The hotly anticipated Blender 2.80 release just got one step closer with the first beta being made available. A bit of a warning, their servers are taking a beating so it might take a bit of time to download your copy. This release is one of the biggest changes Blender, possibly ever, with new features such as a new real time PBR based viewport called EEVEE, a new 2D animation system built around the expanded grease pencil, cycles improvements, a new glTF exporter and of course a vastly changed user experience and workflow.
New to the Blender UI is a new consistent high contrast icon set, pie menus now enabled out of the box, improved context sensitive tools, a massive overhaul to the hotkeys and yes… left click select is now finally the default. Of course the 2.80 release also marks the removal of the Blender Game Engine from Blender.
You can download Blender 2.80 here.
You can get an overview of Blender 2.80’s major new features here.
You can read the complete WIP release notes here.
The Blender foundation have put out a video showcasing the top 5 features in Blender 2.80 which can be viewed here.
Plus of course you can watch my own overview of the 2.80 release here or embedded below. Sadly no hands-on footage of Blender 2.80 in action, as the Blender servers are getting absolutely slammed right now. Stay tuned for more Blender 2.80 coverage in the near future.