The Blender Foundation announced a new major release of the open source 3D software. New features include: (more...)

3Digitally Solutions has released a new add-on for creating professional environment lighting in Blender. Features include: ability to mix images with procedural lights for increased realism, procedural ellipse and polygon shapes (triangles, squares, pentagons, etc.), gradients with color interpolations and various falloff options, use the painting tools in Blender to paint light, full 32-bit editing support for OpenEXR and Radiance HDR, etc. HDRI Editor is priced at $33.73. More on Gumroad.

New features in the Blender add-on by Januz for improving the rendering process include: enhanced batch workflow, support for large renders (split a large image into a batch of small render jobs), better UI, etc. More on Blender Market.

CrowdMaster is a new crowd simulation add-on for Blender developed by John Roper. It features a node-based interface, customizable agent generation and related animation tools. The add-on has been released as open source, Blender 2.78 is required. More information on CrowdMaster's website. (more...)

A fun short inspired by Asteroids, the original arcade game released by Atari in 1979. The video was created by Sottozen using Blender. Watch it on YouTube.

A team of artists based in Barcelona has created an animated short about chance encounters, using Blender and Natron. The production has received the support of Martínez Lara's PepeSchoolLand. Watch the trailer on Vimeo and find out more on Darrel's website.

A collection of useful tools by Cenda for Blender that provide a number of workflow improvements for animators, based on the author's experience of using 3DS Max, Maya and Softimage. The tools were developed while working on the video game Planet Nomads. More on BlenderArtists forum.

Stencil Kit Pro is a new add-on for Blender developed by Eric Edelo for weathering objects. It takes into account curvature, surface direction, position and surface exposure to automate the creation of weathering effects, using advanced masking techniques and allowing for fast iterations without UV maps. Stencil Kit Pro consists of node-groups, masking presets, smart material presets, a seamless weathering texture pack, extensive documentation and sample materials. It is priced at $19.95. More on Blender Market.

Antonio Vázquez keeps adding useful features to Blender's Grease Pencil tool. He has posted a preview video showing new interpolation strokes operators at work. Watch it on YouTube.

Story artist Matías Mendiola discusses the latest improvements to Blender's Grease Pencil tool and how they're helping him with his work on the upcoming short Agent 327. According to the artist, Grease Pencil v2 "merges the best of storyboard artistic freedom and the precision and dynamics of an animatic in one single process". More on the Blender Cloud.