The Blender release 3.3 will receive bug fixes over a longer period of time and therefore carries the addition “Long Term Stable”. New features include a hair system. It is now available for free download for Windows, Linux and macOS.
Objects that are linked in other files cannot be changed in Blender by default. With library overrides, individual parts or data blocks of the object, which include the materials, can be overwritten locally. The developers have standardized the interface for these overrides to make it easier for users to create, edit, remove and troubleshoot.
Graphical gizmos help with basic object transformations. If you move an object from the toolbar using the gizmo, it remains displayed during this time. This makes it clear in which coordinate system you are.
Remove data blocks recursively
In Blender, it is still not easy to remove data from a project once it has been added. They are only deleted when the project is closed and there are no longer any references to the data block. This is also handled internally with the “Purge” operation in the Outliner. Because some dependencies are chained, you had to run the operation multiple times in certain cases. In Blender 3.3 it now works recursively, making it possible for the first time to cleanly remove blocks of data with just one click.
Blender now generates thumbnails for JPEG and EXR files faster and uses less memory. The developers have also accelerated the import of large scenes and the duplication of many objects.
Automatically smooth and snap
The context menu has received a new option “Shade Auto Smooth”. Depending on the angle between two adjacent surfaces, Blender displays the surfaces of an object as angular or round. Previously, the option was hidden deep in menus. Since it is used frequently, it is now more prominently available via the context menu in the 3D viewport.
The options for aligning objects with others, the so-called “snapping”, have been expanded. With the “Nearest Face” setting, an object sticks to the nearest face.
Texture 3D objects cleanly
In UV editing, a 3D artist determines how accurately a texture will be mapped onto a three-dimensional object. Blender 3.3 resets inverted faces when “Minimize Stretch” is run. Shear can be compensated for with the new “Shear” option in “Average Island Scale”. With “Select Similar” you can now select similar areas, for example based on the area in the UV editor or on the 3D model. In addition, UDIM support has been expanded (U DIMENSION). In this way, UDIM texture sets can be integrated directly into Blender files.
New hair system and geometry nodes
The hair system in Blender 3.3 takes a new approach. It is no longer based on a particle system, but on a curve object, for which Blender provides its own sculpting mode. With it hair can be added, removed and styled. They are rendered like the previous hair particles. Blender still supports them in the geometry nodes. Curve nodes are said to run 3 to 10 times more efficiently. They can also be converted into particle systems and created from particle systems, so they are upwards and downwards compatible.
UV coordinates can now be edited via the new geometry nodes “UV Unwrap” and “Pack UV Islands”. The “Mesh to Volume” node converts wireframe models to volumetric like the modifier of the same name. The Volume Cube node creates a cube-shaped voxel array that can be sampled. For example, a 3D procedural texture defines the holes in a cheese.
The new “Points” node creates points in 3D space, with the position and radius being determined via fields, as with the “Volume Cube” node. Blender provides three new geometry nodes to find the shortest paths. They can be used to generate lightning, automatically generate roots on trees and even solve mazes.
import, export
The import and export filter for glTF 2.0, a standard file format for three-dimensional scenes and models, can now handle all four official vertex color definitions. It also now supports some of the Khronos material enhancements.
The STL importer is now written in C++, making it about eight times faster than the previous Python implementation. The OBJ importer and exporter now support vertex colors as well; OpenVDB volumes can now be exported to USD.
Blender 3.3 supports motion tracking, ie converts movements from a camera to a 3D object. A tracked area can now be extracted into an image, then edited and back-projected. This makes it much easier to exchange images.
Current graphics cards for rendering
Microsoft precision touchpad gestures can now be used on Windows. The Cycles render engine has been optimized for Apple Silicon. Cycles also runs on new Intel GPUs via the oneAPI. This requires an Intel Arc GPU or an Intel Data Center GPU. The developers recommend the beta drivers for Intel Arc. Users of AMD Vega generation graphics cards such as the Radeon VII, Radeon RX Vega series and Radeon Pro WX 9100 can use them to render with Cycles on both Windows and Linux.
(akr)
