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Blender 2.56 Beta Released

67

The Blender Foundation has just released Blender 2.56 Beta, which fixes over 440 bugs.

From the announcement:

The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.56 Beta. This release is the fourth official beta release of the Blender 2.5 series, representing the culmination of many years of redesign and development work.

This version is called a "Beta" because it's now for the most part feature complete. The Python API has had some extensive changes, most notably in naming conventions and in creation and access of properties.

Since Blender 2.55 beta over 440 bugs were fixed!

IMPORTANT: Between 2.53 and 2.56 an extensive renaming operation has changed the scripting API a lot, with repercussions also for loading 2.53 .blends with animation into 2.56. Make sure you try the FCurve/Driver 2.54 fix entry from the Help menu.

Links

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

67 Comments

  1. Thanks everyone!
    About how complete is the 'beta' phase now?
    I know rewriting Blender been a lot of work but I would like to see a stable release sometime soon and also a return to adding new code.
    I am put off doing python stuff cos it seems to be in constant chaos.
    It would help if the coders would declare they are basically satisfied with what they have.

  2. Felicidades!

    Exelente, ya lo estoy descargando!
    Un gran logro para un mejor mundo
    Saludos a todo la Blender Foundation desde tiquicia!

    Gracias totales,
    LC

  3. Guess is my present for the new year! :))
    Many thanx to developers and everyone else who helped.
    Happy New Year to all blenderheads.

  4. BlenderBeginner on

    YAY!! lots of thanks to the blender foundation and the blender heads for a final 2010 release.can't wait for official 2.5x

  5. Windows 7 x64 bits, opening using preferences from fie menu or Ctrl+ Alt +U breaks Blender.
    You can customize blender as you desire and the press Ctrl+U.

    Ups :-) , yet, great release :-P
    LC

  6. Oh c'mon I just downloaded 2.55 3 days ago!

    Anyways, thanks for the prompt build and bugs fixes. Guess they saved me a lot o f grief there.

    Thank you all in the Blender the community, have a super 2011.

  7. Yipeeeeeee!!! I've already been using it since beta 2.54 and I already learned it so I can use both 2.49b and 2.5x. I have found a few bugs here and there yes but I just save more often than in Blender 2.49b and it is becoming increasingly more usable as they fix the bugs.

    I'm already fully into it and modeling and rendering on it comfortably enough. I've learned the new interface already and I'm happily modeling in it.

    Terrific!!!, I have an i7 PC already and I'm rendering a job on it right now (using 7 threads, I sometimes leave one free in case I need to use the PC for other things, it works like a charm) as I write this and early today I finished assembling my new PC which is not as powerful as the other but it's also a quad core Athlon II which is still very fast too and will be a terrific rendering machine (and also terrific for other jobs).

    As a matter of fact I'm writing this from the new PC which still doesn't have Win XP installed on it but I booted a copy of Slax Linux to test the hardware and it is very fast and I'm using the motherboard graphics cause I haven't installed the graphic PCI Xpress graphics card yet (it is still in the wrapper) and I feel that it is pretty speedy anyway.

    And it was just when they launched the new Blender 2.56!! hooraayyy!! Perfect software to test it. Now I can model or work on one and leave the other one rendering or render in both, Oh I'm going to have a ball with this new Blender! Great job Blender people!

  8. "(using 7 threads, I sometimes leave one free in case I need to use the PC for other things, it works like a charm)"

    Talking about, when will Blender allow manual re-allocation of rendering threads during rendering. Would be very useful little feature for us with just one machine.

  9. Hi all,

    @developers... are you serious?
    the installer (blender-2.56-beta-windows64.exe) installs blender compleately to the %UserProfile% location...
    why that?!?! that is really not a good professional way !

    if you want to be able to let run blender in an multiuser environment you only neet to "clone" the user AppData parts of blender per user...
    (%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation)

    there are special other locations, where you can put program data to share between different users...
    %ProgramData%, %SystemDrive%\Users\Default

    PS.: on win 7 x64 with blender 2.55 i was doing cloning the userdata by hand for every user.
    blender was installed and runned once as admin - (i closed blender immediately). than i was copying the blender user data/AppData to every user on the system ...
    for me that was working well.

  10. ... its me again...

    the installer doesn't put the uninstall routine of blender to the system control console! (ok, maybe that's because of installing blender direct to the user profile location)

    PPS.: but any way... i love blender 2.5 and great good job !
    thx

  11. Merry merry bosoms and cosmic holocaust, batman! Please leave donations, success blossoms like spiralling infinity through vortex of despair.

  12. Nice!

    I'm testing!

    I would like to know when "Bevel" option in Special Menu and Skin Faces/Edge Loops wil return.

    Congratulations and Happy New Year!

  13. Great release, more stable, good work :-)) ... thanks, and happy new year!
    (I'm searching for the "F-Curve > Key > Extrapolation Mode" function.
    Anybody knows where is it now?)

  14. to FDMAN: Under Windows it is possible to control threads via operating system. Start Task Manager, choose Blender, rightclick and choose Set Affinity. This way it is possible to control on the fly. I do this often when rendering with Blender or encoding with Adobe Media Encoder and it works OK.

    If you use linux cluster rendering, the explanation is longer but I can write if interested.

  15. I can't render smoke that was baked in 2.55. :( Is it only happening to me? Though I have not tested by baking it in 2.56 again. Using win 7 32 bit.

  16. Fantastic work team Blender! I know that ripping out bugs is often thankless, and can be quite time consuming, especially if the fix involves touching on a lot of pieces of dependant code. 440 bugs is a lot of bugs. Considering how much Blender does, and that the final build size is about 12MB, leads me to believe that Blender is fairly well optimised for both speed and size. Please take all the time you need to do the job well and correctly. Full regression testing means that software has been completely tested, and works correctly. There is too much (commercial) software that is shipped "for the Christmas buying season" or various other reasons, usually to maximise returns for the company or sales force, and as a result, people get the software, right away, and its broken. Its like unwrapping a new toy at Christmas, and under the shiny paper you find a broken toy, unable to be played with, and immediately re-wrapped and sent back. Please don't fall victim to the 'we want it, we want it now!' set. Thank you Blender Team, for working hard at fixing bugs, and keeping the cries of the impatient muted. I wish you all a prosperous and happy new year.

  17. I have to congrat you guys!!! I already use the sculping and... uff... is really the first time I sculpt a lot of stuff, details, deformations and a BAKE with multiresolution in level 6 (preview & sculpt) for taking the normals and the AO. This is insane, 0 CRASH!!!!!! Insane, now this is really great, I have to test the other features XD.

    PC:
    Intel Dual 2 core 2.20 Ghz
    4.00 GB of ram ddr2
    Nvidia 1GB

    And was really smooth the sculpting, I love you guys!!! XD

  18. Thanks devs! Been watching and toying with Blender for awhile now.. just waiting for it to level out before seriously using it for any sort of production. Really chomping at the bit though! Each release gets better and better! Great job!

  19. @Beta-Tester

    I noticed the install oddity as well... I received an error trying to install it to the Program Files Blender dir... Ill wait for word from blender folks before I spend hours trying to fix this....

    ~Sean

  20. @Sean

    If you run the installer as administator it will allow you to install to program files. All the other installers for Blender forced you to run as administrator, but not this 2.56 installer for some reason.

  21. is "jesterking" online... ?
    i think he can give use more information about the current windows installer of blender 2.56...

    #33908 jesterking 2010-12-27 13:42:51 By default install to the user profile instead of Program Files. This because right now the installer runs in user mode, not elevated to admin. Otherwise users can't install to the default which used to be Program Files, which causes more problems than necessary. Although unconventional location, probably currently a better solution.

    Network admins etc. can override install location on command-line. NSIS docs tell how.

    #33908 jesterking 2010-12-27 13:20:56 Run installer with user level permission by default.

    ... i have this entries fron the SVN change log.

  22. To the Blender's development Team,
    I find Modeling in Blender 2.5x less intuitive than Blender 2.49,
    only because of one minor changes in the way the polygons are extruded.
    In Blender 2.49 you can get an extrusion that is always perpendicular to the view.(a small extrusion follow by a control+Mouse Click)
    I have been unable to reproduce that in Blender 2.5xx.
    It is very frustated, could somebody look into this.

    Thank you for all the work that you have done on this release.

  23. VERTEX ORDER, guys, gurus, pleeease!

    Back in May 2009, Paolo Ciccone made it so that one could use Blender
    to make morphs, including full body morphs, for Poser-type figures: http://paolociccone.com/archives/41

    Luckily, the patch survived all the way to the final release of Blender 2.49.

    Blender 2.5x, however, messes up the vertex order.
    To my dismay, the Blender Foundation Blender 2.56 still does that,
    and I see no concern over the issue from the top gurus.

    Yes, we love Blender; most of use do like the improved 2.5x GUI;
    but the world is such a big place; so many toys to play with:
    DAZ, Poser, Renderosity, etc.

    Why can't we start from models that are already out there,
    instead of having to reinvent the wheel every time we want to tell a story?

    Let's play nice! Respect the VERTEX ORDER!!

  24. Edge, Circle, Face, Vertex Select Mode still don't work. And why did they remove all of the export plugins, but keep collada it doesn't work eather :(

  25. Peter Dragulic on

    @ Tom Telos > then go ahead and play with the other "toys" as you call them....and of course give them some of your hard earned money!...I really don't like the kinda "threatening" way you put it...try to show more respect to the community and don't turn yourself into a troll.

  26. Threatening? Whatt??

    Everything that is truly original and called for, I do want to model;
    but the basics of human anatomy haven't changed much
    in recent centuries, and some excellent and patient artists
    have taken the trouble to encode anatomy to a high degree of realism,
    complete with rigging, morphs, textures, extended control--
    all of which can be modified by the user
    (as opposed to starting from scratch).

    The most "industry-standard" of such models
    can be legally downloaded for free, and, true,
    occasionally I have paid for add-ons,
    but I have never used Poser nor DAZ Studio Advanced;
    I use the free version of DAZ Studio.

    How Paolo Ciccone (or, anyone)
    could submit a patch that would inhibit Blender
    from messing up the vertex order, is beyond me,
    but the fact is, it works! In Blender 2.49.

    To lament the loss of such useful functionality
    in Blender 2.56, is that "trolling"?

  27. Hi Tom.
    Thank you for the praise but I actually added the vertex group handling, the "keep vertex order" feature in the obj import/export scripts was there before. To create morphs you need both: the vertices need to be in the original order and the groups need to be preserved.
    As soon as Reality 1.2 is out, the project that I'm working on, I'll look I to the obj routines for Blender, if nobody does it before.

    Cheers.

  28. Peter Dragulic
    --------------
    I don't think Tom was trying to be disrespectful, but merely stating his opinion. And I understand your frustration wit his comment. I feel the same-way every-time a window user attacks me as a free and opensource operating system user.

    Tom Telos
    -----------
    Some of you comments didn't make much sense other than VERTEX ORDER.

    1. DAZ does have a free edition but, DAZ doesn't work on opensource operating system (Gnu/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris).

    2. Poser isn't free and it doesn't work on opensource operating systems.

    3. Why can't you start with models already out there?

    4. If your looking for programs that specialize in organic human form theres makehuman. If your saying why can't I have a program that does everything for me. Blender is for 3D artists if your not a artist then why are you even here?

    5. Blender trys its best to be everything to everyone, hence Blender is nothing like those other programs you listed. And even comparing it to them well, that was a mistake on your part.

    I see where your both coming from.

  29. Hi,

    thanks for the release and for the hard work done.

    A question: what about texture controlled emission for particle systems?

    Happy new year,
    Raimon

  30. Blender tries its best to be everything to everyone

    Right. Which is not possible, and that is why
    even the Blender Institute uses other programs besides Blender.

    Am I an artist?

    Let's say I have a strong desire to illustrate little things that I write.

    If that calls for a "girl next door", then,
    why NOT use one of the widely-used
    and morphable bases so readily and legally available for free?

    Should I need an Oryx-type horn, then, ok:
    I'll go from Wikipedia to Inkscape to Gimp to Blender,
    and then to DAZ Studio, and come up with something like this:
    http://ttobserve.deviantart.com/art/Sarty-How-did-eh-Congrats-189766424

    The hair? Yes, guilty as charged!
    I actually paid almost ten dollars for the hair-- and that, my friends,
    saved me more than a couple of hours' worth of work.

    Then again, if I feel like I need some feather-based hair,
    I go to the US Fish & Wildlife Sevice Feather Atlas,
    study that for a while, and end up modeling my own barbs.

    Oh! But then, I'll need to fit the wig to the scalp, right?
    And the scalp needs to be modified
    to a Pegicornitaur-illustrative shape,
    so when I read that Campbell Barton,
    debugger extraordinaire for Blender 2.5x,
    was aware of the "vertex order" issue and then,
    that the Blender Foundation releases the "almost definitive" Blender 2.56,
    I lose several hours' worth of tinkering by assuming --silly me--
    that Blender 2.56 had restored the "vertex order" functionality of 2.49.

    Campbell, hello? Pretty please?

  31. Thank you for the praise but I actually added the vertex group handling…

    Ciao, Paolo!

    What you did is so incredibly good, that, with Blender 2.49b,
    one can

    Import a .obj file with, say, one "o " statement
    and several named "g " sections.
    In Blender, the named "g " sections appear
    as vertex groups with matching names.

    Now one can define further vertex groups;
    select, deselect, move vertices with and without
    x-axis symmetry, and then, when you export
    with the Polygroups option checked,
    you obtain a .obj file that has the original "g " sections
    but not the added ones!

    HOW did you ever accomplish that!?

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