus a whole bunch of updates. Some of them are:

Displace Modifier: Multi-threading support and new Global/Local space option for X/Y/Z/XYZ directions.
Mirror Modifier: add offset for mirrored UVs.
Mesh intersect has a new Cut separate mode, keeping each side of the intersection separate without splitting faces in half.
New tool to Set custom normals from selected faces.
Improved center of mass calculation for mesh centers.
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Animation
Pose library reordering and keying for selected bones only.
Better undo for frame changes.
Various small new tools and options.
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Grease Pencil
New tools for interpolating between grease pencil frames.
Per-layer onion skinning, add blank frame tool, and UI improvements.
Numpad keys now work when doing sculpt sessions.
Operator to add a blank frame
Reproject Strokes option to project strokes onto geometry
UI improvements
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User Interface
Application templates to define a reusable configuration
Automatic scaling for high DPI displays on Windows and Linux
Image empties now support multi-view stereo
Reorganized sequencer and UV editor panels
Custom shortcuts for keyframing and drivers
More tooltips now show the reason why the button is disabled
Add-on duplicates warning now includes paths
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Alembic
Alembic import and export has been greatly improved, both in compatibility and stability.

New supported features include export of linked dupli-groups, sub-frame sampling, face-varying vertex colors, child hairs and empties.

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Python API
Custom properties pointing to data-blocks like objects or materials.
Render engine add-ons can now add custom render passes.
Inserting custom items in right click menus.
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Add-ons
Blender 2.79 packs a bunch of new add-ons that greatly expand Blender’s functionality, allowing you to create architectural environments using parametric windows and walls, to make beautiful skies, or even meta-rigs to animate cats and horses!
Full list of new add-ons: Dynamic Sky, Archipack, Magic UV, Mesh Edit Tools, Skinify, Display Tools, Brush Menus, Btrace, Is Key Free, Turnaround Camera, Auto Mirror, Camera Rigs, Snap Utils Line, Add Advanced Objects, Export Paper Model, Kinoraw Tools, Stored Views, Render Clay, Auto Tracker, Refine Tracking Solution, Materials Library VX, Mesh Tissue, Cell Fracture Crack It.

Several add-ons were updated as well, including Collada, POV-Ray, OBJ, Rigify, Ant Landscape, Add Curve Extra Objects, Viewport Pie Menus, Blender ID, Node Wrangler.

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More Features
Video encoding settings have been simplified, along with the addition of a Constant Rate Factor (CRF) mode.
Viewport support for Object Info, Layer Weight and Fresnel shading nodes.
OpenSubdiv now supports multiple materials drawing in Cycles textured view
Duplicate Particle Systems
Rigid Body Physics: support for rotational springs with stiffness and damping
Collada improvements
Freestyle improvements
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Compatibility Warning
When using add-ons in Blender 2.79 that take advantage of the new data-block pointer properties, the resulting .blend files can’t be opened in earlier versions of Blender. Attempting to open such .blend files in Blender 2.78c and earlier may crash.
Some Interface Themes may need to be reloaded to work properly.
The text color contained in a layout.box() is now defined in User Preferences » Themes » User Interface » Box section
When using the add-on Rigify, please note:
Compatibility is broken for this release. There’s no guarantee rigs created in previous Blender versions will work correctly.
Rigs created in Blender 2.78 may not be compatible with 2.79.
Rigs created in Blender 2.77 may still work.
Save your work before attempting upgrading your rigs.
Bug Fixes
As for every Blender release, hundreds of bugs were fixed, thanks to the hardworking Blender developers.

Total fixed bugs: 739 (382 from tracker, 357 reported/found by other ways).
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.79/Bug_Fixes

Photorealistic Rendering
Blender now features a powerful new unbiased rendering engine called Cycles that offers stunning ultra-realistic rendering.

The built-in Cycles rendering engine offers:

GPU & CPU rendering
Realtime viewport preview
HDR lighting support
Permissive License for linking with external software
Rendering in Blender with Cycles
Modeling in Blender
Fast Modeling
Blender’s comprehensive array of modeling tools make creating, transforming and editing your models a breeze.

Blender’s modeling tools include:

Keyboard shortcuts for a fast workflow
N-Gon support
Edge slide, collapse and dissolve
Grid and Bridge fill
Python scripting for custom tools and add-ons
Realistic Materials
With Blender’s new rendering engine the possibilities for materials are endless.

Key features are:

Complete Node Support for full customization
Physically accurate shaders like glass, translucency and SSS
Open Shading Language (OSL) support for coding unique shaders
Materials in Blender
Rigging in Blender
Fast Rigging
Transforming a model into a posable character has never been easier!

Blender offers an impressive set of rigging tools including:

Envelope, skeleton and automatic skinning
Easy weight painting
Mirror functionality
Bone layers and colored groups for organization
B-spline interpolated bones
Animation toolset
Whether it’s simple keyframing or complex walk-cycles, Blender allows artists to turn their still characters into impressive animations.

Blender’s animation feature set offers:

Automated walk-cycles along paths
Character animation pose editor
Non Linear Animation (NLA) for independent movements
IK forward/inverse kinematics for fast poses
Sound synchronization
rigging
Sculpting in Blender
Sculpting
Experience the joy of sculpting organic subjects using the built-in sculpting feature set of Blender.

Sculpting in Blender includes:

20 different brush types
Multi-res sculpting support
Dynamic Topology sculpting
Mirrored sculpting
Fast UV Unwrapping
Easily unwrap your mesh right inside Blender, and use image textures or paint your own directly onto the model.

Blender allows for:

Fast Cube, Cylinder, Sphere and Camera projections
Conformal and Angle Based unwrapping (with edge seams and vertex pinning)
Painting directly onto the mesh
Multiple UV layers
UV layout image exporting
UV Unwrapping in Blender
Compositing in Blender
Full Compositor
Blender comes with a fully fledged compositor built right in. That means no more exporting to third party programs, you can do it all without leaving the program.

The compositor comes with:

Impressive library of nodes for creating camera fx, color grading, vignettes and much more
Render-layer support
Full compositing with images and video files
Ability to render to multiLayer OpenEXR files
Multi-threaded
Amazing Simulations
Whether you need a crumbling building, rain, fire, smoke, fluid, cloth or full on destruction, Blender delivers great looking results.

Blender’s simulation tools include

Fluid – Realistic water and fluid simulations.
Smoke – Billowing smoke with flames and scene interaction.
Hair – Beautiful wafts of hair that blows in the wind and interacts with collisions.
Cloth – Amazingly realistic cloth simulations for clothing and environments
Rigid Body Physics – Makes any object destructable and collidable
Particles – For creating things like rain, sparks and shrapnel
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Blender Game Engine Screenshot
Game Creation
Included in Blender is a complete game engine, allowing you to create a fully featured 3d game right inside Blender.

The game engine includes:

Ability to port your models to any third-party game engine
Create or code your own game logic
Full Bullet Physics integration
Python scripting API for advanced control and AI
Support for all OpenGLTM dynamic lighting, toon shading, animated materials as well as Normal and Parallax Mapping
Playback of games inside Blender without compiling or preprocessing
3D spatial audio using OpenAL
Camera and Object tracking
Blender now includes production ready camera and object tracking. Allowing you to import raw footage, track the footage, mask areas and see the camera movements live in your 3d scene. Eliminating the need to switch between programs.

The Camera and Object Tracker includes:

Auto and manual tracking
Powerful camera reconstruction
Real-time preview of your tracked footage and 3d scene
Support for Planar tracking and Tripod solvers
Camera tracking in Blender
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Library of Extensions
With a large community of enthusiasts and developers, Blender comes loaded with a vast array of extensions that you can turn on or off easily.

Some existing extensions include:

Generators for trees, terrain, ivy and clouds.
Fracture Objects.
3D Printing Toolbox.
Rigify meta-rigging system.
Import and Export format support for AfterEffects, DirectX, Unreal Game Engine and more!
Plus many more that you can download here

Video Editing
Blender even comes with a built-in Video Editor.

The Video Editor allows you to perform basic actions like video cuts and splicing, as well as more complex tasks like video masking.

The Video Editor includes:

Live preview, luma waveform, chroma vectorscope and histogram displays
Audio mixing, syncing, scrubbing and waveform visualization
Up to 32 slots for adding video, images, audio, scenes, masks and effects
Speed control, adjustment layers, transitions, keyframes, filters and more.
caminandes_edit_final
Exporting in Blender
File Formats
Blender comes packed with import/export support for many different programs.

Including:

Image
JPEG, JPEG2000, PNG, TARGA, OpenEXR, DPX, Cineon, Radiance HDR, SGI Iris, TIFF
Video
AVI, MPEG and Quicktime (on OSX).
3D
Alembic, 3D Studio (3DS), COLLADA (DAE), Filmbox (FBX), Autodesk (DXF), Wavefront (OBJ), DirectX (x), Lightwave (LWO), Motion Capture (BVH), SVG, Stanford PLY, STL, VRML, VRML97, X3D.
Flexible Interface
Novice and advanced users will love the ability to customize their layout completely. From simply splitting their viewport, to fully customizing it with python scripting, blender works for you.

Blender’s interface also offers:

Consistency across all platforms
No disruptive pop-up windows
Crisp text (support for retina on OSX)