Blender 4.0, released on November 14, 2023, marks a significant advancement in rendering, tool creation, and artistic freedom. This version introduces several notable features:
Shading Improvements: The new Principled BSDF in Blender 4.0 is more energy-efficient, flexible, and user-friendly. It allows for greater flexibility in mixing different layers, including an innovative coat layer for simulating emissive textures behind glass.
Enhanced Color Management: Blender 4.0 features AgX, a new view transform that provides better color handling in over-exposed areas, significantly improving saturation handling compared to the previous Filmic transform.
Advanced Textures: The Voronoi Texture node now supports fractal noise, offering unlimited procedural detail. This node has been updated with new inputs for detail, roughness, and lacunarity, and a “Normalize” property for remapping outputs.
Enhanced Color Management: Blender 4.0 features AgX, a new view transform that provides better color handling in over-exposed areas, significantly improving saturation handling compared to the previous Filmic transform.
Advanced Textures: The Voronoi Texture node now supports fractal noise, offering unlimited procedural detail. This node has been updated with new inputs for detail, roughness, and lacunarity, and a “Normalize” property for remapping outputs.
Rendering Enhancements: The update brings more energy-efficient lighting, new inputs in the Noise Texture node, UV support in all lights for the Image Texture node, and improved sunlight behavior at large angular diameters.
Geometry Nodes and DIY Tools: Geometry Nodes can now be run as regular operators using Node Tools. This feature allows for greater access and control over 3D cursor location, edit mode selection, and sculpt face sets.
Cycles Rendering Engine Updates: Two significant additions
are Light Linking, allowing lights to affect specific scene elements, and Path
Guiding for glossy surfaces to reduce noise and find missing light paths.
Modeling Enhancements: Blender 4.0 improves snapping functionality, with a restructured user interface for easier and more efficient use. It also supports snapping for bones with the “Align Rotation to Target” feature.
Improved Search Functionality: The new Blender version speeds up workflows by allowing instant search within all Add menus and other menus through the spacebar. This feature includes searching within object, node, strip, and modifier menus.
User Interface Upgrade: The UI in Blender 4.0 uses the Inter typeface, designed for computer screens. This change, along with a new preference for subpixel anti-aliasing, ensures sharp and clear text regardless of screen size.
Blender 4.0 brings a host of improvements and new features, enhancing the creative process for artists and developers alike.
