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
No. Subject Author Views Votes Date Last Update
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2020 Blender Retrospective 211108   Feb 20, 2021 Feb 21, 2021 01:20
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file 563246   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:13
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file 426339   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:13
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file 432088   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:15
Notice Tutorials Top 15 Highest-Rated Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file 376002   Jan 25, 2020 Mar 24, 2020 10:12
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 for Blender 2.8 file 345154   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 23, 2019 23:35
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file 684443   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 25, 2019 23:34
Notice Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file 408523   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 23, 2019 15:48
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 file 345059   Jan 23, 2019 Jan 25, 2019 10:33
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2018: Winners Annouced file 381793   Jan 02, 2019 Jan 02, 2019 13:20
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2018 Blender Retrospective file Admin 376181   Jan 02, 2019 Jan 02, 2019 13:42
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2017 file 969125   Jan 09, 2018 Jan 25, 2019 23:35
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2017 Blender Retrospective file 696915   Jan 01, 2018 Jan 09, 2018 04:55
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2017: Winners Annouced file 550895   Dec 26, 2017 Jan 09, 2018 04:55
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials (Videos) Released in 2016 file 765536   Jan 16, 2017 Jan 16, 2017 05:18
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2016 Blender Retrospective file 1060440   Dec 29, 2016 Feb 01, 2017 10:28
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2015: Seven Winners Annouced file 790683   Jan 20, 2016 Feb 02, 2016 03:35
Notice Blender Retrospectives 2015 Blender Retrospective file 762401   Jan 12, 2016 Feb 20, 2016 22:40
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2015 file 805758   Jun 26, 2015 Jan 01, 2016 05:33
Notice Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2014: Five Winners Annouced file 813969   Jan 02, 2015 Jan 02, 2015 16:04
Notice Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 file 852833   Dec 11, 2014 Jan 24, 2015 21:31
486 Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 20, 2017 file 26911   Feb 21, 2017 Feb 21, 2017 20:52
 
485 Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 13, 2017 file 26790   Feb 15, 2017 Feb 15, 2017 01:26
 
484 Render of the Week Project 'Advisor' by Eugene Sergienko - the Winner of the Week of February 6, 2017 file 29680   Feb 08, 2017 Feb 08, 2017 02:29
 
483 Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 6, 2017 file 27136   Feb 08, 2017 Feb 08, 2017 02:12
 
482 Render of the Week 'Extreme Makeover' by Guilherme Henrique - the Winner of the Week of January 30, 2017 file 31999   Feb 01, 2017 Feb 01, 2017 01:08
 
481 Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of January 30, 2017 file 28246   Feb 01, 2017 Feb 01, 2017 00:56
 
480 Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of January 23, 2017 file 26315   Jan 25, 2017 Jan 25, 2017 02:08
 
479 Render of the Week 'Ear to the Ground' by Simon Thommes - the Winner of the Week of January 23, 2017 file 34721   Jan 24, 2017 Jan 25, 2017 01:59
 
478 Render of the Year Render of the Year 2016 - Candidates Revealed file 29564   Dec 29, 2016 Dec 29, 2016 05:38
 
477 Render of the Week 'Artworks from Space VFX Elements' by Aidy Burrows and Gleb Alexandrov - the Winners of the Week of December 19, 2016 file 32232   Dec 20, 2016 Dec 20, 2016 22:23
 
476 Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 19, 2016 file 28723   Dec 20, 2016 Dec 20, 2016 21:44
 
475 Blender Whiz The Artist Behind 'Attic Workspace:' Krystian Niemiec file 25687   Dec 14, 2016 Dec 20, 2016 17:39
 
474 Render of the Week 'Rail-mounted Sci-Fi Gatling' by Victor Karp - the Winner of the Week of December 12, 2016 file 32041   Dec 15, 2016 Dec 15, 2016 00:19
 
473 Render of the Week 'Inside the Inventor's Barn' by Łukasz Hoffmann - the Winner of the Week of December 5, 2016 file 31611   Dec 06, 2016 Dec 06, 2016 21:16
 
472 Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 5, 2016 file 27194   Dec 06, 2016 Dec 06, 2016 20:41
 
471 Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of November 28, 2016 file 27690   Nov 29, 2016 Nov 29, 2016 23:57
 
470 Render of the Week 'The Vegan Black Metal' by Lucas Falcao - Winner for the Week of November 28, 2016 file 28858   Nov 29, 2016 Nov 29, 2016 23:56
 
469 Render of the Week 'The WELL' by Mustafa Kurtay - the Winner of the Week of November 21, 2016 file 29201   Nov 22, 2016 Nov 22, 2016 21:08