The newest version of Blender is now available for those willing to walk on the wild side. It’s RC1, meaning Release Candidate 1 or in other words… try this
version and tell us what bugs you encounter! For the most part though, I have found previous RC versions to be quite stable and I am a huge fan of shiny and new. Speaking of which, this release brings a number of new features:
In this release:
- Initial support for Pixar’s OpenSubdiv geometry subdivision technology.
- A huge view-port performance boost.
- Big file browser performance boost and arrow keys navigation support.
- Node auto-offset feature that helps organizing node layouts.
- Absolute grid snapping in the 3D view.
- Sculpting with tiled strokes.
- Text effect strips for the sequencer, supporting subtitle export
- And: 100s of bug fixes and other improvements!
New functionality by category:
Cycles Renderer
- New Point Density Texture
- Improvements for AMD GPUs (stability on Windows / Linux and compatibility with OSX El Capitan).
- Camera zoom motion blur support
- Support for extended and clipped image texture extension.
User Interface
- Viewport: The ongoing viewport project brought a big performance boost
- Node Editor: Auto-offset of existing nodes when adding a new one
- File Browser:
- Arrow-key navigation and selection.
- Huge rework of internal code, now quicker & lighter.
- It’s now possible to get the correct (user edited) shortcuts of modal operators
- And more!
Modeling
- Two new tools: Flatten faces and edge offset
- Data Transfer supports transferring data between equal meshes better
- Absolute grid snapping for the 3D view was added
- Displace modifier custom normals support
- And more!
OpenSubdiv
- Initial integration of the Pixar OpenSubdiv library
- Greatly improves viewport playback performance
- GPU tessellation support
- Improves edge sharpness
- And more!
Sequencer
- New text effect with capability of exporting as subtitles was added
- Improved AltRMB
selection behavior
FreeStyle NPR
- Freestyle memory consumption was reduced
- New stroke modifiers were implemented
Sculpting/Painting
- Weight paint smoothing.
Animation
- Clean channels tool was introduced that helps organizing channels
- A new add-on to create bone selection sets is bundled
- And more!
If you are interested in trying Blender 2.76 out, click here. I have been waiting a very very long time for a flatten faces option, as the current workaround is a horrible hack.