Update packs fire and smoke rendering, baking API, and much more

May 28, 2014 14:48 GMT  ·  By

3D design software Blender 2.71 Test 2 is out for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux computers featuring a bevy of new features and enhancements in every area.

In the cycles rendering department, Blender 2.71 Test 2 includes various optimizations, deformation motion blur, fire and smoke rendering, volume rendering, a baking API (application programming interface), branched path, nodes, and CUDA support.

UI-wise, the Blender Foundation is happy to report that “OpenGL Render options are now available inside the Info Editor -> Render menu, among the OpenGL Render / Animation operators. This is consistent for Blender Internal and Cycles now, before these settings were in different panels.” Pop-ups can be dragged by their title area now, and mat/tex/etc. preview widgets are now resizable.

Animation tweaks have been made in areas like f-curves, drivers, armatures, constraints, and the graph editor. If you loop-select on edge boundaries, the app will now select all boundaries if the current one is already selected. Other changes are made in modeling, sculpting, game development, freestyle and npr rendering. You’ll need at least 2GB of RAM to use Blender, as well as an Open GL graphics card.

Download Blender 2.71 Test Build 2 for Mac OS X

Download Blender 2.71 Test Build 2 for Windows

Download Blender 2.71 Test Build 2 for Linux