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 211065
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 25, 2020 563185
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 25, 2020 426279
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 432032
Tutorials Top 15 Highest-Rated Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2019 file Jan 25, 2020 375937
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 for Blender 2.8 file Jan 23, 2019 345084
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for CG, Games & Viz file Jan 23, 2019 684368
Tutorials Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 Worthy of Your Note - for Animation & VFX file Jan 23, 2019 408463
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2018 file Jan 23, 2019 344990
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2018: Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2019 381715
Blender Retrospectives 2018 Blender Retrospective file Jan 02, 2019 376121
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2017 file Jan 09, 2018 969066
Blender Retrospectives 2017 Blender Retrospective file Jan 01, 2018 696856
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2017: Winners Annouced file Dec 26, 2017 550826
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials (Videos) Released in 2016 file Jan 16, 2017 765474
Blender Retrospectives 2016 Blender Retrospective file Dec 29, 2016 1060377
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2015: Seven Winners Annouced file Jan 20, 2016 790623
Blender Retrospectives 2015 Blender Retrospective file Jan 12, 2016 762339
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2015 file Jun 26, 2015 805688
Render of the Year Render of the Year Awards 2014: Five Winners Annouced file Jan 02, 2015 813916
Tutorials Top 12 Free Online Blender Tutorials Released in 2014 file Dec 11, 2014 852777
Render of the Week 'Tannhauser Gate' Manuel Grad - the Winner of the Week of October 31, 2016 file Nov 01, 2016 32034
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of March 21, 2016 file Mar 22, 2016 32014
Render of the Week 'Extreme Makeover' by Guilherme Henrique - the Winner of the Week of January 30, 2017 file Feb 01, 2017 31997
Render of the Week 'Different Sides of Nature' by Martti Kaipiainen - the Winner of the Week of March 28, 2016 file Mar 30, 2016 31979
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of October 19, 2015 file Oct 20, 2015 31870
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of July 6, 2015 file Jul 07, 2015 31851
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of December 21, 2015 file Dec 23, 2015 31755
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of November 23, 2015 file Nov 25, 2015 31711
Production Focus REVERSION the Movie Released Online file Aug 07, 2012 31702
Render of the Week 'Inside the Inventor's Barn' by Łukasz Hoffmann - the Winner of the Week of December 5, 2016 file Dec 06, 2016 31610
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of March 2, 2015 file Mar 03, 2015 31567
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of August 25, 2015 file Aug 25, 2015 31516
Render of the Week 'The Hyperreal Shoes' by Gleb Alexandrov - the Winner of the Week of May 30, 2016 file May 31, 2016 31442
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 1, 2016 file Feb 02, 2016 31431
Render of the Week 'The Courtyard' by Guilherme Henrique - Winner for the Week of September 19, 2016 file Sep 21, 2016 31430
Product Visualization PRODUCT VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of February 16, 2015 file Feb 18, 2015 31351
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of May 9, 2016 file May 10, 2016 31318
Architectural Visualization ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION IN BLENDER for the week of November 9, 2015 file Nov 11, 2015 31300
Blender Whiz The Artist Behind 'the German Castle:' Prashant Kumar file Mar 03, 2014 31286
Render of the Week 'United Earth Mothership' by George Kim - the Winner of the Week of June 6, 2016 file Jun 08, 2016 31190