Blender 4.1 introduces a variety of new features and improvements aimed at enhancing performance, stability, and usability. Here are some of the highlights:
- Rendering and Compositing:
- OpenImageDenoise now supports GPU acceleration, improving denoising speeds on compatible hardware.
- Cycles rendering performance on Linux has been increased by 5%.
- The Viewport Compositor now supports all compositor nodes except Render Layer passes, allowing for more complex and precise real-time compositing).
- Video Sequencer:
- The Sequencer has received significant performance enhancements, making it up to 20 times faster for certain effects.
- Improvements include redesigned scopes and faster rendering, making it more efficient for video editing.
- Animation and Rigging:
- Bone Collections are now hierarchical, providing a more organized workflow for complex rigs.
- The Graph Editor has a new “Bake Channels” operator, allowing for more control over the baking process of animations .
- User Interface and Workflow:
- The UI has several quality-of-life improvements, such as placeholder text in input fields and the ability to drag and drop 3D assets directly into the viewport for formats like Alembic, OBJ, PLY, STL, and USD.
- New motion paths can be created relative to the active camera, and there are various improvements to the Graph Editor and Dope Sheet for better keyframe handling.
- Geometry Nodes:
- A new Bake node has been added, and key geometry nodes like Extrude Mesh are now significantly faster, especially for large meshes.
- Scripting and Pipeline Integration:
- Python has been upgraded to version 3.11, aligning Blender with the 2024 VFX Reference Platform, which ensures better compatibility and performance for scripting and automation.
Blender 4.1 is available for download on the official Blender website, providing these enhancements and many more to improve the overall user experience and performance of the software. For a comprehensive list of updates and improvements, you can check the.