Sign In
Sign in
English

  FrontBannersRetrospective2018.jpg    


January 1, 2019 9:00 AM

 

by Editor in Chief

 

What was the biggest Blender news in 2018--especially for professional users of Blender? Here are some of the top 10 Blender news from 2018. 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

  

Goodbye Blender Internal


As of April 19, 2018, Blender Internal got officially removed from Blender 2.8.

Related link: 
https://blender.community/c/today/jlcbbc/
BR1709.jpg

  

9. YouTube Blocked Blender Videos Worldwide


During June 2018, The scarist things happened to worldwide Blender users, 
with Blender Foundation's official channel being blocked for more than three days.
While the channel got normalized a few days later, 
no one seems to have been told why it happened or if it can happen again..
Related link: 
1. https://blender.community/c/today/Tqcbbc/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ecEv7lOzg

BR1708.jpg  


8. Blenderartists.org under New Management


Blenderartists.org moved to a new site with Bart Veldhuizen in charge.


Related link: 

https://www.blender.org/press/blender-top-15-highlights-of-2018


BR1707.jpg

  

7. Grease Pencil Perfected as a 2D Animation Tool


With--HERO – Blender Grease Pencil Showcase--released, 
Blender's Grease Pencil has evolved to become a perfect 2D animation tool.

Related links: 
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKmSdY56VtY&t=23s
2. https://www.blender.org/press/blender-top-15-highlights-of-2018

BR1706.jpg  

6. Blender's Use Expanded Beyond Animations, Films


From creating Drone choreography to fixing multi-million dollar jet fighter, Blender's use has been expanded to various fields.
Not to be overlooked is its conventional usage: creating animations and films.
Related link: 
1. https://www.blendernation.com/2018/12/23/drone-show-choreography-in-blender
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc41jrMpH_o
3. https://hackaday.com/2018/08/23/marines-3d-print-part-to-repair-multi-million-dollar-fighter
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luHmXHEpF7w
5. https://www.soft8soft.com/experience-insight-nasas-new-interactive/
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3S8RMXi2A07. 
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ambpl0AGTfI
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sASB3BE26MQ
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwLhFoyyvQ0
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdlGR5JdGPY
BR1705.jpg

 

5. Industry's Recognition for Blender 


Blender Foundation got accepted as the first open source foundation member of Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) and won
several notable awards this year as well
Related link: 
1. https://www.aswf.io/sony-pictures-entertainment-sony-pictures-imageworks-and-warner-bros-join-academy-software-foundation-at-the-linux-foundation
2. https://www.webbyawards.com/winners/2018/film-video/general/animation/agent-327-operation-barbershop
3. https://www.blendernation.com/2018/12/04/ton-will-receive-prestigious-ub-iwerks-award-for-technical-achievement

BR1704_.jpg

 

4. The success of Blender Specific Paid Tutorials


Aidy Burrows & Gleb Alexandrov's Hard Surface Modeling in Blender tutorials earned over $28,000.00 US dollars
within 20 hours after its initial released in 2018 and still counting.  
That is a great reason for other talented artists to take Blender more seriously and to market their skills and tools through Blender.
And apparently, others have already joined in.
Related link: 
1. https://blender.community/c/today/zxcbbc/
2. https://blendermarket.com/products/hard-surface-modeling-in-blender
BR1703.jpg

 

3. Blender-specific Third Party Add-ons


As was last year, new and irresistible features are continuing to be added to Blender by means of third-party add-ons.
Related link: 
1. https://www.kit-ops.com/story
2. https://remingtongraphics.net/tools/d-noise/
3. https://www.metinseven.nl/blog/an1g/blender-3d-auto-retopology-add-ons
4. https://www.cgchan.com/static/doc/scenecity/1.2/getting_started.html
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PEsSpz2LZA
6. http://renderhjs.net/textools/blender/
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT6NBLv7w_Q
8. https://blender.community/c/today/T5cbbc/optix-ai-denoiser

BR1702.jpg 

2. Use in Feature Films & VFX 

NexGEN--a sci-fi feature animation---produced by Tangent Animation has set a milestone for Blender as a feature animation tool.
Reportedly, the movie was made almost entirely in Blender and was purchased by Netflix for worldwide distribution.
Blender was also known to be used in the production of other feature movies released in 2018 as a part of the pipeline.
Related link: 
1. https://www.blender.org/press/blender-top-15-highlights-of-2018
2. https://3dcinetv.com/netflix-nextgen-blender-review
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRtzMIxbmcQ
4. https://blenderartists.org/t/spiderman-into-the-spider-verse-concept-art/1138581  
5. https://www.blendernation.com/2018/05/22/making-of-kaali-movie-cgi-shots
6. https://blender.community/c/today/kjcbbc/
7. https://blenderartists.org/t/chevrolet-stock-car-40-years
BR1701.jpg

  

1. Blender 2.8 Evee Demos


First introduced in late 2017, Blender Evee--the built-in real-time render engine for Blender 2.8--continued to evolve so as to
 threaten Unity or the Unreal Engine as a real-time renderer for films and arch-viz. 
With Evee evolving toward a certain level of perfection, more stunning Evee demos created by talented artists are likely
to come in 2019 as well.
Related link: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hGSDD9-Tkc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij-99hlCcCc
https://www.blendernation.com/2018/11/06/free-procedural-cloud-system-for-eevee-real-time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxrwx7nmS5A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ0mPrNdZbA
http://www.creativeshrimp.com/30-blender-eevee-demos.html

Related Links:

1. 2017 Blender Retrospective

2. 2016 Blender Retrospective 

List of Articles
Subject Date Viewssort
Blender Retrospectives 2020 Blender Retrospective Feb 20, 2021 210948
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 25, 2020 563028
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 25, 2020 426141
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 431879
Tutorials Top 15 Highest-Rated Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 375784
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 for Blender 2.8 file Jan 23, 2019 344879
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 23, 2019 684190
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 23, 2019 408278
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 file Jan 23, 2019 344796
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2018: Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2019 381557
Blender Retrospectives 2018 Blender Retrospective file Jan 02, 2019 375937
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2017 file Jan 09, 2018 968886
Blender Retrospectives 2017 Blender Retrospective file Jan 01, 2018 696657
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2017: Winners Annouced file Dec 26, 2017 550638
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials (Videos) Released in 2016 file Jan 16, 2017 765307
Blender Retrospectives 2016 Blender Retrospective file Dec 29, 2016 1060195
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2015: Seven Winners Annouced file Jan 20, 2016 790449
Blender Retrospectives 2015 Blender Retrospective file Jan 12, 2016 762157
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2015 file Jun 26, 2015 805510
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2014: Five Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2015 813722
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 file Dec 11, 2014 852598
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of March 23, 2014 file Mar 24, 2015 33310
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of August 19, 2013 file Aug 20, 2013 33282
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of September 22, 2014 file Sep 22, 2014 33259
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of August 11, 2014 file Aug 11, 2014 33228
Production Focus REVERSION: A Testing Ground for 'Cell Production' file Jul 10, 2012 33149
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of October 27, 2014 file Oct 28, 2014 33090
Render of the Week 'Natures Mortes' by Enrico Cerica - the Winner of the Week of February 29, 2016 file Mar 01, 2016 33050
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of August 18, 2014 file Aug 18, 2014 33047
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 22, 2014 file Dec 23, 2014 33035
Render of the Week 'Bees' by Dominik Schatz - the Winner of the Week of August 17, 2015 file Aug 19, 2015 33031
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 23, 2015 file Feb 25, 2015 33025
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 24, 2014 file Feb 24, 2014 32999
Render of the Week 'Mud Dauber' by Damien Monteillard - the Winner of the Week of March 7, 2016 file Mar 08, 2016 32832
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of April 13, 2015 file Apr 14, 2015 32805
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of June 9, 2014 file Jun 09, 2014 32802
Render of the Week 'T-55 Tank' by Piotr Bieryt - the Winner of the Week of May 2, 2016 file May 03, 2016 32771
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of May 19, 2014 file May 19, 2014 32634
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of May 11, 2015 file May 13, 2015 32630
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of August 25, 2014 file Aug 26, 2014 32614
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of September 1, 2014 file Sep 01, 2014 32576