Discover what's new in the latest version of Blender.
This week saw the release of Blender 3.6. This will be the final release in the 3.x series with Blender 4.0 currently due to be released in early November.
You can download Blender 3.6 from the Blender website.
The new release comes with an array of performance enhancements and the big new feature is the addition of simulation nodes, an extension of the geometry nodes system. Since my focus is character animation, this isn’t something I’m planning to dive into myself in the near future but it certainly looks like a powerful addition.
The animation related changes are minor in this release but there are a number of small quality of life improvements.
The graph editor “Key” menu has been considerably tidied up with some items moving to a more sensible location in the “Channel” menu.
There is the ability to call the breakdown tool in the graph editor using the “Alt D” shortcut and frame the graph editor on specific channels simply by hitting the “.” numpad key over a selected channel name. Both of these shortcuts can save a bit of time.
As usual, I’ve checked all of the changes against my classes and there’s nothing that I’m aware of which will cause an impact. Of course, if you spot anything that I haven’t, do let me know.
You can view a full list of updates in the Blender 3.6 release notes.
Alongside the new version release, Blender have also announced a new asset bundle containing human base meshes which can be used as a starting point for sculpting both realistic and stylised characters.
If you’ve taken my Character Sculpting Essentials class, you’ll know that we go through the process of first building a base mesh to work from when sculpting our seahorse character.
If creating human characters is something you’re interested in, this asset bundle will give you a great starting point to work from.
You can learn more about the asset bundle in this video:
Finally, Blender have also released a new showreel to highlight some of the wide range of projects which are being created using Blender. Hopefully it will provide a little inspiration!
