The Blender Foundation has announced the release of Blender 2.80. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few years you'll probably be aware by now of what this version includes, but here's a quick list of some of the more salient points just in case. Blender 2.80 was a major overhaul, 3 years in the making, that includes a completely redesigned UI, a new workspace, a modern 3D viewport, EEVEE real-time rendering,  new tools and gizmos,  major enhancements to grease pencil, updates to Cycles and a whole lot more. Read about the release on the Blender website.

Ubisoft has announced they have joined the Blender Foundation’s Development Fund as a corporate Gold member - listed on the Blender Dev Fund page at  €30K/year. Not only that, and perhaps more significantly, they also announced that Ubisoft Animation Studio, which is a department of Ubisoft Film and Television, will also use Blender for their productions and assign developers to contribute to Blender’s open-source projects. Read more about the announcement on Ubisoft's website.

Witold Jaworski released an updated version of his free book about coding add-ons for Blender, bringing it up to date with Blender 2.80. According to the the author "the book contains a practical introduction to the Blender Python API. It describes the process of writing a new add-on. I discuss in detail every phase of the implementation, showing not only the tools, but also explaining the methods that I use. " Download it from Witold's website.

The Blender Foundation has announced it has been awarded a $1.2 million MegaGrant from Epic Games to "further the success of Blender". (more...)

The Blender Foundation has released a release candidate for Blender 2.80, meaning the final release is imminent. Assuming all things go well, this should be the final shipping version, or certainly close to it, You can download it from here and see the most recent Blender Today live stream on YouTube. 

Chairman of the Blender Foundation and founder of the Blender Institute and Animation Studio Ton Roosendaal recently took to Twitter to share his thoughts about Blenders GPL license (more...)

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Pilgway has released a new 3D-Coat Applink Connection plugin for Blender 2.8 that simplifies the process of transferring assets between the two applications. (more...)

Google Cloud Platform has announced an update to Zync Render, its cloud-hosted rendering platform compatible with Maya, Houdini, Cinema 4D, Nuke and 3DS Max.  (more...)

Quixel has released a new update to Bridge, its content management tool that allows users to browse, preview, download, and export Megascans assets. New features focus on UX, including the ability to preview assets in 3D as well as a map view and more in-depth information about each asset. The right-pane has been overhauled and is now the home for information about the asset, the download settings and export properties. (more...)