A Stroke of Genius

Brush assets, faster sculpting, a revolutionized Grease Pencil, and more. Blender 4.3 got you covered.

Released November 19th, 2024

Video Recap

Round-up of what’s new, in detail.

Blender 4.3 new features overview by Jonathan Lampel from CGCookie, Harry Blends,
Christopher 3D, and Aidy Burrows from Creative Shrimp.
Blender 3.3 splash by Piotr Krynski

BLENDER EXTENDED

The Blender Extensions platform continues to grow, offering hundreds of free add-ons and themes that enable endless customization of workflows.

You can also share your own add-ons and themes!

UV EDITING

SLIM UVs

A new method makes unwrapping organic shapes a breeze.

PLUS

STUDIO FRIENDLY

Thanks to portable installation, new environment variables, custom bundling of extensions, Blender 4.3 is easier than ever to integrate in studio pipelines.

GEOMETRY NODES

SO MUCH IT
DOESN’T FIT THIS TITLE

For Each Element Zone. Gizmos. Support for Grease Pencil. Packed Bakes. Custom Warnings. Geometry Names. New Nodes.

Simon Thommes offers a delightful sneak peek into the abundance of Geo Goodies packed into this Blender update!

Overview of everything new in Geometry Nodes by Simon Thommes from Blender Studio.

EFFORTLESS ITERATION WITH
FOR EACH ELEMENT

A new type of loop zone is available now! The For Each Element zone will make it easy to iterate over elements of a geometry in parallel, making repetitive processes a breeze to handle.

GET HANDS-ON

You can now add gizmos to node groups! This means you can edit the inputs to a node tree right in the 3D viewport – no need to dive into the node editor or modifier stack. It’s a game-changer for a more intuitive and hands-on experience!

Although built-in nodes aren’t using this power yet, the future looks bright. Advanced users will benefit now, and soon everyone will enjoy Blender’s growing procedural capabilities!

GEOMETRY NAMING MADE EASY

Introducing the Set Geometry Name node, a new node designed to enhance your workflow. This node allows for the easy assignment of names to geometries, with automatic initialization based on object and collection names.

Geometries can now be named with the new Set Geometry Name node.

GEO NODES MEETS GREASE PENCIL

Geometry Nodes now work smoothly with Grease Pencil data, breaking it down into layers with curves and custom attributes. Updated nodes can now handle Grease Pencil data seamlessly, processing each layer separately.

Fan art by Daniel Martinez Lara of “Magical Cat” by Threadwood, drawn using Grease Pencil converted into mesh on-the-fly using Geometry Nodes for a “claymation” effect.

NEW UTILITY NODES

Hash Value
Hash Value

Hashes various types into an integer. Useful to generate stable randomness.

Integer Math
Integer Math

Provides building block support for integer operations

WARNINGS UI

Introducing the Warning Node, which allows custom warnings to be added to node groups, allowing dynamic messaging directly on the interface.

BE ALERT

The display of warnings in the Geometry Nodes modifier has been reorganized. They are now in a panel and ordered by severity and alphabetically.

OTHER GEO GOODIES

Bake node in use

PACKED BAKES

Bakes created with the Bake node or Simulation zone can now be packed into the .blend file.

MORE GEOMETRY NODES

What the community is creating with Geometry Nodes

Testing the geonodes gizmos of the blender 4.3 beta :). #blender #b3d #geometrynodes #procedural

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— Eric (@3deric.bsky.social) October 28, 2024 at 6:41 PM

Something work in progress Playing around with Grease Pencil v3 and new For Each Element Zone New features inside blender 4.3 will push everything even further… #b3d #geometrynodes

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— Louis Li🔸 (@louislithium.bsky.social) November 18, 2024 at 5:55 AM

NEURAL PATTERNS #b3d #blender #geometrynodes

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— ashlee (@ashlee3dee.bsky.social) October 24, 2024 at 8:54 PM
Geometry Nodes Physics and more

Get a glimpse of what’s to come to Geometry Nodes (spoiler alert: hair dynamics and physics!).

GREASE PENCIL

GREASE LIGHTNIN’

Grease Pencil Layer Groups

Organize your layers into Layer Groups! A new way to keep your Grease Pencil objects tidy.

They allow for easy toggling of visibility, locking, and onion skinning for all the layers in the group.

Additionally, they can be color-coded using color tags, similar to Collections in the Outliner.

A new Fill Gradient tool is here!

Found in Edit Mode below the Interpolation tool, it lets users change the fill gradient (set in material settings) by selecting fill strokes and click-dragging with the Gradient tool.

Fill Gradient Tool
Four eraser brushes available through the asset shelf.

The eraser has been rewritten to allow strokes to be “cut”.

Instead of just deleting points, it now correctly solves for the intersections of the eraser’s edge and creates new points on the stroke.

The Soft eraser also does this but for multiple levels of transparency radiating outwards from the center of the eraser.

MORE GREASE PENCIL

Still from Agent 327: view of Amsterdam.

INDUSTRY READY

All Blender releases this year align with the VFX Reference Platform 2024, making integration and maintenance in studio pipelines easier.

BRUSH UP
YOUR WORKFLOW


With over a hundred default brushes and an improved interface, Blender 4.3’s new brush workflow makes management, customization, and sharing across projects easier than ever.

Sculpt Mode Asset Shelf in Blender 4.3
Asset shelf in the 3D Viewport while in mesh Sculpt mode.

BRUSH = ASSET

Brushes are now assets, making them easy to save, share, and reuse through the Asset Browser.

Organize custom libraries and access your favorite brushes across projects.

Charge Open Movie

ARMED
FOR THE FUTURE

Blender 4.3 runs natively on Windows on Arm, thanks to integration by Qualcomm, which recently joined the Development Fund.

Blender 4.3 splash artwork by Blender Studio

GET THE ARTWORK

Blender splash artwork source files are available for you to play with, not only for Blender 4.3 but for previous versions as well.

CREDITS

List of developers that contributed to Blender 4.3

Blender is a community project.
Learn more on how you can contribute to Blender.

Splash artwork and Geometry Nodes demo files by Blender Studio.

Features recap video by Jonathan Lampel from CGCookie, Harry Blends,
Christopher 3D, and Aidy Burrows from Creative Shrimp.

Huge thanks to everyone involved ❤️

The Blender team. November, 2024