Software » Animation 3D » Blender 5.2.1

Blender 5.2 LTS showcase reel featuring work by the Blender community.
Watch the Recap Video

New features overview by Jonathan Lampel and Wayne Dixon from CGCookie, Cartesian Caramel, Paul Caggegi

Blender 5.2 LTS splash artwork by Joanna Kobierska, featuring the now-extinct Panthera spelaea
Released July 14th, 2026

GEOMETRY NODES
Music to your Nodes
Imagine driving your nodes with imported audio files, how does that sound?

The Sample Sound Frequencies node, coupled with the new Sound socket, brings audio-reactive animations and simulations to Geometry Nodes.

Sound files can be loaded directly into the node tree. To hear them during playback, add them to the Video Sequencer as well, and set Playback Sync to “Sync to Audio”.

Sample Sound Frequencies
Sample Sound Frequencies node.
Warning: contains sound. Audio-reactive animation by Cartesian Caramel.
GEOMETRY NODES
Bevel and be well
A new node enters the chat: Mesh Bevel.

The long awaited power of detailed procedural control over the edges or vertices.

Physics: Solved
Reimagined, node based: Blender 5.2. LTS introduces a brand new procedural approach to physics for hair and cloth simulations.

The power behind experimental node-based physics lies within the new built-in XPBD Solver node.

While built-in assets contain use-case specific declarative systems around it, advanced users can customize the simulations further. Adapt existing node groups by editing constraints as needed or create a new simulation system from scratch.
What the community is creating with node-based physics
Bundle Up
Blender 5.0 introduced the concept of bundles, which can now be attached to geometry to carry arbitrary data across modifier and object boundaries.

Use new Get Geometry Bundle and Set Geometry bundle nodes to unlock new workflows and possibilities.

Set and Get Geometry Bundle nodes.
Set and Get Geometry Bundle nodes.
More Geometry Nodes
Lists
New core data type that allows storing a sequence of arbitrary length (e.g. numbers or strings). Lots of new nodes were added to provide control.
Create lists through Field to List and Closure to List nodes.
Access lists with List Length and Get List Item nodes.
Modify lists with classic Math nodes as well as new Filter List and Sort List nodes.

Attributes
The Capture Attribute node now supports selection.
The new Rename Attribute node renames attributes with a specific prefix.
The Get Attribute Names node outputs a list of the names of attributes in a geometry, optionally filtered by domain and data type.
The new Transfer Attributes node can transfer an arbitrary number of attributes from one geometry to another.
Attributes can now be stored as 4D float vectors (note that Geometry Nodes currently only operate on 3D vectors).

Strings
Geometry Nodes now support String fields.
The Find in String node can now find the first occurrence from the end.
Remove specific characters at the start or end of a string with the new Trim String node.
Reverse the character order in a string with the new Reverse String.
Switch between upper and lower case through the new Set String Case.
String and String to ValueBaseinput.
Split text into a list based on a delimiter with new Split String node.

Empty Objects
Geometry nodes modifiers can be now applied to empties. Recommended use: custom effectors for simulations, procedural effects that don’t require original geometry.

Curves
You can now access built-in attributes to control the computation of the final curve with the new Set NURBS Order and Set NURBS Weight nodes.

Node Tools
Node tools inputs are remembered between operator invocations.
Node tool inputs can now be assigned in Python.

Performance
Internal fields pre-evaluation deduplication.
Face corner evaluation is now avoided in some sampling nodes.
Preferences: configure a new call stack depth limit for Geometry Nodes.

Other
New in: Collection Children node for accessing all the Child Objects and Collections of a Collection as a list.
New in: Principal Component Analysis nodes.
3 new building block nodes associated with Merge by Distance for expanded control over merging.
Node group inputs: new Scene Frame default input type.
Object sockets can now have Self Object as a default input mode.
Access the internal attribute which tells instances what geometry to instance with the new Instance Reference node.
Extract a single component of a geometry or edit it in a new simpler way with the Get Geometry Component node.
Closures can now be called recursively.
Display data-block name in Viewer Node.
Data-blocks sockets can now be compared to each other and to None.
Bone Info: New “Exists” output.
CYCLES
Cached In
On scenes with many image textures, the new Texture Cache significantly reduces memory usage and startup time by automatically generating smaller, optimized texture files that load only the tiles and resolutions needed for rendering.

Texture Cache Off
Texture Cache On
Attic
Bistro
Junkshop
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Memory usage
Unit: MB

CYCLES
Easy Savings
One toggle, loads of memory savings.

Under Performance Texture Cache, enable Auto Generate or click Generate. A corresponding .tx file will be generated for each image and automatically updated whenever the image file is modified.

Memory savings and performance improvements are highly scene-dependent. Using Texture Cache comes at the cost of a small rendering performance impact and increased disk space usage.
CYCLES & EEVEE
Paper-thin wall
Render physically accurate thin materials such as paper, leaves, and window sheets with the new Thin Wall mode in the Principled BSDF node.

When Thin Wall is enabled, the surface is treated as a slab with its layers mirrored around the base, and the thickness is assumed to be zero.

Render by Christopher 3D.

This new mode provides a more accurate approximation of thin transparent and translucent materials, combining reflection and transmission for thin glass surfaces, and diffuse and translucent scattering for thin subsurface materials.

Principled BSDF Thin Wall
Render by Christopher 3D.

New Color Spaces
COLOR MANAGEMENT
Awesome in Space
Organized color spaces into menus, adding new input color spaces for Apple, ARRI, Blackmagic Design, Canon, and Sony cameras, as well as support for Adobe RGB, common gamma values, and wide gamut textures.

More Cycles & Rendering
Cycles
Added: negative anisotropy support for Subsurface BSDF and Principled BSDF’s Subsurface component.
The Random Walk radius scaling and anisotropy to albedo mapping adjustments for matching other renderers better.
Added: Cast Shadows options for World.
Geometry memory usage optimization and improved sync performance.
Raycast Node: Access to custom attributes at intersection point.
Rendering
New: disable option for render output saving.
New: easy copy to selection for light/shadow linking.
Shader nodes: new Time Node, behaves similar to its Geometry Nodes version.

EEVEE
Eevolved
Blender 5.2 LTS is a major release for EEVEE, addressing long-standing usability issues from the transition to the EEVEE Next project architecture.

What’s New
2x speed-up in instance-heavy scenes
Reduced banding using dithering
Removed limit of 8 attributes per material
Support for Normal Map Base
Added Raycast visibility toggle
Added 1.5GB and 2GB Shadow Pool sizes
Added Camera visibility for lights
Plane Light Probes now support Blended materials and Shader to RGB
Improved consistency rendering across platforms
Added Anisotropic Filtering
Behind the Screen
The new Backface option under Screen Tracing controls how rays that intersect the back faces of visible geometry are handled.

When enabled, intersections with back faces are treated as valid hits instead of misses.

This can reduce light leaking when using screen-space global illumination, and lets you fine-tune the appearance of global illumination. It affects both Screen Space GI and Fast GI Approximation.

Double Sided
Single Sided
Disabled (Compatibility Mode)
Double Sided
Both front and back faces contribute to global illumination (slider at 1.0)

What Got Better
Screen Space Raytracing overhaul
Principled BSDF sheen accounts for Coat normal
Critical Fast GI issues fixed
Shadow visibility fixes
Depth of Field bokeh fixes
Shadow artifacts fixes
Faster and less noisy Fast GI
Fixdd light culling at shallow FoV angles
Light render passes consistency with Cycles
Motion blur fixes
Volume shader compilation fixes
Improved Refraction BSDF light evaluation
Improved Vector Transform normals on non-uniform scale objects
Mix node consistency with Cycles
Subsurface Scattering indirect lighting fixes
See all changes in EEVEE & Viewport

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ASSETS ONLINE
Essentials On Demand
Dozens of new parametric materials, compositing effects, HDR world backgrounds, Geometry Nodes setups, and many more assets have been added to the Essentials library.

The best part? Blender isn’t any larger. These new assets are hosted online, ready for download whenever you need them.

Asset Browser with Online Essentials
Make Them Yours
Watch this demo on customizing online assets by Simon from Blender Studio
Host Your Own
Need more? Host your own or add your favorite creator’s online asset libraries.

Smart indexing makes browsing thousands of assets a breeze.

Keep your assets up to date with a single click.

Add Remote Asset Library Preferences
Add your own online repository in the new Asset Libraries preferences section.
More in Assets
New Asset Libraries tab in Preferences
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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.
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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)