Blender Foundation, in collaboration with its online developers community, has recently released Blender 4.0, marking a significant update to the popular 3D creation suite. This version introduces numerous enhancements focusing on rendering, tool creation, and overall user experience, underlining Blender’s commitment to “Freedom to Create.”
A highlight of Blender 4.0 is the revamped Principled BSDF, which is more energy-conserving, efficient, and flexible. It includes a new coat layer for simulating effects like emissive textures behind glass and a sheen layer employing a microfiber shading model, expanding its utility beyond traditional applications like fuzzy cloth.
Color management sees a major advancement with the introduction of the AgX view transform, providing improved handling of over-exposed areas and color saturation, especially evident in the rendering of metallic and highly saturated objects.
Texture capabilities are also enhanced, with the Voronoi Texture node now supporting fractal noise for unlimited procedural detail. This node has been equipped with new inputs such as Detail, Roughness, and Lacunarity, and a Normalize property for better output control.
Blender 4.0 also introduces Light Linking in the Cycles rendering engine, allowing lights or emissive objects to affect specific scene elements. This feature provides greater control over lighting and shadow effects in complex scenes.
Geometry Nodes receive a significant upgrade with the implementation of Node Tools. These tools facilitate the creation and customization of Blender tools without requiring Python knowledge, expanding creative possibilities and ease of use.
Modeling improvements include enhanced snapping options and user interface upgrades. New snap options and dynamic cursor changes make the process more intuitive, while the introduction of Snap Base allows for more precise object transformations.
Search functionality within Blender has been improved, with instant search capabilities in all Add menus, enhancing workflow efficiency.
Blender 4.0 aligns with the VFX Reference Platform 2023, ensuring compatibility with studio pipelines. This version also includes updates to its animation and rigging modules, with new features and improvements reflecting the ongoing “Animation 2025 project.”
In addition to these highlights, Blender 4.0 offers a myriad of other enhancements across its feature set, including updates to EEVEE, the viewport, import/export functions, text editor, Python API, and the Sequencer.
Following this significant release, a minor update, Blender 4.0.1, was issued on November 17th to address critical issues, with updating highly recommended.
Find out more on the Blender website.
Every time I am trying it, I give up after 3 minute because the most fundamental modelling workflow sucks:
A- Is there really no way to select two meshes and add them inside an empty (with no stupid viewport gizmo) with ONE shortcut ?
B- Is there no way to create an empty with a single shortcut in the outliner and simple drag and drop the meshes inside with no shortcut ?
if A or B is no, then this software is designed by people who really fart in their own bubble too much and lost sense of smell.
(ps: the noobs, don’t stat with you collection answer, it has nothing to do with collections)
15 years in videogame industry here. You just don’t know how to use the software. Now that’s a newbie thing if there was ever one.
A – select the two meshes, then the empty… ctrl-p
B – just assign a shortcut to the create empty action…
Dammit damm.
Damn it glep.., I said I want to only have to select the meshes and press a shortcut that creates the empty and put the meshes inside all at once.
You just proved me that the workflow sucks: Having to create the empty manually each time before, then have to care about the selection order to process the parenting, that’s level 10 of bad workflow indeed. Thanks for the confirmation!
While it is not a native feature, it would be easy to create a python script that does exactly that with a few lines of code. I don’t know, that particular thing doesn’t really bother me in my work but I can see the use.
I think what you describe is provided by the free add-on MACHIN3tools. With one or multiple objects selected, you can press CTRL + G, and it creates a group for you.
Thanks Marco
When I open a cg software doing modeling, this is typically the second or 3rd action I do after opening the software… The fact you need to install a third party plugin to have this available is completely crazy (to be polite) to me.
Wtf are they doing with their time if not polishing to top fundamentals of modeling like this case? Most of the features from this tool should be vanilla. Instead they are more preoccupied making stuff like fabric brushes and 2d drawing stuff 0.5 percent use…
I understand your point. Personally, it doesn’t bother me.
The way I see it, one can either embrace a specific software ecosystem or not, and I don’t think neither is right or wrong here. It simply comes down to one’s preferences and habits. Each alternative has its own merits.
Perhaps I’m okay with it due to many years of C4D where you need a third-party render engine, third-party particle system, third-party environment plugins, and so on. Now I’m used to it, as I’m used to having my trusty Blender add-ons, free and paid.
The fact that one needs an add-on to cover a basic operation like Groups can look like a con. But at the same time the fact that an add-on like MACHIN3tools covers that specific need (and adds much more) and it’s free, is also proof of how Blender’s ecosystem despite how unbalanced it may appears, it’s also very reach and alive, and there are solutions for every need.
But if you don’t like it, no one can tell you that you’re wrong. I think a 3D app is like a camera: one has to feel it.
Just my 2 c.
so that is what needs to be done? All this time I found it so weird I couldn’t group objects right off the bat. Same goes for moving the pivot, it seems like a chore just do do something that should be simple.
What’s an empty?
Just another bizarre terminology that Blender is famous for alongside a hundred other Bizzare terminologies and workflows and then everyone is surprised why not enough Max or Maya users are switching over or using it more frequently.
An empty is pretty common terminology in game dev. It is what the name says. An empty object that basically just has a location. A container.
And you can of course quickly parent the two objects to the empty. Shift click select the two objects in the 3d view, shift click select the empty, ctrl P for parent, then choose how you want to parent in the upcoming menu.
Or the even faster way, in the outliner select the two objects, hold shift and drag them onto the empty. Not using a hotkey here would be a dangerous thing. One accidental click and you need to start searching where your objects are gone. So yeah, the shift hotkey is a good thing here.
There are for sure other oddities in Blender that are much more in the way than the Empties. Empties works imo pretty straight forward.
Hum, no… Empty sounds like a ESL way of naming a xform / transform,
Also since their empties have a (non removable gyzmo), they are in fact more locators than “empty”.
Let’s not forget that not long ago, they were calling the lights the lamps… so they may need time to rename the software items/functions properly.
I’ve been in game dev for more years than I care to count and I’ve never heard of an Empty.
I was guessing it was a dummy/scene node, that you can use for parenting/storing transforms or whatever. It seems an odd term though since it would only be ’empty’ when you first place it in the scene?
Me too. This just shows that you never stop learning 🙂
It is no node. It is a container. An object without geometry. Which you can use then for any purpose you like to. As a handler for rigging for example.
Here an example how Unity utilizes empties. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VdqVN4YVu0
Ah-ha.. In my mind I always read that menu item as ‘create empty game object’ without realising that was the ‘thing’ – thanks!
I thought it was a dummy node/object as well. And reading damm’s reply its clear they are just trolling.
Blender lacks many fundamentals of modelling. I’ve refused to use it after using Maya for years.
It can’t handle the pivot accurately, or quickly to set up for a game-ready asset.
As you said, about the poor collection feature in the outliner.
It can’t handle UVs (but I don’t need it to), you blindly work on some selected edges whilst all the rest of the islands and shells remain cloaked like they’re wearing The Ring, until you select everything and find out it’s been skewed into oblivion from some minor edits.
Importing any object that shares a mesh or material name sets it to .001 for your convenience.
All the transformations are based on inaccurate eyeball guesses.
The knife tool bugs out and rips into random parts of the model. Truly random places which share no axis or ray cast to where you were working.
It occasionally sets up ‘UV Groups’. You’ll have zero idea that it’s been set up when it does, as your material will be exactly the same. Your UVs will read as perfectly fine in some other programs, and you’ll only notice right at the end of your pipeline that your texture group has this invisible layer you can’t actually begin texturing on. It serves no purpose. It can only be seen and deleted in the UV Editor (IIRC) to the top right corner.
Positioning the pivot to a normal. Apparently you have to duplicate a face, or split it off and create witchcraft before it obeys.
The mirror modifier is just completely useless. Go to Maya’s Mirroring or ZBrush’s Mirror / M&W and see how immediately it’s been cut and applied with no unexpected results or malfunctions.
Freeze transformations. I have some objects that are completely stuck with non 1,1,1 scales. I’ve already reset 3d cursor to grid, and applied all transforms to deltas, but when exporting and reimporting, it rejects the scale. (Obviously not actual size value, but the scale unit not keeping their 1,1,1 after it shows it’s been set until reimport). I refuse to click ‘Apply Transforms BETA’ on my models. I don’t click Testing Beta buttons on something that’s this crucial.
I feel like an amateur when using Blender. Every time I run into an issue in my workflow, that I can easily get out of in Maya, I don’t get an answer that tells me how to do it in the Blender community. Instead, I consistently get “Blender doesn’t/can’t do that”. Or “There’s no option in Blender”.
Academia spoiled us with Maya…
They teased us.
Now we model like a baboon.
Been using Max and Maya for more than 10 years. Blender modeling is the best. I’m telling you, the problem is that you blame the software for your own unwillingness to get proficient with it. I could write an entire essay of Maya and Max shortcomings, that we just get used to and ignore. Not really defending Blender here, just pointing out that it’s pretty funny how people think that it is missing features when they just don’t know where it is.
Well, when Blenger will allows us to group geo in one click, to drag and drop stuff in the outliner without pressing any keyboard shortcut, have xforms with not icon, a proper pivot system, and a Y up axis as an option (where is the freedom in locking people in a world coordinate system that half of people hate), then we are going to talk. Until then, Autodesk Maya has some good days ahead in the pro sphere.
No disagreement here. Maya will stay the industry standard software for many many years that’s for sure.
For me the one of the biggest issues is that collections are “virtual entities” where objects may or may not belong exclusively, yet the outliner hierarchy is based on them. In maya you have sets, which is pretty much the same concept, but the main hierarchy is not based on them. This allows for cleaner organisation and easier manipulation. Blender has a lot of nice things, but some of the bad ones are ridiculous. Frame an object with the 0, soft selection is POST transform, etc.
Yeah collection are maya sets basically. It’s ok for managing some data but not a full solution neither.
And just like maya sets, they have no procedural option.
Another limitation Blender has, zero rule based system for procedural fetch (in 2023..)
i prefer 3ds max especially after 2024.2 update.
Wow, much nit-picking on here. Blender is still relatively young, and is only going from strength to strength.
Blender is not young just took the wrong railtrack when the crucial decision was made to revive it a few years back. They decided to keep all its user interface and experience the same but update the buttons. I recall many of community and dev members were complaining about it being the wrong choice to make if they are going to encourage max and maya users to jump on board by the buckload. I voiced my opinion as well. Now its too late. Maybe a new generation can pick it up because they have time to kill but not the more experienced older generation. Theyd rather pay than waste time on a whole new package we have enough learning worthy of learning on our plates anyway.
That is primarilywhy Blender gets the shit from so many users.
Blender is not young. It is now over 20 years old. And it still has to overcome some old weaknesses. The fake user concept for example. Or nowadays to go wild with the nodes and to forget about the rest of the software because of this. Or that everybody pulls at the rope, but in his very own direction.
But yes, Blender is not bad. And still one of the best Open Source projects out there. Kudos !
LoL the fake user concept, that alone, is such a clownish design that I was not believing my eyes when I saw that crap. Yet… still here with an other absurdly stupid concept that is that materials are parented within meshes rather than being a independent datatype that can be attached procedurally with a path rule…
When I requested in the community the suggestion for procedural shader assignment with rules, it got down-voted…
Saying that Blender community is mostly composed out of unskilled people, is not harsh, it’s just being sincere.
It’s an abuse of how much they charge for a license, and it’s even worse how much bloatware is installed with it just to manage the licensing analytics. Blender is the worst piece of code ever made.
Blender bloatware? licensing analytics? Worst piece of code?
I think he forgot to mention that Blender developers always desperately try to show new features based on any new technology made publicly available by third parties (the famous papers), forgetting and leaving behind the thousands of bugs from the “old news”…
but I admit that as a “sand box” for testing new technologies, Blender is an interesting toy…
but for the robustness required in the day-to-day life of medium and large studios, this is useless and extremely dangerous to rely on.
All I know is is been a pretty solid program for me. I’ve been following it’s development for a few years now and they do tackle a large number of bugs with reach release. I love that blender is open about showing their progress almost daily. Its a refreshing change from 3dsmax which doesn’t. Both programs suffer from their legacy codebases but each one is making strides. I miss working with 3dsmax (my last version was 2014 and I can’t get new licenses anymore) but I enjoy seeing max improve over the years, but watching blender go from strength to strength has been fun to watch.
I guess that was sarcasm…
tried blender 4 and max 2024.2
max just felt slow and clunky , blender i couldnt get into it
idk about maya 2024.2 if its worth trying ?