The Blender Foundation released today the Blender 2.93 LTS open-source, cross-platform and free 3D modeling software for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms.
Like most Blender releases, Blender 2.93 is a major update that brings numerous new features and improvements, but the biggest change is the fact that it’s an LTS (Long-Term Support) release, which will be supported for the next couple of years. This means that you can use it for long-term projects.
“Blender 2.93 LTS marks the end of a series 20+ years in the making, paving the way for the next generation open source 3D creation pipeline.”
Apart from being an LTS release, Blender 2.93 introduces a new Spreadsheet Editor that promises to help you inspect your mesh, instances, and point clouds. It also introduces a new Fill tool, new Depth of Fiel, and new Eevee with faster volumetrics, as well as support for area lights and soft shadows.
This release makes it easier to create, expand, and tweak Masks or Face sets, adds support for previewing patterns on the go, and support for automatically creating masks by loose parts. It also improves Cycles with persistent data support to keep your files during re-renders and animations.
The Geometry Nodes editor received 22 new nodes for creating the most flexible modifiers, the ability to create mesh circles, cones, cubes, cylinders, grids, ico-spheres, uv-spheres, and lines without having to leave the editor, a new way to inspect the geometry, search support, as well as error reporting.
In addition, Blender 2.93 comes with significantly performance improvements by letting you split complex figures into multiple objects, automatically generates Grease Pencil lines around objects, completely revamps the Interpolate operator for a more flexible workflow with support for editing multiple frames.
Other noteworthy changes include the ability to import SVG files as Grease Pencil objects, which can then be exported to vector graphics for use in Inkscape or a similar SVG editor, support for animations during PDF exports, and an updated Open Image Denoise for sharper details with fewer samples.
Under the hood, there’s OpenCL support for Intel Iris and Xe GPUs. Of course, there are numerous other changes included in the new Blender release. So make sure you check out the full release notes for more details, samples, screenshots, and videos. Meanwhile, you can download Blender 2.93 LTS right now from the official website.
Blender 3.0 meanwhile as the next major release is expected towards the end of August.
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