Articles 178
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.
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 8. Massive Exodus of General 3D Forum Visitors 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/ | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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/ | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 | |
| 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 |
