VR Scene inspection just dropped! I'll be giving that a try myself :)

The VR backend uses OpenXR, a new standard for virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Given that it is new, there's no production ready platforms for it yet. There are however well working development previews for Windows Mixed Reality and Oculus available. Unfortunatly, HTC/Valve/SteamVR devices do not work with OpenXR yet.

Announcements

• Central European Summer Time starts on Sunday, March 30th. Next development meeting is at 18h CEST (16h CEST).

Blender 2.83

• All the main projects were merged in time for bcon2.
• The dates moved a week ahead. New dates are:
  • bcon3: 15 April
  • bcon4: 13 May
  • Release: 20 May
• Developers to create devtalk.blender.org threads for user feedback on the new features.

Google Summer of Code

• The calendar didn’t change, so students still have until the March 31st to send their proposals.
• If a student needs feedback create a thread on devtalk under GSoC and poke developers this week still.

New Features and Changes

Volumes

New volume object for rendering OpenVDB volumes. (feedback topic ) (developer docs ) ( Brecht Van Lommel )

Cycles volume render settings were also changed, to automatically estimate step size. Existing .blend files may need to be updated.

Undo

New experimental option to speed up undo in object mode. This feature is not yet stable and may crash or corrupt .blend files, use it for testing only. It is enabled with Developer Extras in the Preferences, then enabling the feature in the Experimental tab. (commit ) ( Bastien Montange )

VR

VR scene inspection support, using the OpenXR standard. When enabling the VR Scene Inspection add-on, settings will appear in the VR tab of the 3D viewport sidebar. (developer docs ) ( Julian Eisel )

Video Sequencer

New disk cache, extending the RAM cache to handle more frames than fit in memory. Cache directory and limit must be configured in Preferences > System. (commit ) ( Richard Antalik )

Improved strip drawing for selection, handles, muted strips, transitions, missing media, and much more. (commit ) ( Alessio Monti di Sopra )

More

• Multires: support creases, simple subdivision, fix apply base with deforming modifiers. ( Sergey Sharybin )
• Weight Paint: new Lock-Relative mode, to display weights normalized ignoring any locked vertex groups. ( Alexander Gavrilov )
• Grease pencil: new hardeness mode for opacity modifier, fade objects to viewport color. ( Antonio Vazquez )
• Fluid simulation: cancel baking jobs faster, add empty space clipping threshold in user interface. ( Sebastián Barschkii
• User Interface: minor tweaks and polishing ( Adrian Newton, William Reynish, Campbell Barton )

Weekly Reports

• Bastien Montagne
• Brecht Van Lommel
• Campbell Barton
• Dalai Felinto
• Germano Cavalcante
• Jacques Lucke
• Jeroen Bakker
• Julian Eisel
• Philipp Oeser
• Pablo Dobarro
• Richard Antalik
• Sebastián Barschkis
• Sebasitan Parborg
• Sergey Sharybin
• Sybren Stüvel