[HN Gopher] Blender 3.1
___________________________________________________________________
 
Blender 3.1
 
Author : mkaic
Score  : 357 points
Date   : 2022-03-09 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago)
 
web link (www.blender.org)
w3m dump (www.blender.org)
 
| snvzz wrote:
| Is it just me, or did the release announcement page get harder to
| read, relative to older releases?
 
| cwkoss wrote:
| Blender is amazing. It can do so many things. If you want to try
| it out, I highly recommend "Blender Guru" on youtube. The "donut
| tutorial" is a great overview that orients you to where all of
| the most important functions are.
| 
| Took me a ~3 evenings of 3 hours each (included some playful
| fiddling outside the scope of just completing the tutorial) and
| now I feel like I can generally google for answers to questions
| and get by in blender.
| 
| Also 3.0 featured a roughly 8x speed increase in rendering! It's
| insanely cool.
 
| mkaic wrote:
| I genuinely think Blender is my single favorite piece of software
| I've ever used, _especially_ the latest few versions. While it 's
| always been a powerful piece of software, the past 3 or 4 major
| releases (really everything since 2.8 actually) have just been
| nonstop UX improvement _on top_ of ridiculous amounts of
| thoughtfully implemented new features.
 
  | knolan wrote:
  | It's a joy to use, I feel I can do anything with it
  | confidently.
 
| mastax wrote:
| The geometry nodes demo in the release video looks extremely
| cool! To clarify, that is a node-graph procedurally generated
| house with adjustable properties (decay, etc)? I know that's been
| a thing for a while (speed tree, etc) but it's really impressive.
 
| cglong wrote:
| I came across this film[1] the other day. It was made with
| Blender by a college student as their graduation art, and has
| single-handedly made me realize just how powerful it is!
| 
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSc27JPm3r8
 
  | riidom wrote:
  | Wow so much not my style of music, and still I loved the whole
  | thing. Thanks for sharing! :D
 
| karolist wrote:
| Blender is shaping up to be the best open source project I've
| seen in my 20 years of tech, and I'm comparing this with many
| other large ones I've used, like Linux kernel or various distros,
| FreeBSD, Kubernetes and so on. They do everything so well, even
| the releases, I think it beats the paid competition now or will
| soon do in feature parity and ease of use. As of Blender 2.8 the
| UI is fantastic.
| 
| This update comes with many geometry node improvements which
| continue the trend of making Blender the premium non-destructive
| modelling solution. I'm in particular interested in seeing how
| 6900 XT and regular M1 (in Mac mini form) will perform under
| Metal with 3.1 and macOs 12.3. I was a long time Radeon VII user
| on Mac but before 3.0 the stability and performance was just not
| there so I've moved my Blender experiments to Windows and Nvidia
| which works spectacularly but I'm not fussed about booting win
| just for Blender. Sadly I don't think AMD is bringing HIP for
| their older, pre-6000 GPUs https://code.blender.org/2021/11/next-
| level-support-for-amd-...
 
  | Pulcinella wrote:
  | Something to note about the AMD 6000 GPUs, the Metal API
  | currently doesn't support the ray tracing acceleration hardware
  | that they have.
  | 
  | https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/690033
 
  | daenz wrote:
  | 100% agree. I've been using Blender for over 20 years as a
  | hobbyist and it has consistently been one of my favorite pieces
  | of software. It's written by creators, for creators, and you
  | can feel the love and care that they put into it.
  | 
  | One area I wish they would start to give more attention is
  | their scripting. I consider myself a Python expert, and the
  | Python API leaves a lot to be desired at an architectural
  | level. For example, many operations (bpy.ops) require an
  | accurate "context" to succeed. This context is essentially
  | putting the UI in a particular state, as if the user had
  | clicked specific items and activated certain windows. This
  | makes the api feel like an afterthought to the traditional UI
  | interaction, and introduces a number of issues that I won't
  | bore you with. Suffice to say, you end up writing a lot of
  | boilerplate to ensure predictable state changes in between
  | operations.
  | 
  | If they levelled up the Python API to be more friendly to the
  | code-oriented generative art crowd, they would be even more
  | unstoppable!
 
    | Etherlord87 wrote:
    | Another example is how incompatible "bpy" is with Python
    | idioms: in Python you're supposed to use `is` operator to
    | compare identity, but since many objects in bpy are short-
    | lived wrappers of the actual C++ data, you have to use
    | equality operator `==` instead. Otherwise you may run into
    | such problems:                   >>> arm.bones['Bone'] is
    | arm.bones['Bone']         False
    | 
    | This is not a bug: https://developer.blender.org/T88914
    | 
    | As for operator overrides, you may find this list useful:
    | 
    | https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/248274/a-compreh.
    | ..
 
    | UncleEntity wrote:
    | > For example, many operations (bpy.ops) require an accurate
    | "context" to succeed.
    | 
    | The bpy.ops are really just a python shim to be able to call
    | them from the UI.
    | 
    | Not a good idea to call them from a script (because of the
    | reasons you cited) but that hasn't stopped anyone, ever. The
    | whole of blender is designed around the MVC model and the
    | operators are the 'control' and are dependent on the 'view'
    | (aka context) to do their thing.
    | 
    | All the underlying data structures _should_ be exposed to the
    | python API (through bpy.data IIRC) so, in theory, one could
    | do whatever their little heart desires.
    | 
    | Weird design but once you realize the UI runs everything
    | through python it mostly makes sense.
 
      | daenz wrote:
      | Definitely, prefer using bpy.data objects whenever you can.
      | IIRC there were a few things I wanted to do that only
      | seemed possible through bpy.ops, for example recursively
      | duplicating a collection. In the UI, this calls
      | bpy.ops.outliner.collection_duplicate() and requires the
      | Outliner editor to exist and be active. There are
      | workarounds, but they aren't pretty.
 
        | Etherlord87 wrote:
        | Another example is changing modifier order - you can do
        | that only with operators.
 
        | UncleEntity wrote:
        | Back when I was poking at the python API a lot of what I
        | did was figure out how the operator did it and either
        | wrap the function it called as a method on the object or
        | write a simple C function wrapper and expose that to
        | python. Most things that people needed just needed
        | someone to spend a little time on.
        | 
        | I think it was the outliner (the part where you edit the
        | keyframes?) where the underlying design made the python
        | API an absolute trainwreck. I spent a bunch of time on
        | that and it was just bad, the best that could be done was
        | to expose it and let people who were sufficiently
        | motivated dig around and figure out how all the pieces
        | interacted because it wasn't at all obvious. Horrible
        | design from the python side...
        | 
        | Anyhoo, sounds like someone just needs to add a
        | collection.duplicate() or .clone() method -- whichever is
        | more pythonic.
 
    | tapia wrote:
    | I totally agree with you. I use the python API in Blender to
    | make some renderings of mechanical connections we are
    | developing. As a python expert I am always a bit disoriented
    | by how things should be handled. It would be really great if
    | the python API could get some love in the future.
 
    | karolist wrote:
    | Glad you brought up scripting! I'm 2 years in my Blender
    | journey. I remember downloading it before YouTube existed,
    | took hours to compile the FreeBSD port, launched and got
    | overwhelmed by the complexity, it ended there.
    | 
    | My goal with Blender is to animate explainers and
    | screencasts, how feasible is to have a procedural pipeline
    | where I could just launch Python scripts changing basic
    | properties like text, position? Basically I want to generate
    | animations where I have a bunch of re-useable objects but
    | change their properties via code, is this something Python
    | bindings could help me?
 
      | tusharsadhwani wrote:
      | not very related, but you might want to check out manim:
      | https://github.com/ManimCommunity/manim
 
      | daenz wrote:
      | Funny you should ask! Yes, it can be done. I've built
      | something like this recently...my goal was to make
      | programmatic videos of chat conversations. Here's an
      | example[0]. This was rendered totally headless (no
      | launching blender UI) and the input file was a json
      | document that was generated programmatically. I'm in the
      | process of containerizing it so it can be run serverless in
      | the cloud, driven by a job queue.
      | 
      | 0. https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/arwmoffat.com/hn.mp4
 
        | armagon wrote:
        | You did that in Blender? Wow. How on earth did you do
        | that?
 
        | daenz wrote:
        | Each text bubble is duplicated from a rigged template
        | speech bubble. The rig controls the dimensions of the
        | bubble based on the size of the text it contains. Drivers
        | are heavily used on the bones to coordinate them with
        | other bones and movement.
        | 
        | Each bubble is parented to a screen object which scrolls
        | upwards, but the parenting is dynamic, so that it only
        | engages when the message has been "sent".
        | 
        | The "typewriter effect" of each bubble is not keyframed
        | (unsupported) but handled by a frame update callback. The
        | typing is determined in advance with random jitters to
        | emulate a person typing.
        | 
        | Hope that explains it! I have considered sharing the
        | framework, but I know I will get a lot of requests that
        | I'm not prepared to handle unless I was receiving
        | donations.
 
        | james_in_the_uk wrote:
        | Calvary by Scene Group is also good for this type of
        | animation and can be scripted or load files in from csv /
        | Google docs.
        | 
        | Here's an example I made https://vimeo.com/497222609
 
        | karolist wrote:
        | You've just blown my mind! Wow, this is something I'll
        | spend my next 3 months before summer definitely. Thanks
        | for the inspiration and showing the possibilities, the
        | headless part is just icing on top.
 
        | daenz wrote:
        | Cool! You will love it. If you get really jammed up on a
        | problem, find my contact info in my profile and I may be
        | able to unblock you.
 
    | wyager wrote:
    | Besides being context-sensitive, I also recall the API being
    | weirdly designed w.r.t. mutable variables, global state, and
    | so on. The kind of stuff you expect to see when someone who
    | is not primarily a programmer, but is instead an artist or
    | something, designs an API (which I would guess may be what
    | happened).
    | 
    | In the end I was able to get what I wanted (a script which
    | would spawn a bunch of geometric objects according to a
    | procedural function, set the scene, and ray trace a frame)
    | but it took a bunch of weird incantations in a mix of API
    | idioms.
 
  | gloriana wrote:
  | I wish other software projects would take a similar approach
  | such as Open AI, making the service and software totally free
  | to use.
 
| haberman wrote:
| The more awesome Blender gets, the more jealous I am that it's
| not designed for CAD.
| 
| I keep wondering if FreeCAD will eventually make these kinds of
| strides, or if it's better to try getting Blender to do CAD-likes
| stuff. I know there is a bit of CAM-like stuff floating around
| for Blender. But I'm always afraid that this will come up short
| in the long run, due to Blender's fundamentally mesh-based
| nature.
 
  | phkahler wrote:
  | The more awesome Blender gets, the more jealous I am that it's
  | not designed for CAD.
  | 
  | You may be interested in this:
  | https://blenderartists.org/t/geometry-sketcher-constraint-so...
  | 
  | Someone implemented sketching in blender using the geometric
  | constraint solver borrowed from Solvespace. It is also notable
  | that the same solver has been used in FreeCADs assembly 3
  | workbench.
  | 
  | For the next Solvespace (3.1) release we have replaced the
  | homegrown matrix operations in the solver with Eigen. In some
  | sketches this seems be running 8-10x faster.
 
  | rycomb wrote:
  | I really hope so, but I wouldn't count on it... in my view,
  | FreeCAD seems to be suffering from certain stagnation -similar
  | to GIMP's a decade ago.
  | 
  | The "triangle of uses" of Blender/FreeCAD/OpenSCAD has a weird
  | void in the middle to fill ...and seeing how Blender keeps
  | growing, I'd imagine it'd be the first covering most of it. It
  | may be argued that it's already doing so in many ways, via
  | plugins and Blender's Python API.
 
  | jbay808 wrote:
  | I keep growing more impressed by FreeCAD. At the moment some of
  | the most critical usability improvements are still in
  | development branches though.
 
  | karolist wrote:
  | While it's not really a tool for precision modelling you can
  | get the objects to real world size by setting the coordinate
  | space and units to your scale. I've modelled the house I'm
  | building in Blender, put it on a real scale and size plot of
  | land oriented against true north. There's even a built in
  | plugin to model sun position based on time and coordinates,
  | it's been mind blowing to be able to see how the shades will
  | change through the windows and how another building will (or
  | not) block the sun during different months.
  | 
  | I've tried FreeCAD for precision modelling like house plans but
  | it was just painful to use, especially compared to AutoCAD
  | which is super good and the snapping is unlike anything I've
  | seen, but sadly prohibitively expensive for non professional
  | use. Their cheapest plan is something like $200/mo.
 
    | supermatt wrote:
    | I'm trying to do something myself but modelling an existing
    | building. I just get really confused on the "right way" too
    | use these tools. For example, on a log building do I model
    | the logs or some flat wall with a texture, etc?
 
      | syntheweave wrote:
      | The best way to proceed is to think in terms of
      | placeholders. Make the wall simple now; then imagine how
      | you want to detail it, and proceed with the understanding
      | that you'll want to replace it at some point, and then it's
      | just a matter of setting up the organization of your
      | objects so that that can be done gracefully. If you don't
      | have a particular requirement like presentation in a game
      | engine, you don't have to aim for it to be optimized and
      | can do something like making a detailed sculpt for every
      | log. If you do have that requirement there's still often a
      | reason to push off the optimization to a final step,
      | because it might involve destructive workflows where you
      | essentially turn your initial detailed asset into a
      | reference for the optimized one(e.g. baking a normal map).
      | 
      | As long as you expect everything to be done in two or three
      | iterations and split out the work appropriately, you won't
      | be stuck for too long.
 
  | MisterBiggs wrote:
  | As a graduating Engineering student that is about to lose
  | access to some really powerful and incredibly expensive CAD
  | software I can't agree enough. I think I just need to say
  | goodbye to parametric modelling and embrace Blender.
 
| mrtksn wrote:
| Hey, does anybody knows what happened with Apple becoming a
| Patron?
| 
| Apple is still not listed on the contributors list.[0]
| 
| [0] https://fund.blender.org/
 
  | dry_soup wrote:
  | metal support gets top billing on the release page[1], and I
  | think it was apple who contributed most of the code for that.
  | so maybe apple just doesn't like being in a sea of logos with
  | all the riff raff.
  | 
  | [1] https://www.blender.org/download/releases/3-1/
 
| 0xcoffee wrote:
| I tried to download their new Benchmark 3.0.0, but site seems to
| be hammered.
| 
| Softpedia has a mirror though:
| https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/Blender-Benc...
 
  | DoctorOW wrote:
  | While the site is hammered, I'll point out that you can get
  | automatic Blender updates through Steam if you're so inclined.
  | 
  | https://store.steampowered.com/app/365670/Blender/
 
    | nvrspyx wrote:
    | They're talking about the new Benchmark tool specifically.
    | I'm not sure if it's included within Blender itself, but it's
    | not available (at least separately if included with Blender)
    | on Steam.
 
      | DoctorOW wrote:
      | I assumed it was the same website/CDN for both. Maybe I was
      | wrong. Still, the Steam thing is a little known tip.
 
| neves wrote:
| Is it worth the trouble for an eventual User to learn Blender?
| 
| I don't do animations, but I like to edit some personal videos
| with a pinch of VFX. I always read that it is great and powerful,
| but has a difficult UI. I always wanted to learn it, but time is
| limited.
 
  | Mizza wrote:
  | Make the donut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIoXOplUvAw
  | It's kind of a right of passage for Blender newbies.
  | 
  | I learned (well.. I'm learning) Blender this year and I'm glad
  | I did. It's very intimidating at first, but you get the hang of
  | it, and then you can't imagine a world without it. I now even
  | prefer it to stuff like Photoshop for doing simple graphics
  | work.
 
  | prox wrote:
  | While you can edit with Blender (and with some very powerful
  | functions) there is also Kdenlive Video Editor which has been
  | very good for simpler edits. Depends a bit on what you want to
  | do.
 
  | danielvaughn wrote:
  | As with anything, what starts out as complex gets easier with
  | exposure. I'm still at the beginning stages but I've really
  | enjoyed the journey so far.
 
  | tinus_hn wrote:
  | If you have never learned 3D modeling it's really a lot of fun.
  | If you start by doing some tutorials you can get started pretty
  | easily.
 
  | karolist wrote:
  | Definitely worth it. As it's a visual tool you won't learn by
  | reading about it, nor can you learn Blender knowing everything
  | about it's features (it would be like getting good at chess by
  | reading chess rules)... what I mean is you have to learn by
  | doing many small experiments and using visual guides.
  | 
  | I recommend doing the Doughnut tutorial by Blender Guru first,
  | then move to CrossMind Studio, another really great one is
  | Ducky 3D. Default Cube is great, but some of the stuff is a bit
  | advanced. Polygon Runway is good but got bored of the same
  | style. The best for more advanced users I've seen so far is
  | Polyfjord, just next level stuff, can't recommend that channel
  | enough.
 
    | mkaic wrote:
    | Polyfjord is fantastic. If you're interested in the
    | filmmaking/VFX side of things at an intermediate to advanced
    | level, I can't recommend Ian Hubert enough. His YouTube
    | channel is legendary but his Patreon is even better, tons and
    | tons of informal, unscripted videos of just him making stuff
    | and narrating while he does it. I know that's not everyone's
    | cup of tea but I personally feel like I've learned most of
    | what I know about blender from those videos!
 
      | karolist wrote:
      | Thanks for the Hubert recommendation, he is definitely
      | pushing the boundaries of what can be done and showing it,
      | but at the level I'm at (occasional user, 2 years in), his
      | videos to me seemed a bit like the famous "How to draw an
      | Owl" picture... I didn't know he had Patreon, I'm already a
      | member of CrossMind Studio and Polyfjord, will definitely
      | check it out. Thanks again.
 
        | mkaic wrote:
        | yeah his Lazy Tutorials definitely feel a little "draw an
        | Owl", but his longer form videos on Patreon are much more
        | laid back and (I feel) accessible.
 
  | victornomad wrote:
  | I think it is. I started few months ago and I really love the
  | journey so far.
  | 
  | I dont think Blender itself is that complicated, what is
  | difficult is
  | 
  | 1) Find what type of 3d you want do. 2) Do it nicely
  | 
  | The 3d field is enormous and you and depending what you do you
  | will follow a specific technique and workflow.
  | 
  | You don't need to learn everything just with a 1% of Blender
  | you can do pretty great stuff!
 
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| The problem with the pace of development is that its impossible
| to learn new interfaces etc in time
| 
| Some of the development funds should go to training materials.
 
  | TrevorJ wrote:
  | There's are LTS versions. You could always just use one of
  | those and only upgrade when you feel the desire.
 
  | victornomad wrote:
  | To be honest, the basics are always the same.
  | 
  | I started recently with Blender 3.0 and I can watch without any
  | problem tutorials made with Blender 2.8 (3.5 years ago). Now
  | that I'm getting more confident I can even watch tutorials from
  | older versions and follow them without a problem.
  | 
  | And btw, you don't need to learn every new feature. Blender is
  | a incredible versatile and ginormous software and you only need
  | to learn what you need for your specific workflow. I can maybe
  | know 1% of Blender and I'm superhappy with what I'm doing
  | nowadays!
 
  | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
  | Then use the LTS versions?
 
  | mkaic wrote:
  | In my experience, I actually find the community does a pretty
  | darn good job of keeping up with the training side of things.
  | There are several dozen YouTube channels that just make Blender
  | tutorials 24/7 for a living, and every time a new update is
  | dropped, tons of new beginner tutorials for the new features
  | get made.
 
  | slimsag wrote:
  | I don't understand this? Blender has world-class training
  | material provided for free.
  | 
  | Between the stuff they themselves offer[0] and the literally
  | thousands of training videos on YouTube.. what do you think is
  | missing?
  | 
  | [0] https://www.blender.org/support/tutorials
 
    | 0xcde4c3db wrote:
    | Blender being well-documented is a relatively recent
    | phenomenon, so I wouldn't be shocked if a lot of people
    | simply don't realize that things have changed. Back in its
    | early days it was infamous for having an impenetrable UI and
    | practically no documentation (unless you bought what amounted
    | to the official strategy guide, which was decent enough on
    | its own terms but still wasn't a proper manual).
 
      | UncleEntity wrote:
      | Spent many an hour digging through the source code to
      | figure out what a particular button did...
 
    | mkaic wrote:
    | Agree with this. Blender has some of the best training
    | material available, _especially_ compared to its competition,
    | _because_ it 's free and open source, so anyone can use it
    | and, importantly, anyone can make tutorials for it!
 
  | koshergweilo wrote:
  | Have they changed much about the UI in this update? Seems like
  | it's mostly about performance improvements and procedural
  | generation this update.
 
    | mkaic wrote:
    | They added a really nice quality of life change in the node
    | editor! Now you can drag a noodle out from a node into empty
    | space, release, and get the Add Node menu automatically
    | popping up, which is something the community's been wanting
    | for _ages_. It 's how it works in basically every other
    | modern node-based editor, so it's nice to see Blender keeping
    | up.
 
    | lastdong wrote:
    | Blender 3.1 changes in 5min (part of the this topic linked
    | page) https://youtu.be/BCi0QRM1ADY
 
| skrillhouse wrote:
| Major kudos to the Blender team for the phenomenal work they've
| been doing. I only started learning Blender a little over a year
| ago, and the amount of progress that's been made in that short
| amount of time is incredible. In a time when I'm often frustrated
| with the abundance of low quality and user-hostile software,
| Blender has been inspirational in demonstrating that it's still
| possible to develop high quality, powerful applications (and
| offer it for free nonetheless!)
 
| pmoriarty wrote:
| I tried learning Blender again recently... it just seems so
| overcomplicated.
 
  | karolist wrote:
  | Are you familiar with any other 3D modelling software? If not
  | it's not entirely fair to say Blender is overcomplicated, 3D
  | modelling itself is a complicated field and Blender is like a
  | swissknife, you can learn only the features you intend to use.
  | Hard surface modelling, basic scene setup, lightning and you're
  | already at a level where you can enjoy the process. Want more?
  | Procedural, non-destructive modelling, sculpting, VFX,
  | compositing, it even has a video editor built in (though most
  | people just use Davinci Resolve instead). I think Blender is as
  | complicated as you choose it to be, like Math, Physics or any
  | other non trivial field.
 
  | mandmandam wrote:
  | Did you do the donut tutorial?
 
    | runevault wrote:
    | There are a few good options, this def being one of them.
    | Grant Abbitt being another.
    | 
    | Blender is software that feels complicated at first because,
    | fundamentally it is doing a complicated thing. But once you
    | start to understand it you cut through all the things that
    | you don't need to worry about because 90% of the time you
    | will be in VERY specific contexts (hard modeling, sculpting,
    | painting, etc) and not worrying about large swaths of the
    | features. But to do everything it needs to do all of those
    | things have to exist.
    | 
    | Being able to learn how to context switch and take advantage
    | of the different workspaces helps a TON. Gotta get used to it
    | though, and it is a big lift. I started messing with Blender
    | off and on a year or so ago and while I'm no master, once I
    | get in my groove I feel like I can move pretty quickly.
 
  | Arcanum-XIII wrote:
  | I guess it depends on your motivation. When I was dabbling with
  | 3D in 2000, all the major player at the time were way worse but
  | I did manage because I was motivated. 20 year later, I can't
  | even animate basic things like a ball :D
  | 
  | Still, give you some clear goal about what you want. Blender
  | can do nearly everything related to 3D, compositing and even
  | some special effect. And then search a YouTube tutorial on this
  | subject -- it probably exist!
 
  | ur-whale wrote:
  | > it just seems so overcomplicated.
  | 
  | Sure, it's not Sketchup, and there is a little bit of a steep
  | learning curve at the beginning (it used to be much, much
  | worse).
  | 
  | However, unlike Sketchup, the freaking _depth_ of the software
  | is nothing short of amazing.
  | 
  | That investment you make at the beginning is really, really
  | worth it.
  | 
  | Also: there is literally a ton of tutorials on YouTube to get
  | started with Blender, and it is rather easy to learn the basics
  | nowadays by doing a bit of monkey see monkey do with Blender
  | open on one monitor and the tutorial vid on the other.
 
| Taywee wrote:
| Blender is so cool. I really need to put in the time to actually
| learn geometry nodes; they seem crazy powerful.
 
| mkaic wrote:
| Metal backend is currently only M1 compatible, which is a shame,
| but still super exciting that they added it at all. Really great
| to see Apple contributing to the project, plus I think they
| mentioned they plan to make the Cycles Metal backend compatible
| with older Macs in the future. Might be able to finally make use
| of those Radeon cards in older high-specced Macs!
| 
| EDIT: Looks like I missed that it's also already compatible with
| AMD cards in older Macs, they just have to have the latest OS
| installed!
 
  | oDot wrote:
  | Says it's compatible with AMD GPUs as well
 
    | mkaic wrote:
    | Oh, missed that! Still requiring the newest OS though which
    | is understandable but unfortunate.
 
      | Pulcinella wrote:
      | To be fair, the original announcement about upcoming Metal
      | support did state that the support for Apple GPUs was the
      | first priority, with AMD GPU support at a later date, so
      | it's nice to see both supported right out of the gate.
 
| emadabdulrahim wrote:
| Can't wait to try it tonight on my M1 Max and compare rendering
| speed with v3!
 
  | stevenpetryk wrote:
  | Make sure you have macOS Monterrey 12.3 beta (the Metal backend
  | requires 12.3 or above).
 
    | Arcanum-XIII wrote:
    | Works fine for me on my M1 with 12.2.1.
 
  | mkaic wrote:
  | Let us know how that goes! I'm getting an M1 Max MBP sometime
  | in the next two weeks and already know the very first thing I
  | install on it after booting is gonna be Blender. It's a rite of
  | passage for any new computer I acquire!
 
    | cevn wrote:
    | The computer is an absolute beast, it compiles faster than my
    | old desktop intel cpu and I just have M1 Pro or something..
 
  | barrenko wrote:
  | One of the most marvelous hobbies.
 
    | mkaic wrote:
    | There are few things more exciting about getting a new
    | computer than getting to test how fast Blender runs on it!
 
| mrguyorama wrote:
| As a Windows user with an AMD 5700XT, a $400 GPU, I'm still
| locked out of the wonderful world of accelerated Blender. AMD has
| been straight up negligent in their software support for a long
| time. It sucks that you basically have to buy a super power
| hungry, super expensive GPU from a company that refuses to do
| anything open source if you want to be able to do anything but
| play games on your GPU.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | zamadatix wrote:
  | Prior to Blender 3.0 OpenCL should have worked. 3.0 and later
  | the HIP backend should be working on your setup, though it's
  | not officially validated for the 5700 XT, here are some numbers
  | from a 5500 XT prior to 3.0 GA
  | https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/User:ThomasDinges/AMDBenchmark...
 
  | Etherlord87 wrote:
  | > It sucks that you basically have to buy a super power hungry,
  | super expensive GPU from a company that refuses to do anything
  | open source if you want to be able to do anything but play
  | games on your GPU.
  | 
  | I have a lot of fun in Blender for two years now, using Nvidia
  | GTX 970 - it's quite old by now, and definitely cheaper than
  | $400.
  | 
  | As someone who has seen a lot of bug reports, Blender has
  | problems with AMD, Mac, and newest Nvidia (RTX) cards.
 
| bedros wrote:
| the user interface with drag, drop, search looks very slick,
| anyone knows what part of blender code does that, or any python
| lib I can used for a UI like that
 
| mkaic wrote:
| Blender's pace of development is blistering and never fails to
| impress me. The community is also super inspiring, and the
| founder of Blender, Ton Roosendaal, is a really cool person as
| well. I'm super hyped for the future of this software.
 
  | prox wrote:
  | Godot also seems to be modeling itself in the same style as
  | Blender. Years ago I was very vocal about the opportunities of
  | an easy to use open source game engine. Godot 4 is well on its
  | way to be very accessible and getting high end functions.
  | 
  | I wish GIMP and other projects were like this.
 
| slimsag wrote:
| That GPU-based subdivision surfaces being ~10X faster is a
| welcome improvement! Subdivision surfaces have always been so
| slow, those are some incredible gains!
 
  | mkaic wrote:
  | Always really exciting to see a number like 10X anywhere in
  | release notes, it's like Christmas!
 
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