The Blender Studio has announced the public beta release of Blender 4.3, the latest iteration of its open-source 3D software used in VFX, animation, game development, and visualization.Here are five key updates in Blender 4.3, ranging from the significant overhaul of its 2D animation toolset, Grease Pencil 3, to enhancements in sculpting, materials, and the Eevee and Cycles render engines.
| Grease Pencil 3: A Major Overhaul of the 2D Animation Toolset
The standout feature of Blender 4.3 is Grease Pencil 3, an eagerly anticipated revamp of Blender’s 2D animation and storyboarding system. Originally slated for Blender 4.0, this complete rewrite aims to establish a robust foundation for the toolset, ensuring it can support large-scale projects for the next decade.
Although the initial goal is to achieve feature parity with Blender 4.2, Grease Pencil 3 introduces several new capabilities. Most notably, it is now compatible with Geometry Nodes, Blender’s procedural modeling and simulation system. This allows users to manipulate Grease Pencil objects with Geometry Nodes, enabling advanced workflows like converting 2D animations into claymation-style 3D animations.
Additional new features include color-coded Layer Groups for easier project management, a Fill Gradient tool, and updates to existing drawing tools. However, these changes are not backward-compatible, and some features, such as drawing guides, have been deprecated.
| Eevee: Light Linking for Enhanced Artistic Control
Eevee, Blender’s real-time render engine, received a major update in the previous release with the introduction of ‘Eevee Next’ In Blender 4.3, the engine gains light linking functionality, giving artists the ability to control how specific light sources affect individual objects within a scene. Both conventional lights and emissive materials are supported, as well as shadow linking, which allows for more nuanced lighting effects.
These improvements bring Eevee in line with Blender’s primary production renderer, Cycles, which has had light linking since Blender 4.0. Cycles has also been updated in Blender 4.3 with new volume scattering options for more realistic rendering in atmospheric and underwater environments.
| Cycles: Advanced Volume Rendering for Atmospheric Effects
Blender 4.3 enhances Cycles with new phase functions in the Volume Scatter node, designed to simulate real-world scattering effects such as fog, smoke, and haze. The Fourier-Forand function, for example, is ideal for underwater scenes, while Rayleigh scattering models’ atmospheric conditions like skies and ocean surfaces.
Other new functions, like the Double Henyey-Greenstein for planetary atmospheres and Draine scattering for interstellar dust, extend Cycles’ capabilities for space and astrophysical simulations.
| Materials: New Metallic BSDF Node for Realistic Metal Rendering
Blender’s Shader Editor now features a Metallic BSDF node, simplifying the process of creating realistic metal materials. This node consolidates previously hard-to-access shading controls into a single interface, offering two configurations: the F82 Tint Conductor Fresnel approximation and a true Conductor Fresnel setup. The latter, previously available only through custom OSL scripts, is more accurate but currently supported only in Cycles.
| Digital Sculpting: Improved Brush Management and Performance
Blender 4.3 introduces significant workflow improvements for sculpting and painting. Brushes are now stored in separate asset libraries, making it easier to reuse or share them across projects. Additionally, a new brush asset shelf has been added to the UI, allowing users to select brushes directly from the 3D Viewport or Image Editor.
Brushes are now organized into asset catalogs, and sculpting performance has been boosted—brush evaluation is now approximately eight times faster when working with high-resolution meshes.
| Additional Updates Across Key Toolsets
Blender 4.3 brings numerous enhancements across other key areas. The user interface includes new workflow improvements, such as asset previews in tooltips and experimental support for the Vulkan backend on Windows and Linux.
New 3D modeling features include an advanced Minimum Stretch mode for UV unwrapping. The Geometry Nodes toolset has been enhanced with a For Each Element zone for simplifying complex workflows, as well as the ability to add gizmos to node groups for more intuitive editing.
Character rigging and animation tools have been refined with updates to motion paths, keyframing, and a new bone eyedropper system. Cycles now supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing on AMD GPUs for Linux, and the Compositor supports multi-pass compositing with Eevee.
Finally, the Video Sequencer has seen performance and workflow improvements, including enhanced snapping functionality and better strip management.
| System Requirements and Release Date
Blender 4.3 is currently in beta and is expected to have its stable release on November 12, 2024. It is compatible with Windows 8.1+, macOS 11.2+, and Linux systems running glibc 2.28+.
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