Blender 2.64 Brings Lots of New Features

The Blender Foundation and its online community of developers were proud to announce earlier today, October 3rd, the immediate availability for download of Blender 2.64.

As stated in the release schedule for the 2.6x branch of the software, this version focuses on making a complete and functional VFX Pipeline, which incorporates a better motion tracking, green screen keying, title-based compositing, better color management, and much more.

"The focus was on creating a full VFX pipeline, with improved motion tracking using a planar tracker, easier green screen keying, and a new mask editor. A new tile based compositing system was added, along with more advanced color management. Cycles rendering got dozens of smaller features and improvements resulting from its use in production."

"Sculpting now supports masks, and a skin modifier was added to quickly create a model from skeletons. The game engine got improved shadows and physics options, and Collada export now has more options to tune for exporting to other game engines," the official release announcement read.

Highlights of Blender 2.64:

• Improved Mask Editor - ability to create masks in the movie and image editor;
• Improved Motion Tracker - gains planar tracking functionality;
• Green Screen;
• Improved Mesh Tools - added modal operator with mouse control to inset and bevel tools;
• Improved Sculpting - gains masking, new brush map modes, and the ability to make brush strokes smoother;
• Improved Skin Modifier;
• Improved Game Engine - now with better shadows and lamps;
• New Compositing was implemented;
• Advanced Color Management - integrating OpenColorIO;
• Improved Cycles Render - added non-progressive integrator, faster BVH building, tiled rendering;
• Improved Sequencer - now caches effect strips even faster;
• Improved Collada - gains better support for exporting to game engines;
• Lots of other small changes and general stability improvements;
• Lots of bugs squashed.

Blender 2.64 - Tracking Dopesheet View - Image courtesy of The Blender Foundation

Blender 2.64 is available for download as of October 3rd, packaged as binary archives that can be run on all Linux distributions, supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Download Blender 2.64 right now from Softpedia.