The final release of Blender before Blender 3.0, Blender 2.93 LTS has just been released. The Blender 2.93 LTS release is a Long Term Support release that will continue to receive patches for the next two years and is the ideal version if you are just starting out on a long term project and require stability. Blender is moving towards a node based workflow and Geometry Nodes are a huge first step in that process.
Blender 2.93 has several excellent new features, including:
- First step in “Everything as Nodes”, Geometry Nodes received several improvements and 22 new nodes. Excellent examples available here.
- New “Spreadsheet Editor” for dealing with raw vertex data
- Sculpting improvements including Mask Loops & Patterns, Mask Textures and Flexible Face sets
- Grease pencil line art modifier, for creating ink like profile using Grease Pencil over 3D meshes
- Import SVG as Grease Pencil and export Grease Pencil as SVG and PDF for integration with external tools
- EEVEE real-time rendering improvements
- Cycles rendering improvements including Intel DeNoise 1.3 support and Persistent Data for faster renders
- Much, much more.
You can check the excellent release notes here as well as the more in-depth release notes available here.
You can download Blender here for all major platforms. You can learn more about Blender 2.93 LTS as well as seeing the new geometry nodes and line art modifier in action in the video below.