Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 19, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
On the individual features: Cycles Render received several improvements at once. Rendering with area lights has been optimised. The Nvidia GeForce 900 series is now also supported. Rendering homogeneous volumes is likewise intended to be faster.
The user interface now has a new full-screen mode that allows environments to be displayed without buttons or "distracting" UI elements. Blender users in Asia can now enjoy a range of Input Method Editors (IMEs) that accept not only Latin letters but also characters.
In the modelling area, the knife tool has been optimised. Freehand cutting, for example, has been added as a new function. The selection options during modelling have also been optimised (selecting similar environments, improvements for Bevel Modifier, Shape Keys). One of the improvements in sculpting and painting is numerical input for changes to brushes in terms of size and thickness. The Freestyle render engine has been equipped with an SVG exporter implemented as an add-on.
In addition to these many small optimisations, Grease Pencil received a larger update. It is now possible to draw and animate strokes, and more drawing styles are available. The two test videos below show what this can look like.
Here is the download for Blender 2.73 for Windows, Mac OSX, and GNU/Linux.
In these clips, artist Daniel M. Lara presents the new Grease Pencil tools:
This sneak peek also addresses Grease Pencil, among other things:
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