Blender 2.53 Released

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The Blender Foundation just released 2.53, the first ‘Beta’ of the Blender 2.5 series. While the excellent 2.50 release log has been updated with 2.53 features, there’s no ‘changelog’ since the previous version available yet (this may follow later). What *is* clear is that lots of bugs have been fixed, there’s a new ‘addons’ system in place and there’s been a major overhaul in the sculpting tools. Also remember that this is the version that ‘Sintel’ was produced with. Go ahead and download now, we’ll follow asap with more information!

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    • Mike Imken

      Great stuff! Just found the addons feature the other day and was playing with volumetric clouds.

    • Blusock

      Just yesterday I was getting tired of Graphicall builds and wishing that a new official release would be made soon so everyone could be on the same page for a couple of minutes.

      An an addon system is a definite plus. A lot of the little features added into builds can now just be added as an addon.

    • Riccardo Cavalieri

      Windows 64 bit is always the last to be released…
      We are in 2010, should get rid of 32 bit, expecially for 3d.

      Congratulations for the new beta, anyways ;)

    • Mr Blender

      I guess i will or mihgt actually switch over to the 2.5x sereis keep up the good work!!!

    • Pawel

      I love this kind of news :-D

    • http://www.theprocessdiary.blogspot.com flawedprefect

      Awesome. I think I shall finally switch to the new hotness.

    • http://robo3d.com Robo3Dguy

      YAYAYAYAYAYYAYAAYYAAY!!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?! Go BLENDER!!!! :D :D :D

    • Pawel

      @Riccardo Cavalieri: Windows 64bit version is there.
      Anyway, you can always switch to Linux :)
      And by the way, there are still lots of people (majority I believe) who have 32bit machines.

    • Leto

      Awesome work!!! … Playin around with cloud generator -> WOW!! The new sculpting tools are amazing!! Is there unlimited clay implemented yet? If yes where can I activate it?

      Leto

    • http://jackred.totalh.com Jack RED

      Great news! Thx to all developers :D

      But i see that some great functions are no longer in there :(
      (as for the Add to Tool-shelf and Indirect Lighting!!)

    • http://www.ivogrigull.com Loolarge

      Yayayayay! Amazing to see all the new features summed up. Keep it coming!

    • DanielWray

      Unlimited clay is only available in the GSOC sculpting build(s) from Graphicall.org, I don’t think it’s mature enough to be included in the main branch.

    • ijstaart

      >> Also remember that this is the version that ‘Sintel’ was produced with.

      Not entirely correct, afaik. They used renderer improvements on Sintel, and as far as I know those haven’t been merged with trunk yet?

    • http://blenderwallpapers.co.cc TLOZ

      Best news today ;)

    • Grzesiek

      Congratulations to the Blender team for another step to greatness ;)

    • FreeMind

      This is NOT the version Sintel was produced it. You can’t reproduce Sintel in this version!
      Sintel was Rendered in the render branch, and as far as i know, it’s not merged yet.
      Make your facts straight :)

    • javiu

      The main [email protected] states “We today proudly present the first official Beta in the 2.5 series! Much more stable, nearly feature complete, and used for Sintel…”

      Somebody has to clarify something.

      But seems a lot better comparing with the older 2.4x versions. Let’s see what i can do with this.

    • hm

      I still dont get, and would love a explan from somebodie that actually know , why blender seems to have trackball instead turntable, when most of THE larg commercial application need maya and max both take turntable by default. Do they now something we dont , or is blender ahead of us curve and try to tell us all to get trackball

      Flame on pleas no, not welcome , you are here to do that , your not here for right reason.

      tank
      hm

    • http://ogbog.blogspot.com Oscar

      Big hug, devs! Y’all are amazing.

    • V1ntage

      @hm: then why has Luxology Modo trackball enabled by default as well? Either way, Blender has had the option for both for a very very long time. If you want, go into the preferences panel and enable turntable there.

    • http://www.wix.com/Inferno1170/Inferno-Studios Inferno

      Whats the differance between 32 and 64 bit? Because my computer can handle 64, but I don’t know whats the differance, plus isn’t 64 bit a more unstable version?

    • migero

      time to hunt for new bugs ;p

    • DimitrisC

      @Riccardo Cavalieri: I only use Win32 and I know lots of guys that do use em too. Why get rid of this version?

      Thank you BF!

    • hm

      listen Inferno you don know what you talk bout,,max maya 2 biggest apps period used in game dev, and they defalt turntabel so you can argue modo mor importan but it not matter as many houses use max and maya, so get with it.

      bye
      hm

    • migero

      @DimitrisC
      and so i join you on the 32 bit debate

    • hm

      I mean @V1ntage cours..

    • moxstudios

      Vey Nice!! But What Happen with Raytrace Indirect Light? am still using the Alpha version for that feature :(

    • gogu

      @Inferno: The difference between 32 and 64 bit is about the amount of memory can handle. 32 bit version can handle only a maximum amount of 4Gb RAM and the 64 bit version can handle much more RAM. This is the main difference between 32 and 64.

    • Daniel-

      @hm
      And your point is? MAX have been developed on Win only and have been a big player for a long time, is that a reason to adopt that approach for blender? Lightwave grew up with an two application approach, should blender also have adopted that? Furthermore Max does not have an integrated sculpting tool, should blender just never have adopted this? Decisions are not made solely by looking at the top two modelling applications in term of sales in one specific industry. If they were, then 3d modelling would be much more like CAD.

      Blender was born as an in house tool and AFAIK. the current settings stem from that, and a lot of the blender base learned 3d doing it that way. Since blender aim to make 3d available and not to convert all Maya and Max users why should it try to aimlessly clone the preferences to cater to new adopters instead of the user base that grew around blender?

      In the end Blender started ages ago and have had a life of its own. Through this the program and the settings evolved, so Blender have just as much reason as all other programs to have its own default settings. You don’t like them fine, then change them. It is a matter of preference, and some actually like the defaults.

    • FreeMind

      Well, it’s beta, but they still didn’t fix the Defaults… and some item namings…

    • cadkid

      Does mouse gestures work in this build?

    • Leto

      @JackRed and moxstudios: Indirect Lighting is still there!!! Just enable AO and than Approximate and voilat there it is!!

    • FreeMind

      No, mouse gestures don’t work.
      I hope they won’t get them back, because they were kind of in the way all the time…
      Why aren’t the keyboard shortcuts enough for you?

    • Leto

      Hi there!

      Strange … If I have a blender model with modifier stack as follow: mirror, subsurf, egdesplit and if I go into editmode it crashes! Only if I disable the mirro modifier it runs normal … but if mirror is the fist mod and I hit tab it crashes!

      Leto

    • yoff

      Wuhu!

    • Leto

      ok as a workaround … disable the mirror modifier to be displayed in edit mode and it works as fist one …

    • McKwak

      :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

    • http://www.arvutigraafika.ee Nils Austa

      I think “emulate 3-button mouse” should be on by default. Otherwise I cannot rotate by default with most pointing devices. Rotating with middle-mouse is quite rarely possible today.

    • Dayanto

      With 2.5 Blender has really taken a huge step forward and even though there are still lots of bugs and things that yet have to be implemented, I think we should be happy with how far we’ve come.

      Now that the beta is out, I no longer have an excuse not to use Blender 2.5 often. ;)

      Regarding the trackball/turntable I think like this: Blender has always had trackball and it’s part of its “personality”. If we adapt to what the large applications use, Blender will give away part of its personality, it becomes more like “just another application”. Instead we got the option to choose. So if you are used to something else or don’t like the default you can change it. From what I understand this is not usual and something I think makes Blender great. I think it shows that you can still have a unique application while helping users from other applications.

      Though if we think outside the box, I think the best would be to have the option in the header as I think they are useful in different situations. I use trackball, because I have always done so and I really like the freedom with trackball. However I think turntable would be really useful in some situations, and I would probably use it as a complement to trackball if it would be easier/faster to access.

      PS. The downloading is veeeeeeeery sloooow, but what would I have expected for when the beta finally came out. =Þ

    • V1ntage

      enough troll feeding… I want to see some stunning new art! Hopefully Sintel will be released very soon. :D

    • kragoon

      I was wondering, how if possible can you bevel individual edges in 2.53? The bevel tool was vital to my modeling workflow in 2.49 and previous versions, but it doesn’t seem to be available in this one.

      Note: I’m not speaking of the bevel “modifier”( which is pretty much useless to me), but the bevel “mesh tool”(which was useful for modeling in previous versions of Blender), just so I’m clear.

    • http://guerrierhardcore.com guerrierhardcore

      Oh la la. The more Blender is improving 2.5x the versions the more I have the urge to switch from 2.49 to 2.5. But … I wonder if the .blend that I am prototyping now will be compatible with it. Also the learning curve… yeah I know I have to test-try it :)

    • Stamjen Vkotyak

      trackball is worthless and highly awkward, whenever i see demo vids where people use it they are always super slow at camera navigation. Including some vids posted by BF employees. But back on topic, AWESOME, finally out of Alpha! New sculpt tools are rad, can’t wait until Matcap is implemented. Next major milestone for me – Render branch is merged to trunk…

    • 400ml

      This was a great end to a not so great day! Thanks guys. You rock.

    • Konstanty

      Sure wish I had the money to junk all my 32-bit machines and buy all new 64-bit ones, the way some people around here seem to be able to do.

    • Juan Romero

      It’s a pity that Render branch isn’t yet merged into trunk, I was so confident it was going to be in 2.53, buaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
      @Leto: No, Indirect lighting isn’t there, it only is enviroment lighing (light from sky).
      My question is, why not include indirect lighting? I’ve been using render branch for months and it works quite well!
      I’d preffer to have IL instead of sculpt tools. In render branch you can have global illumination and sculpt too, but in 2.53 you can sculpt but render only with the old plain renderer….Whyyyyyy???!!?!
      For me 2.53 is quite useless compared to render branch.

    • http://! gezcause

      Just becaise it was what used one way originally, is reason enough to you to leave it as is now, just because its ‘the way its always been’, thats like saying we should just leave all old fashioned ideas in for posterity or something, your making zero sense .

      I agree with the other poster re:maya and max and truespace etc., if those software companies think one way of rotating is a good idea, and people are willing to Pay THOUSANDS of dollars for those products do you think htey would have changed them by now to make their user base happy ?

      BUt no, lets just keep our collective heads in the sand/past , because well, its the way it is supposed to be ;)

      That oddness aside, its great to see 2.5 morph into something much more usable and at least its very nice to see the interface default to what EVERYONE else does with perspective; so I guess blender gets good marks on that but hm, maybe they should reconsider given blender wasn’t originally designed that way !

      Gez!

    • FXR

      Blender started as a counter movement to very expensive modeling programs. A sort of belligerant challenge to prove that people don’t have to be indentured to giant software companies in order to essentially “draw and sculpt” with their computers. Because that’s what it boils down to.
      Being creative. Making things. Express ideas. Art.

      So, several years ago, I regarded Blender as a dysfunctional joke. Foundering around with code development, creating bits of this and that, sort of like a cybernetic “Rocket Farmer” project. Nah, I’m thinking, this is never gonna get off the ground. Not enough people, not enough patience, developers coming and going.

      But now, since I saw (and downloaded 2.5) I changed my opinion entirely. What people are failing to realize, including the large software modeling companies, is that Blender has seeming gained sort a self sufficiency of its own. It has achieved real Mass.

      All the years of work and the all the cumulative efforts is really starting to coalesce into a very functional, very powerful CGI program, with a broad (and growing) array of tools and capabilities. Capabilities quite close to the cutting edge programs.

      Moreover, I think, given the pace of development, Blender is well on pace to possibly exceed some of the big boys in a lot of areas in the next two years. Developers are only getting smarter, computers are getting more powerful, and memory is abundant.

      The only shortfall I see now, is to make Blender’s tools more intuitve, simpler to access, like Silo’s

      All in all, I can’t wait to see where this program goes from here.

    • MaxwellDumb

      I just cum in my pant.

    • zdreamonz

      Great news with Du?an project !!!

    • Knowles2

      Been playing about in 2.53 beta, I think thhey have made some very basic mistakes in the GUI.

      I will be writing a more complete comments tomorrow, but so far I found at least 10 things that should be change before final release an that with just five minutes of playing around with the basic features an if they cannot get these right, I am wondering how bad the more advance stuff is.

      How ever it does provide a good foundation to build on for future beta releases but it far away from even being consider to be release as a stable version.

    • RNS

      It took 13mins to render cloud on my system hardware.any one difference time?

    • http://meshweaver.blogspot.com/ MeshWeaver

      YEEESSSS!!! :D

      big thanks, devs! :D so far, i haven’t really noticed any real difference between 2.53 and my 2.52svn30180…though it’s a bit more stable, and the Window Draw options are less glitchy. of course, i’m using a laptop, so…

      and I don’t think 32bit should be abandoned. first off, aren’t 64bit machines more expensive? second, 32bit seems to work very well, and I think it’ll be staying around for a long time…

    • mjordan

      @Knowles2: Aren’t you a little bit late to complain about these “10 things that should be changed in final release”?
      Beta means feature complete. Feature complete means only bug fixes will be committed in trunk. Not to attack you, but after 3 years of development sounds quite funny reading about a 5 minute user complaining for 10 things to change in the GUI.

    • mjordan

      @MehWeaver: no, they’re not more expensive. Every processor from 2002 is 64 bit capable.

    • https://sites.google.com/site/treatkor/ tkroo

      wooo! Rock on Blender!

    • mjordan

      One of the things I appreciate the most is the native POV-Ray support. Great!

    • http://arnaud.ile.nc/sce Piiichan

      Thanks to everyone who contributed, especially the core team for their constant efforts :)

      Also thanks to all the guys at graphicall.org who make it easy to test 2.5 and experimental branches.

      In return I bought 2 new DVDs from the e-shop lately. They’re great!

    • DarkLimit

      WooHoo! been waiting patiently, I really appreciate all the hard work from the blender team/community.

    • Kijja

      This is great!!!!
      I try particle hair, deep shadow – It’s great!!
      except cut hair tool blender slow down than other tool.
      Sad for GI not include I use ray trace transparency alot for glass
      and DEV please add tool to create 3D text objects like elefont or C4D.
      Thank a lot hehehheh….

    • Santiag

      Having some problems with the short cuts… can not get to do loop cuts, and simple stuff like that, when i hit the Loop cut shortcut it gets stuck for like 10 sec and then gives me a lot of triangles arround the mesh! :(

      if someone could help me with the short cuts, it would be nice… because seeing blendercookie tutorials and stuff like that, all seems to work the same, or almost as in previous versions, but in this alpha realses i can not get to run some stuff :(.

    • Tangent

      I tried Modo and then tried this new version of Blender. Let me just say that I saved a thousand bucks thanks to Blender! Thank you! I will donate some funds. :)

    • http://www.indiestock.net Acolyte

      Just want to say that this beta has been a long time coming, and I really wanna thank the devs and the Durian team for all their hard work towards making these amazing strides for the Blender community.

      @FXR:
      I totally agree with you. As a person who uses several industry standard pieces of software, I can say that if the product models of companies like Autodesk don’t drastically change in the next few years, we will gradually start to see open source software completely take over. You can’t compete with top notch quality at a price tag of free when you’re trying to sell your software at $3,500 and you only update once a year. When students start taking Blender into the workforce and showing the decision-makers what Blender can do and that it won’t affect budgets, well the other guys just don’t have a hope of winning the war.

      @everyone
      For any of you guys here that are Blender only users you really have no idea how spoiled as a community we really are. First and foremost let us not forget this software is FREE!!! Anybody who is bitching about feature preferences as small as trackball vs. turntable needs to wake up and smell the coffee. First, if the option is still there to go either way, who gives a damn? Second, try going over to the Maya or Max forums, making a feature or a GUI request and track how long it takes them to get back to you, if they ever stop laughing.

      As a professional artist I’m forced to use Maya as well as other “top of the line” industry software at work. Their dev teams as well as their support teams are some of the most arrogant, stuck up, moronic idiots ever to walk the face of the software community. I work in Maya every day, it probably crashes twice as much as Blender. But you know what, that is considered an EXPECTED event in the day of an artist. When you’re doing cutting edge stuff, even the big boys don’t have their code 100% right.

      So, while I agree we should push the devs to continue to make Blender as amazing as possible, and to keep the options for everyone open and fluid, cut them some slack. When was the last time you saw Maya give a major update? Oh yeah, happens every year one time And you know what, every single time they update it’s with almost zero bug fixes or feature add ons. We have it so good here.

      Whew! Okay, nuf said about that. :) Anyways can’t wait to see what’s coming up next, and I really hope that Yafaray jumps on board soon and gets a new plugin out for this release!

    • Gadget2006

      Wow, a big congrats and thank you to all the devs who worked hard on the new Beta release!
      It’s another victory for the Blender 2.5 on the long and interesting path towards the final release!
      It definitely looks much more stable than the previous version and some of the feature improvements (e.g. improvements to sculpting) are simply amazing! :)

      I have a few questions – please don’t take them as unnecessary criticism, they’re just questions, something I don’t really understand:

      1) I noticed the “Tool Shelf” is no longer there – did it not survive the final cut and its absence means it was just dropped and never finished (and never will be), or does it mean it’ll be back in the future in a completed form (with the option e.g. not only to add but also to remove the tool and save the tool configuration)?

      2) What does it mean that B2.5 Beta is now “feature complete”? A quick glance over the features present in the Beta compared to the last Alpha and a look at the wiki todo list shows many (a few dozen I think) features that are either not yet ported from 2.4x or that are ported but are currently not completely functional yet. I’m a little confused by the term “feature complete”, and I wonder what exactly it means for the future Blender features (or, rather, the porting/rewriting of old features) in the long run…

      3) Why is it called “the Blender with which Sintel was made” if the rendering features, which were obviously used for Sintel, are not merged yet? Am I missing something here?…

    • joolme!!

      1.5 Alpha – ho god!! – T-T
      1.5 beta – ho god!! – lol

      Thank ^-^
      Blender Foundation

    • http://www.digitalbitedesign.com Sandking

      “This script provides a Panel of align tools in the Toolshelf. Similar to 3dmax align tools ” GREAT… How the hell should I know how align tools in 3dmax look like?!?

    • joolme!!

      1.5?
      Why is not written like that?
      Mistake
      ^^;;;;;;;;

      I am now
      Render the test is

    • http://www.dragoneex.blogspot.com dragoneex

      wooohoooooo blender rocks

    • http://www.animator.co.nr Lancer

      Heh – I’ve been authoring a book (first drafts in) from Blender 2.52, and now I can a few alterations are going to have to be made, especially in sculpt mode. At least if I get right onto them now, the book should still be “current” when it comes out in September. Great to see another milestone :-)

    • http://3dtinkerer.blogspot.com 3DTinkerer

      We are getting closer to taking over the world. * Insert Evil Laughter*

      Thank you Developers!

    • http://www.3DXATA.com Yaroslav_L

      Knife settings still worked ONLY from F6 – not from “left” panel…

    • http://www.3DXATA.com Yaroslav_L

      And how to cut with knife>exact>line – not freeline?

    • flagus

      Hello to all. Like all of you guys I’ve been waiting for this beta version for quite some time, and its finally here!!!I did not really try to work with the previous 2.5 Alpha versions. But as from now I’ll be spending 1 or 2 hours daily to learn 2.5 and hope to shift completely from 2.49 in a few months.

      I join the comments of Acolyte above, and really thank Ton and all the devs who have made this release possible. I do not know for you guys but, if Blender did not exist, it would have been really hard to buy a “Pro package” to learn 3D.

      I’ve just tested,2.53, at the office for a few minutes on my old mac mini. I’m impressed how fluid its working. 2.49 just was really too slow.

      I do have a few questions. I hope that a Dev could answer them.

      1. As from this stage, is there a possibilty that either the tools or the interface goes through a lot of change?

      2. I’ve read above, but I could not test it, that the new renderer used for Sintel was not in this release. Can we hope that it’ll be in the next one?

      3. Is the BGE, gonna go through an update too? Or should we wait after 2.6 is out?

      Again thanks so much for the hard work.

    • Medoway

      Good points from some of those leaving comments! Loving the 2.5 experience as a whole.
      I tried to pick-up 2.49 a while ago, but found it a little hard going. Downloaded the alpha versions and found it much easier to pick up – a big thanks to you guys throwing down the tutorials!
      I work for a VR design company (who primarily uses max in-house) and have slowly been seeing a shift of philosophy towards Blender: no longer is it considered a quaint freeware with no real use, but a proper competitor. Three of our primary modelers (I’m a programmer!) have got the Beta downloaded today, where before they would have laughed had I suggested it.

      Just a quick shout out to all those guys at the foundation making free 3D software so god-damned AWESOME!

    • http://www.løl.com Jasper

      hurray!
      i was long waiting this time………

    • Slobodan

      …a so long anticipated milestone!…Thank you to all of you guys who contributed to this!…

      @Juan Romero > I believe that Leto was right…Indirect Lighting IS there when > Approximate Ambient Occlusion is enabled…why you just don’t give it another try?…:-)

    • Moolah

      @Yaroslav_L
      If you have something to say about bugs or missing functionality (or broken features) – use the Bug Tracker! It’s very simple system to bring a little help for developing Blender. Sometimes even these little reports are very helpful to the developers because they haven’t much time to spend it for bug tracking.

      http://www.blender.org/development/report-a-bug/

      And for the last… it’s a very captivating affair :)

    • http://www.mindinsomnia.com Aussiedude

      WOOOO!! \o/
      *Runs naked through the streets*

      One step closer to 2.6 :3

    • http://www.mindinsomnia.com Aussiedude

      Now that we have addons, I think we need an addon directory on the blender website. Just like firefox has an extension directory on their website. Just to make it easier to find them, instead of having to search all over the net for them. Would be more useful if they are in one spot.

    • http://www.rhysy.net Rhysy

      I’m confused. Surely this is still 2.50 ? Or did I already miss 3 entire releases ?

    • Leto

      @Juan Romero: Indirect Lighting is there!!! Just activate Ambient Occlusion and than Approximate!! –> Indirect Lighting panel apears! Only the Raytraced Indirect Lighting is gone!!

    • http://www.mindinsomnia.com Aussiedude

      I know it’s early days, but can I just say, please please can the Blender dev’s work on the UI a tiny bit more! Trying out Blender right now, and trying to make the properties window take up the full width of the screen under the 3D view, with the timeline below it (make favorite setup), but having huge problems with the horizontal alignment of the panels. The first panel seems to want to take up heaps of space, the lines that separate each panel are all there at the top of the section, overlapping each other, the names of the panels are on their sides (Don’t mind that so much, but it’s hard to read them). All of that I’d forgive for now, but to make matters worse the buttons, labels, and UI is all appearing about 5x-10x larger than it should be. Looks like some kind of bug, and now I can’t even get it back to normal.

      Again, I know it’s early days, but looking forward to this being fixed :#

      (I assume it’s in the bug tracker already? Something this obvious couldn’t be slipped under the radar right?)

    • http://www.mindinsomnia.com Aussiedude

      Hey! Fixed it. Just removed the panel and put it back again, now all fixed. Although I assume there must be a bug somewhere for it to of happened?

    • kram2301

      yay, finally :)

      Rhysy:
      Simple:
      it’s 2.53 beta.
      There was 2.50 alpha 0, 2.51 alpha 1, 2.52 alpha 2 and now, this is 2.53 beta (1 or 3)
      The final stable release will be 2.60 ;)

    • http://accelerhosting.com/ Fast

      Looks awesome so far! The release log looks great! I do wonder what the exact changes are since the last version. Will we see a changelog?

      As a token of my appreciation, I just gave a small donation to Blender foundation. Everybody, if you can, donate! You’ll find a donate link on your splash screen.

      I’m very pleased how much faster rendering is now. 2.53b is huge steps ahead in speed. Blender is the best!

    • Sago

      @Aussiedude, it’s true that the properties window acts weird when used horizontally. For example no vertical scroll bar, which means that sometimes you have to size up the window.
      But even with that fixed, horizontal properties window doesn’t work anymore, and IMO they should get rid of it completely (or make some big changes).
      Not that I care, I love everything about 2.5 :)

    • Juan Romero

      @Leto:
      Yes I see it!!!
      alhough it’s different from Render branch GI, a little bit trickier with the falloff parameter. I have to test it more but is there!
      Thanks for the correction

    • Rüdiger

      Thank you very much!!! Great!!!

      Rüdiger

    • Olaf

      I’m ired by the fact that Blender *still* doesn’t warn you to save when you close it. There’s idiosyncrasy and there’s just plain dumb stubbornness. I believe it’s the latter.

    • http://www.FreezingMoon.org Dread Knight

      Blender is the 7th Wonder of the World!

    • Bernard

      Thanks so much to the dev team.
      I spent some time last night playing with the new sculpt tools and discovered today that Jonathan Williamson had already dropped a video showing how to use the new sculpting system on CG Cookie.
      I confirm that the tools are very fluid and stable on my computer that is not that powerful.
      This means I won’t be excluded from playing with sculpt tools.
      A free software that is useable on low budget computers and that takes so little space on a hard disc is something more than awesome :-)
      Thanks again.

    • JW

      @Olaf: “I’m ired by the fact that Blender *still* doesn’t warn you to save when you close it.”

      I don’t know how hard you look, but when I worked on a file, tried to close it without saving, a message popup came if I was sure I wanted to close the file without saving. So, how do you mean Blender ‘still doesn’t warn you’?

    • Peder

      @JW: At least the 32bit 2.53 for linux doesn’t warn you and I can’t find any setting to enable that behaviour.
      That said, you can always try File-Recover last session and you should be up and running.

      What’s worse is that it (the official 32bit 2.53 for linux) is unable to open saved files, at least on openSUSE 11.0. It whines about “gzopen64″

    • http://blenderwallpapers.co.cc TLOZ

      I got a little problem with this version of blender:
      The render (F12) always changes my 3D-windows into UV/Image-view window.

      Anybody knows how to fix that?

    • Serpent36

      Where did the X-ray option for armatures go?

      And the other options for textures?

    • http://www.dadburn.com mrunion

      No, Riccardo Cavalieri — it’s 2010 and they should get rid of Microsoft WINDOWS!

    • speedmonkey

      @ Serpent36: the X-ray option for armatures is now in the Object tab under Display.

    • speedmonkey

      @ JW: 32-bit Blender on my Windows box doesn’t ask if I want to save changes when I exit either.

    • JW

      Strange that it is apperently different between versions. I use the Mac OSX 64-bit version, and it is a default setting.

    • txrx

      Great work everyone! A proper milestone if I ever saw one and one to be most proud of! Well done indeed!

      Honestly, can’t sing the praises of this app enough I tell you!

    • matrem

      Great, the release is not so far now :)
      I found something strange with the linux distribution, I have to run blender from the 2.53 directory, so ../blender.
      Running ./blender from blender-2.53-beta-linux-glibc27-i686 directory doesn’t work at all.

    • Slobodan

      @TLOZ : When in the “Render Panel” (the one with the “camera icon” ) ,at the “Render” sub-panel,just below the “Image” and “Animation” buttons,there is a “Display” option pop-up list;click that and you are presented with three different options about where the rendering procedure should take place (“New Window” / “Image Editor” / “Full Screen” / )…if you chose the “New Window” option rendering should take place in a new floating and overlapping window (living your layout’s real-estate as well as your 3D view,hopefully,intact)…hope this solves somewhat the problem…

    • FXR

      I think Blender’s reached a tipping point. And everyone is gonna hate for saying this but … in order to really, really capitalize on such momentum, and take it even further … Now wait for it … Blender might want to charge a small developmental tax! Like $5-10 dollars per user.

      WHOA!! And before you jump down my throat, I know its crazy, but crazy just might really help out! Consider this … There are approx 4,000,000 Blender users. Yeah, a lot of users. A few million here and there.

      And if everyone chipped in like $5.00 that’d be like $20,000,000.00 that could go to future development. Holy moly, that would buy some serious worker bees. Could even make it a one time plus up to enable a prolonged surge.

      Again, its just a thought. Don’t hate me cause I’m pretty. And … I’ll definitely chip in no matter what.

    • http://accelerhosting.com/ Fast

      @FXR, Yesterday I donated 10 EUR (which turned out to be about $13 USD), but by no means do I think that they should require people to donate. I think everyone who can, should donate. Blender is a fabulous program, and the more people support it with their wallets, the better it will get! It shouldn’t be a requirement though.

      If you’re a developer, you can also support with your development skills. If you know the program well, you can help with tutorials or documentation. Anyone can help with testing it. There are many ways to support, but I definitely do think money is the number one most needed.

    • japrogramer

      WARNING:I cant download ,im freaking out!!! i love blender!!!

      /tmp/iF7J0vGC.part could not be saved, because the source file could not be read.

      Try again later, or contact the server administrator.

      im also not able to download their new 4k posters , i didn’t think i would have to resort to this but ,
      :( ,

      /tmp/AJHQ7vAN.zip.part could not be saved, because the source file could not be read.

      Try again later, or contact the server administrator.

    • anycolorilike

      So much joy in a 10.5 MB package! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

    • http://www.løl.com Jasper

      add-ons ROCK!

    • Pawel

      @ FXR: One of the worst ideas here, I believe. The whole philosophy on which Blender is based would collapse. Remember, it’s open source. How would you enforce this requirement? People who wouldn’t want to pay would just copy the program from wherever. They do with closed “pro” packages, all the more so here. But first and foremost, it would no longer be really “free”, so it’s current status would greatly suffer. So perhaps you’re pretty, but not very wise, seems to me :)
      The system of contributions works, so let it stay this way. If Ton decided there was a serious shortage of resources, he would appeal to the community for donations, the way Wikipedia does.

    • Treva

      This is truly happy news!

      @ Riccardo Cavalieri: You have 64 bit? That’s a luxury I’d love to afford. Some day, but not today.

    • Jean_R

      I still CAN’T get this new release. Is the site overload ?

    • Sammy

      Am shivering with excitement!!!!!!

    • http://blenderwallpapers.co.cc TLOZ

      @Slobodan
      Thanks very much!
      Now it’s just like in 2.49b & earlier ;)

      @ Jean_R
      Just try again ;)
      I had some problems with downloading it, too.

    • Ragnatic

      I have Windows 7 64 bit and the 64 bit version of 2.53 crash at startup. I downloaded the installer version. The Blender console crash too but if I use -d it shows: Build ’2010-07-21′ ‘win32′ ‘dynamic’ and crash just after “found bundled python”.

    • Guardian 452

      @Ragnatic

      Simple (maybe stupid) question…do you have the latest version of Python installed?

      I have Windows 7 64 bit and the 64 bit version of 2.53, and I not only don’t have the crashing issue, I also don’t see all that stuff in the console! Mine simply gives the “found bundled python” message and happily carries on.

      I’m hoping it’s something simple like that, so you can get it to work!

    • Ragnatic

      @Guardian 452

      I have Python 3.1.2 64 bit version. ¿Which 64 bit version I have to download?

    • FXR

      Ok

      2 dollars, then! 2 dollars only tax for keeping the surge going!

    • FJD

      I’ll give it a try, to be honest I’m not a fan of the 2.5x releases so far. I don’t know if it’s Blender or the way it works on my MacBook Pro, but I hate the mouse controls. I’m guessing there is still no preview window – something I rely heavily on.

    • http://www.arvutigraafika.ee Nils Austa

      This is beta software but when I compare it to some non-beta and ready for sale Adobe applications it is not SO beta at all.

    • Rigs_mx

      Been waiting for this for a long time.

      I’m running Fedora 10 32-bit and downloaded Linux 32-bit version and got the following when opening any blender project:

      $ ./blender
      found bundled python: /opt/blender-2.53/2.53/python
      ./blender: symbol lookup error: ./blender: undefined symbol: gzopen64

      gzopen64 ?? Is that ok ?? Shouldn’t be something like 32 ??

      Regards.

    • http://niko40.deviantart.com/ Niko40

      Well this is nice. :D But I really wish to see the render branch in the trunk before the 2.6 at least. If it’s going to be in it, excuse my ignorance. I kinda hoped it for the beta already… Well… You are doing a really great job anyway and I really love the new Blender so far. :)

      For everyone complaining about the —>>TRACKBALL<<—… Do you think about the good things at all? When you draw with a pen, you usually turn the paper around quite some. It gives a better view of the thing you do and more freedom. When you grab things on the screen plane, it's a must and it's especially useful when sculpting. So… Now more than ever before, it should be enabled by default! But when there is an option to use turntable, that old clumsy feeling thing, why to complain?

    • terrachild

      I’ve used Max on and off for years, and more recently, I’ve been using Maya.
      I’m new to Blender, mainly because I refused to use that old interface, and once I heard that the redesign was in the works, I thought maybe this could be the answer to the insane prices of 3D software. I’ve been using various 2.5 versions for months now, and I have to say WE’VE ARRIVED!!!

      For all practical purposes, you can do pretty much anything in Blender.
      What we need to do now, is make inroads in the entertainment world.
      Students are the answer to this. Blender needs to be promoted in every school: secondary, university, and design. That’s the only way we’re gonna get a critical mass going, and get the suits in the entertainment biz to make the switch.

      I can’t see how Autodesk is going to be able to maintain those ridiculous prices much longer.

      I just made a purchase at the Blender store to help out.
      Everyone….Everyone!!! donate or buy to keep this rolling along at good clip.
      Don’t freeload, give up a few Starbucks, or Big Macs, and send some money to Blender.

    • terrachild

      By the way, I’ve worked in the entertainment world for many years, and I live in Hollywood.

    • http://www.mikeoverbeck.net Mike O

      Great news! I downloaded it and played around a bit.
      It still seems to still be missing bone groups and channel groups. I hope they reinstate them. It’s one of the big animation features that made Blender animation tools in 2.4x better and simpler than Maya’s.

    • Ragnatic

      So anyone can tell me which 64 bit version of Python I should install to run Blender in Windows 7 64 bit?

    • Beauford

      2.5 is running slower for me … is that normal? (I’m in Mac OS)
      Is there a more appropriate forum to ask about this?

    • jsaffari

      its very good thank you.

    • blenderuser258903

      hey every time i try to download the windows 3d bit it dousn’t work… t just brings me back to my google homepage… im really mad because it doesn’t work… also when i tried downloading it before it worked when i opened it after the download and installation compleated, but when i opened it from my desktop it didn’t work. it didn’t have the top bar and alot of the other stuff. please help!!!

    • djallalnamri

      greatest alpha release!!!!
      great,great blender!!!
      blenderuser258903:i was able to download it today…!
      for ubunteros 10.04,try this:http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/blender-253-beta-3d-graphics.html
      it works like a charm….!

    • Bozo

      Hm. I don’t really know what to say about it – I know that a lot of work has done for the 2.5 branch, but the new gui feels terrible. Everything control window seems to be made for being arranged in a vertical column layout only, which makes some of my preferred layout styles unusable or require awkward scrolling. Another thing is, that most python code cannot easily ported and would require a rewrite, and there’s still dozens of little things missing or incomplete.

      Maybe it would’ve been better not to drop 2.4x so quickly until 2.5 is in a comparable state.

    • wds

      Looks great,
      i am still very little use but yet 2.49 version.

      I think i should be playing more with 3d.

    • Pagan

      I really like the interface. I am still trying to figure out the interface. And the OBJ importer/exporter doesn’t quite work for me. I would like to see the OBJ importer to have the option of “Keeping the Vertex order” and the obj exporter seems to have a problem exporting obj’s with my specifications.

    • Dorro

      @FreeMind – Tablet/slate devices/RSI inducing click fests/heinous hand-held fireworks idiocy/degraded handwriting skills?

    • pixnlove

      It finally happend,
      With this new release, I have finally Jump in Blender 2.5
      and I absolutly love it.
      I have just realise that there is not a huge learning curve
      at all.
      Blender 2.5 finally grew in me.

      Thank you guy for all your hard work,
      I used to make lots of critics about the Durian Project,
      but I will show you guys lots of respect as this
      would never happend without the Durian project.

      Many apologies from my past comment on the project,
      I am very grateful for your invaluable work.

    • Nurb432

      ~~~”DimitrisC Jul 22nd, 2010 at 7:37 pm

      @Riccardo Cavalieri: I only use Win32 and I know lots of guys that do use em too. Why get rid of this version?

      Thank you BF!”~~~~

      Because hes an elitist jerk

    • mjordan

      @Nurb432: No, he’s much simple than that. He’s just someone without any knowledge about what he’s talking about.

    • Nurb432

      Ya, could be. And i apologize to the group, i dont normally react that way.. Must have been an off day for me :)

    • DFL

      I know I am not the only one having problems with the Win32 build, I really wish somebody would fix it, as I am useless when coding.

      Problem is described in a BlenderNation thread.

      http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=193157

      Windows XP, Blender will not start up. Any help is welcomed, if Blender moves on to the next build without fixing this, rest assured, there will be problems.

    • http://trackyourball ahha!

      hi there,

      I use max most often and love its out of box setup, and when I goto blender it uses this weird rotation thingee, and I am wondering why it does, and how it ever got that way, and why it doesn’t use the ‘industry standard’ to make life easier for everyone ?

      Is everyone afraid really,,that changing special rotation would no longer make blender special, that sounds really really pathetic, and agregiously incorrect.

      thx for your comments
      ahha