Blender users will soon get their own official RenderMan plugin, Pixar has announced.
It's time to update Blender again! This newest release, 2.91, packs a couple flashy features but is mostly about smaller improvements that add up to a much improved user experience. New Blender 2.91 Interface. If you've used Blender for a long time, you probably don't do much work in the Outliner. 374k members in the blender community. /r/blender is a subreddit devoted to Blender, the amazing open-source software program for 3D modeling Press J to jump to the feed. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Expect a continuous stream of new features and improvements. This rapid pace of releases is great to get new features to users quickly. Release numbering. Along with this, I also propose to accelerate a bit our release numbers this decade. This summer we'll do Blender 2.90 (new particle nodes), and in summer 2021 the Blender 3.0 series begins!
The integration, which will be released alongside RenderMan 24, will support all of the heavyweight VFX and animation renderer's latest features, including new CPU/GPU rendering system RenderMan XPU.
New official Pixar plugin supersedes previous community-developed tools
Blender has had RenderMan integrations in the past: not least PRMan for Blender, a semi-official add-on developed by a group of Pixar engineers, and released alongside RenderMan 20.
It's still available on GitHub, but it hasn't been updated for some time, and doesn't support the newer features of either RenderMan or Blender itself.
Supports all of RenderMan's latest features, including RIS and RenderMan XPU
The new add-on puts the open-source software on the same footing as the other DCC tools with official Pixar-developed integration plugins: Maya, Houdini, Katana and Mari.
It will support the latest version of Blender – despite the wording on the image above, Pixar says that it will be supporting Blender 2.90 and other 2.9 series releases.
The official RenderMan for Blender plugin will also fully support RenderMan's current RIS architecture, as well as RenderMan XPU, its upcoming hybrid CPU/GPU rendering system.
Blender artists will also be able to use all of the other new features in version 24, including Stylized Looks, the ILM-developed Lama layered material system, and new OSL pattern nodes.
The plugin will support both viewport rendering and final-quality output.
Availability and system requirements
RenderMan 24 is due for release in 'Q1 2021' for Windows 10, CentOS/RHEL 7.x Linux and macOS 10.14+. RenderMan XPU and the RenderMan for Blender plugin will ship with version 24.
The current release, RenderMan 23.4, is is available for 64-bit Windows 8.1+, CentOS/RHEL 7.2 Linux and macOS 10.13+, with integrations for Maya 2018.3+, Houdini 17.0+, Katana 3.0+ and Mari 4.5+.
There is also a free non-commercial edition of RenderMan, which can be used for tools development. New commercial node-locked or floating licences cost $595.
Visit the RenderMan product website
(No extra information about the Blender plugin at time of writing)
Download the free non-commercial version of RenderMan (Registration required)
Blender users will soon get their own official RenderMan plugin, Pixar has announced.
It's time to update Blender again! This newest release, 2.91, packs a couple flashy features but is mostly about smaller improvements that add up to a much improved user experience. New Blender 2.91 Interface. If you've used Blender for a long time, you probably don't do much work in the Outliner. 374k members in the blender community. /r/blender is a subreddit devoted to Blender, the amazing open-source software program for 3D modeling Press J to jump to the feed. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Expect a continuous stream of new features and improvements. This rapid pace of releases is great to get new features to users quickly. Release numbering. Along with this, I also propose to accelerate a bit our release numbers this decade. This summer we'll do Blender 2.90 (new particle nodes), and in summer 2021 the Blender 3.0 series begins!
The integration, which will be released alongside RenderMan 24, will support all of the heavyweight VFX and animation renderer's latest features, including new CPU/GPU rendering system RenderMan XPU.
New official Pixar plugin supersedes previous community-developed tools
Blender has had RenderMan integrations in the past: not least PRMan for Blender, a semi-official add-on developed by a group of Pixar engineers, and released alongside RenderMan 20.
It's still available on GitHub, but it hasn't been updated for some time, and doesn't support the newer features of either RenderMan or Blender itself.
Supports all of RenderMan's latest features, including RIS and RenderMan XPU
The new add-on puts the open-source software on the same footing as the other DCC tools with official Pixar-developed integration plugins: Maya, Houdini, Katana and Mari.
It will support the latest version of Blender – despite the wording on the image above, Pixar says that it will be supporting Blender 2.90 and other 2.9 series releases.
The official RenderMan for Blender plugin will also fully support RenderMan's current RIS architecture, as well as RenderMan XPU, its upcoming hybrid CPU/GPU rendering system.
Blender artists will also be able to use all of the other new features in version 24, including Stylized Looks, the ILM-developed Lama layered material system, and new OSL pattern nodes.
The plugin will support both viewport rendering and final-quality output.
Availability and system requirements
RenderMan 24 is due for release in 'Q1 2021' for Windows 10, CentOS/RHEL 7.x Linux and macOS 10.14+. RenderMan XPU and the RenderMan for Blender plugin will ship with version 24.
The current release, RenderMan 23.4, is is available for 64-bit Windows 8.1+, CentOS/RHEL 7.2 Linux and macOS 10.13+, with integrations for Maya 2018.3+, Houdini 17.0+, Katana 3.0+ and Mari 4.5+.
There is also a free non-commercial edition of RenderMan, which can be used for tools development. New commercial node-locked or floating licences cost $595.
Visit the RenderMan product website
(No extra information about the Blender plugin at time of writing)
Download the free non-commercial version of RenderMan (Registration required)
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Tags: Blender, Blender 2.83, Blender 2.90, download, final quality, free, Houdini, integration, Katana, Lama, Mari, Maya, new features, non-commercial, official, open source, Pixar, plugin, release date, release dates, RenderMan, RenderMan 24, RenderMan for Blender, RenderMan XPU, RIS, Stylized Looks, system requirements, viewport rendering
Blender never stops improving, here is some of the latest features in 2.9
Modelling features:
Modifier tab sections allows for quick rearrangements of modifiers stacks. Click to drag and drop to reposition.
Materials tabs have colour socks to allow you to identify types of node to plug in. Eg, yellow socket for colour textures. Grey for vector or black and white textures.
Slide snap edges.
New Bevel improvements with custom curve graph.
Extrude manifold, a smart tool which automatically segments the faces and removes adjacent faces for extruding.
UV features:
UV correct face attribute allows for tile UV to repeat when faces are moved. Turn it off and the UV stretches with the face movement.
UV allows for edge ring selection.
UV new key assigned. V to cut the selected UV section.
Sculpting features:
Sculpting now allows for multi-res change.
New Pose Brush tool to scale translate or squash and stretch.
Rigging features:
Rigging allows for library overrides.
Rendering features:
Sky Texture for environment lighting rendering in Cycles.
Interactive denoiser in the 3D viewport and final renders.
Motion Blur in Eevee.
Shadow Terminator offset setting removes shading artifacts on low poly mesh
NVLink support for large scene rendering. OptiX is also available on all supported NVIDIA GPUs.
Faster rendering with Optix or Intel Denoising
For more details or to download Blender 2.90
Help Blender continue development Blender Development Fund
Blender 2.9 Update
Blender 2.9 Changes
Blender 2.9 New Features Update
