Sign In
Sign in
English

  BlenderRetrospective2017.jpg    


January 1, 2018 9:00 AM

 

by Editor in Chief

 

What was the biggest Blender news in 2017--especially for professional users of Blender? Here are some of the top 10 Blender news from 2016. Please remember hobbyist-grade news or well-known facts--such as the use of Blender in product and arch viz--may have been omitted. 

BR1710.jpg

  

10. Experimental & Third-Party Custom Blender Builds


Talented artists and specialists continued to develop amazing task-specific custom Blender builds. Among them are Fracture Modifier and Mantaflow.

Related link: 
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aOiiiiDSds
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m6hiHfYyz4
3. https://blender.community/c/today/vZbbbc/mantaflow-builds-available-on-sebbas-github-win64
4. BlenderNews.org http://graphicall.org/1199
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFREDHkAMZU
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i17Wod4k-o4&feature=youtu.be
BR1709.jpg

  

9. AMD and Nvidia Battle over Speed for Blender Cycles


AMD seems to have an upper hand in lower-end cards while Nvidia has it in its high-end cards.
Related link: 
1. https://code.blender.org/2017/11/cycles-benchmarks-nvidia-update/
2. https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Source/Render/Cycles/OpenCL
3. https://pro.radeon.com/en/software/prorender/
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SoNUeAPtgk 

BR1708.jpg   


8. Massive Exodus of General 3D Forum Visitors
to a Blender-related Forum

An interesting phenomenon has been confirmed in 2017. The number of daily users of Blenderartists.org now almost doubles that of a world-renounced general 3D forum site--cgtalk.com. "It used to be the other way around just a few years ago," says a frequent visitor of both sites. Check it out yourself. It might reflect increased popularity of Blender at least among hobbyists, freelancers, and small studios. It's a phenomenon major players in the industry cannot afford to ignore.
Some have already made the move. Last year, Maxon has made Cycles available in C4D. This year, AMD has become an official sponsor for Blender Conference and worked closely with Blender developers to make Cycles work in AMD graphic cards. And AXYZ has added export option for Blender in its 2017 version of ANIMA

Related link: 

1. http://forums.cgsociety.org/

2. https://blenderartists.org/forum/index.php

3. https://www.blender.org/conference/2017/news/announcing-blender-conference-2017-sponsors

4. http://cgpress.org/archives/cycles-coming-to-cinema-4d.html

5. http://blendernews.org/xe/Feature_Articles/13294

6. https://www.blender.org/press/industry-support-for-blender/


BR1707.jpg

  

7. Blender Noted for Industrial Use


2017 saw a Blend4Web-powered project won a Red Dot Award. And a jewelry brand "Caviar", a Russian-Italian company specializing in bespoke iPhones, Samsungs, have designed 3D-constructor of mobile phones. 
Moreover, Softsynth UIs of music industry's major players such as KORG turned out to have been made using Blender.

Related links: 
1. https://www.blendernation.com/2017/11/11/phone-configurator-made-blend4web/
2. https://www.blend4web.com/en/community/article/357/
3. https://yandex.com/everest/
4. http://blendernews.org/xe/Feature_Articles/13612

BR1706.jpg   

6. Blender Conference 2017


Held on 27~29 October, this year's Blender Conference turned out to be most informative ever. Please check out the recorded sessions on official youtube channel

Related link: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1F2ddGya_9XER0wnFS6Mgnp3T-hgSZO
BR1705.jpg

 

5. New Short Films Released by Blender Animation Studio 


"Agent 327" was released with good reviews. "The Daily Dweebs"--a pilot episode--also successfully demonstrated Blender's capabilities.
Related link: 
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN0zPOpADL4
2. https://cloud.blender.org/p/agent-327/blog/gold-award-at-the-aeaf-festival
3. https://cloud.blender.org/p/agent-327/blog/more-festival-selections-klik-and-siggraph-asia
4. https://cloud.blender.org/p/agent-327/blog/agent-327-selected-for-stash126
5. https://cloud.blender.org/p/agent-327/blog/festivals-update-tmmf-himpff-nafa-spark
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJnKaAtBPhA
7. https://www.dailydweebs.com/

BR1704_.jpg

 

4. Use of Blender for Films & VFX


With Barnstorm VFX nominated for VES award for their outstanding work on the TV series “The Man in the High Castle,” Blender has been noted by industry experts and have been used in impressive projects.
Related link: 
1. https://www.blender.org/user-stories/visual-effects-for-the-man-in-the-high-castle/
2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-one-dutchman-changed-world-david-andrade/
3. https://www.blender.org/user-stories/title-design-from-wonder-woman-to-xxx/
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QiBJB0-okA
5. https://vimeo.com/202027380
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmCmpb3UGg4&t=2m52s
7. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/LXAGA
BR1703.jpg

 

3. Blender-specific Third Party Add-ons and Products


Growing number of third-party add-ons and products are making Blender more attractive than ever--sometimes even irresistible.
Among them are Animation Nodes, Boxcutter, and Hardops.

Related link: 
1. https://www.blendermarket.com/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB8R_xPpaSc
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U7U-4ar91w

BR1702.jpg 

2. Blender 2.79 Released 

Among new features that will have a profound impact on real production includes Denoiser, Filmic Blender, and improved
Grease Pencil. 
Not to be overlooked are many new built-in add-ons to be explored

Related link: 
1. https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.79
2. https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.79/Add-ons
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuGYwZX35u4
BR1701.jpg

  

1. Real-time Rendering in Blender Evee


Evee--Blender's new production-quality realtime rendering capability became the hottest Blender news in 2017. 
Even before its official release in Blender 2.8 and with limited features, "early-adapters" have released stunning results.
You too can test it yourself with the latest test builds released by Blender Foundation.

Related link: 
https://code.blender.org/2017/12/blender-2-8-xmas-report/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWSBYZ6bd7U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3H3G_YwU_I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LydQVCj8ICg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmZVpc9sJOM&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAVjwXEjDdo

List of Articles
Subject Datesort Views
Blender Retrospectives 2020 Blender Retrospective Feb 20, 2021 211235
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 25, 2020 563349
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 25, 2020 426457
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 432221
Tutorials Top 15 Highest-Rated Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 376120
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 for Blender 2.8 file Jan 23, 2019 345283
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 23, 2019 684596
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 23, 2019 408667
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 file Jan 23, 2019 345194
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2018: Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2019 381940
Blender Retrospectives 2018 Blender Retrospective file Jan 02, 2019 376318
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2017 file Jan 09, 2018 969266
Blender Retrospectives 2017 Blender Retrospective file Jan 01, 2018 697074
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2017: Winners Annouced file Dec 26, 2017 551039
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials (Videos) Released in 2016 file Jan 16, 2017 765667
Blender Retrospectives 2016 Blender Retrospective file Dec 29, 2016 1060589
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2015: Seven Winners Annouced file Jan 20, 2016 790837
Blender Retrospectives 2015 Blender Retrospective file Jan 12, 2016 762574
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2015 file Jun 26, 2015 805900
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2014: Five Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2015 814125
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 file Dec 11, 2014 853009
Render of the Week 'The Construction Site' by Oday Abuzaeed - the Winner of the Week of June 24, 2019 file Jun 29, 2019 8941
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of June 24, 2019 file Jun 29, 2019 77759
Blender Whiz The Artist Behind 'Ferrari F12 Berlinetta:' Saksham Kumar (June 17, 2019) file Jun 22, 2019 9910
Render of the Week 'Hydra' by Alan Owen - the Winner of the Week of June 17, 2019 file Jun 22, 2019 10374
Render of the Week 'No More Dragons!' by Oleg Zherebin - the Winner of the Week of June 10, 2019 file Jun 15, 2019 8920
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of June 10, 2019 file Jun 15, 2019 10513
Render of the Week 'Fallen' by Daniel Aubert - the Winner of the Week of May 27, 2019 file May 30, 2019 9644
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of May 27, 2019 file May 30, 2019 10292
Render of the Week 'Guilty Puss' by Alex Bitsadze - the Winner of the Week of May 20, 2019 file May 23, 2019 9320
Render of the Week 'Endless Journey' by Egor Belyakov - the Winner of the Week of May 13, 2019 file May 15, 2019 9374
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of May 13, 2019 file May 15, 2019 10177
Render of the Week 'Citadel' by Oleh Koz - the Winner of the Week of May 6, 2019 file May 08, 2019 9182
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of May 6, 2019 file May 08, 2019 10078
Render of the Week 'Portrait' by Seungho Choi - the Winner of the Week of April 29, 2019 file May 02, 2019 9576
Render of the Week 'The Old Boat' by Gregory Smith - the Winner of the Week of April 22, 2019 file Apr 23, 2019 9540
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of April 22, 2019 file Apr 23, 2019 10179
Render of the Week 'The Collapse' by Maxime Herpin - the Winner of the Week of April 15, 2019 file Apr 17, 2019 9715
Production Focus 'Jesus Christ Lizard' by Aleksandar Misic - the Winner for the Week of April 8, 2019 file Apr 10, 2019 7311
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of April 8, 2019 file Apr 10, 2019 10360
Render of the Week 'Dancing Pig' by Colory Animation - the Winner for the First Week of April, 2019 file Apr 03, 2019 9744