Anthropic joined the Blender Development Fund as a Corporate Patron and the focus sits on Blender core development, specifically foundational work like the Blender Python API. Quoting: This support will be dedicated towards Blender core development, to maintain and continuously improve foundational features like the Blender Python API, which enables developers and artists alike to extend and improve the software for custom workflows.

Community reaction and the corporate reality check. E.a. Breathe, everybody.

This is the part worth re-reading when the next debate starts, because it will. Blender stays open-source. Donors do not own the code. The Foundation is still in charge of planning and review. And as far as Connectors and Corporate sponsors go, would you rather have Anthropic or TwitterAI?

Claude gets a Blender connector

And there is other news: The new Claude connector for Blender provides a natural-language interface to Blender’s Python API. It is positioned for scene analysis and debugging, generating scripts, and batch-applying changes to objects in a scene. It can also add tools directly to Blender’s interface by using the Python API.

This is also where the sarcasm is unsuppressible. The pitch sounds like a polite AI intern who reads the manual, writes your first draft of a script, and does not ask for access to your Perforce depot. In practice, it will do exactly what any code generator does: it will be useful right up until it makes one confident, catastrophic mistake that turns your perfectly fine scene into modern art. Test it before you let it anywhere near a deliverable.

Let’s test this together!

Digital Production author Alexander Richter will put the new connector through a first-look livestream on Thursday, the same day this news lands. The session runs at 2 PM UTC and leans into a raw test rather than a polished demo, with a quick install walkthrough using the uv package manager and then straight into hands-on scene work.

The stream title is I Let Claude AI Control Blender (Is it actually good?). Expect real-world poking at scene manipulation, lighting setups, and Python scripting, plus a TD-flavored sanity check on batch renaming, material assignments, and scene cleanup: where it saves time, where it trips, where it fucks up and where Python knowledge still separates a clean result from a slow-motion cleanup job.

MCP, or how to share the plumbing

The Blender connector is built on Model Context Protocol, an open standard for connecting AI models to external data. The connector built on MCP is designed to be accessible to other large language models, not just Claude. For pipeline folks, that is the important sentence. It frames the connector as infrastructure rather than a one-off plugin, making the integration story feel less like a lock-in play and more like a set of pipes you can reuse. Or at least, that is the marketing claim. Reality will show how it works.

Connectors everywhere, all at once

The same announcement releases “connectors” as a broader creative-work push. Listed integrations include Adobe Creative Cloud apps, Ableton documentation grounding for Live and Push, Autodesk Fusion, SketchUp, and live visual tools like Resolume.

In other words, the assistant wants to sit in the middle of your toolchain, translate between apps, and automate the stuff you do not put on your reel. Or, just, you know, read the documentation for you. If that sounds like an attempt to emrbace the creative industries, yes, that is the point. And if you already feel tired, also yes.

And if you think: “Oh, well, someone is running from the Trumpish-Industrialist grasps into the warm embrace of the creative world”, yes, that is what it looks like. Funny that the discussion about where the training data came from is not included in the messaging at all. But let’s see how Anthropic does on this side of the Copyright divide.

Pricing and availability

The sources describe the Blender connector as officially available for Claude and available now for Blender 5.1, with installation instructions hosted by Blender.

As always, treat new automation as a tool, not a teammate. Put it in a sandbox, throw ugly production scenes at it, and see whether it helps you ship faster or just helps you generate new kinds of bugs in new and exciting industreis.

https://www.blender.org/press/anthropic-joins-the-blender-development-fund-as-corporate-patron/

https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-for-creative-work

The post Anthropic funds Blender, ships Claude connector first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Blender is the free all in one DCC for modeling, animation, rendering, and export tasks like USD, with Eevee for realtime previews, Cycles for finals, and a Compositor that keeps quietly expanding its job description.

The release vibe: refine, then refine again

Blender 5.1 arrives with a clear theme: make everyday work feel lighter. The focus sits on quality of life improvements, stability, and polish, following a “Winter of Quality” push that solved 350 important issues and also cleaned up code to make future improvements easier.

That mindset shows up everywhere. Some changes are the sort you notice instantly. Others only reveal themselves after a week, when you realize you have not sworn at a dialog box even once. Progress comes in many forms. It is still the same familiar toolset. The difference is how often it gets out of your way.

Raycast: a shader node that likes to ask questions

A new Raycast shader node lands in the material system, built around a simple idea: shoot a ray, get useful surface information back, and use it to drive looks. That unlocks effects that rely on the closest point on a surface from the ray source, or the distance to it. There are demo files showing setups like toon shading and an X ray render effect.

There is also a practical warning: Raycast can be computationally expensive, and baking its output is suggested as a way to improve render times when needed.

Rendering: faster compiles, leaner memory, quicker frames

On the realtime side, Eevee speeds up material compilation by pre processing shader sources. In the standard Barbershop text scene benchmark, GPU shaders compile 25 to 50 percent faster across operating systems. Memory also gets attention. Eevee reduces texture memory use via texture pooling, helping scenes fit into less VRAM.

Cycles picks up performance gains too. GPU rendering improves by about 5 to 10 percent for many scenes, and HIP RT ray tracing is enabled by default on AMD GPUs. If your day includes lots of lookdev iteration, the combined effect is straightforward: fewer pauses between decisions.

Animation and rigging: the biggest speed win in the room

If you care about playback, Blender 5.1 comes with a headline worthy improvement: actions and shape keys evaluate significantly faster, with reported gains ranging from 4 percent to 304 percent in frames per second depending on the file. For cleanup work, the Graph Editor adds a Gaussian smoothing modifier that smooths curves non destructively. It is also explicitly described as resource heavy, with guidance not to use it on too many curves at once.

There are also small but practical timeline and editor touches that help animation feel less fiddly, like interpolation line colors indicating interpolation type in the Dope Sheet and menus.

Compositing and editorial: nodes that earn their keep

The built in Compositor adds a Mask to SDF node. It converts a mask into a Signed Distance Field by computing the distance of each pixel from the mask edges. That supports effects like edge glows, eroding or dilating mask edges, and distance based effects like procedural blurs.

The compositor also gains utility nodes including Boolean, Integer, Vector, and Index Switch, plus support for the existing Radial Tiling node. Speed matters here too. Several key nodes are faster, including Blur, Directional Blur, Vector Blur, Glare, Lens Distortion, and Anti Aliasing, described as 1.2x to 2x faster.

In the Sequencer, the Blade tool adds a box gesture that supports ripple editing, aimed at quicker cutting. Taken together, the message is clear: the VFX and video toolsets are being treated like first class citizens, not the side quest you only visit when your shot count gets scary.

Modeling and sculpt: a pile of small wins

Modeling sees a mix of performance and wrokflow tweaks. Filling for text objects improves, expanding the types of fonts that behave well as 3D text. Filling in general is up to five times faster, especially for n gons with many sides. Snapping adds an option to snap to the center of faces. In sculpt and paint, one visible addition is a Blur brush for blurring surface colors in Sculpt mode.

Grease Pencil: holes, at last

Grease Pencil gets notable workflow improvements, including better handling of strokes and fills and new ways to cut holes in shapes. Holes in fills can be created either via new operators that perform Boolean style operations or via the SVG importer. The draw here is practical: importing SVG and PDF content becomes easier to integrate without the same fill weirdness described in the feature overview. If you have ever built a workaround stack just to preserve negative space, this one lands with a satisfying thud.

Geometry Nodes: more rig friendly, more volume friendly

Geometry Nodes adds a Bone Info node that makes it possible to access bone position data. There are also new nodes for working with volume grids, including nodes for dilating, eroding, and clipping volume grids.

UI, file I O, and pipeline glue

The UI picks up just under 100 fixes and feature improvements, including the ability to search for controls by name in Preferences. Other practical UI touches include resizing quad views interactively by dragging the center point, and copying and pasting nodes between separate instances. On file formats, new options include AVIF export. Updates also land for USD, glTF, and FBX, with FBX files now including Shape Key normals for better compatibility with game engines like Unity.

For pipeline integration, support includes Python 3.13 and OpenColorIO 2.5, matching the CY2026 spec for the VFX Reference Platform. For virtual reality projects, the arc teleportation system is described as completely rewritten, and OpenXR is supported on macOS.

Availability and licensing

Blender 5.1 is a free download. The source code is available under the GPLv3 license. That free and open model is not new, but it still matters. It shapes how fast features get tested in the wild, how quickly workflows spread through studios, and how often a random late night fix becomes a shared win by morning.

The only remaining job is the boring one: install, test, validate, and only then roll it into serious work. Even a tool with a good mood still deserves a proper pipeline check. And yes, the Blender Foundation clearly wants this release to feel like a calm upgrade, not a reinvention.

https://www.blender.org/press/blender-5-1-release/

The post Blender 5.1 is here first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: The Grove by F12 is a biologically driven tree growth system for Blender and Houdini. It simulates yearly growth and exports animated meshes for DCC and real time pipelines. It sits between modelling and layout, replacing static tree assets with parametric growth.

A measured update, not a rewrite

Dutch developer F12 has released The Grove 2.3, a new version of its procedural tree generation system for Blender and Houdini. The update focuses on workflow refinement, storage reduction and export behaviour rather than introducing a new simulation model. The Grove simulates tree growth year by year using a biologically inspired algorithm. Parameters control branching, apical dominance, tropism and environmental factors. The result is a procedural tree that can be edited non-destructively and regenerated at any stage. The software is delivered as a Blender add-on and as a Houdini plugin.

Version 2.3 does not alter the core growth algorithm. Instead, it introduces new interaction tools and structural changes to data storage. Growth simulation data now occupies roughly 75 per cent less storage than in previous versions. This reduction is achieved by limiting the recording of certain editing operations, including Prune, Bend and Draw. As a result, older files may load with reduced edit history in some cases. The release notes describe this as a trade-off between storage footprint and full historical edit retention.

The reduction is significant for productions that store multiple growth iterations per asset. Vegetation assets are often versioned across layout, look development and lighting. A three-quarter decrease in simulation data can materially affect scene management, particularly in large environments.

Drawing trees directly in the scene

A key addition in 2.3 is the expanded Draw tool. In earlier versions, artists could draw branches onto existing trees. The updated Draw tool now allows users to draw complete trees directly into the scene, either from the ground plane or from arbitrary surfaces. Drawing can begin from geometry, allowing trees to be placed on terrain meshes or architectural elements without manual alignment. This shifts some layout tasks from object instancing to interactive placement of growth.

Drawn strokes are converted into growth instructions. The tree then grows according to the defined biological rules rather than remaining a static curve structure. This maintains the parametric nature of the asset. For layout artists working in Blender or Houdini, this means that trees can be sketched into position rather than generated from presets and repositioned after the fact. The difference is subtle but practical. It moves early composition decisions into the growth stage itself.

Subdivision for cleaner branch geometry

Another addition is a Subdivide option intended to smooth segmented branches. Procedural tree systems often represent branches as chains of nodes connected by straight segments. At lower resolutions, this can produce visible angular transitions along the branch.

The Subdivide option adds additional nodes between existing ones, reducing visible kinks. Subdivision is applied selectively and is not equivalent to a global mesh subdivision modifier. It operates at the growth-structure level rather than purely at the mesh output level.

For rendering pipelines that rely on displacement maps or high-frequency bark detail, smoother base geometry can reduce shading artefacts. The release notes include before-and-after comparisons showing reduced angularity along curved branches. These images suggest a visible improvement, although final render quality will still depend on your shading and tessellation settings.

Automatic bark texture scaling

Texturing adjustments form another part of the 2.3 update. The Grove now automatically scales bark texture repetition around the circumference of branches based on their thickness. In previous versions, artists needed to manually adjust bark scaling to prevent visible stretching or excessive tiling on thicker trunks. The new behaviour calculates scaling from the branch radius, automatically aligning texture repetition with geometry.

This is an automatic scaling of bark texture, which repeats around branch circumferences. No additional user input is required. This is a small change, but in vegetation workflows, small changes reduce repetitive corrective steps across dozens or hundreds of assets. No new shading model is introduced in 2.3. The change concerns UV scaling behaviour rather than material definition. The Grove continues to output meshes compatible with standard Blender and Houdini shading systems.

Export adjustments for real-time engines

Export behaviour has also been revised. The release notes state that The Grove now uses a split seam structure intended to align better with real time engines and modelling tools such as three.js, WebGL and Rhino. The split seam structure separates end cap geometry and allows per point normals and UVs where supported. In practical terms, this affects how branch junctions and cut ends are represented in exported meshes.

Real-time engines often rely on explicit vertex normals and clean UV seams for correct shading and normal map interpretation. Adjustments at export level can reduce the need for manual cleanup in downstream tools.

The vendor supports common interchange formats, including FBX, OBJ, and USD. Animated exports, including growth over time and wind motion are available via Alembic. These formats are standard in both offline VFX and real time pipelines.

Houdini Indie and Blender support

The Grove 2.3 expands support on the Houdini side by adding compatibility with Houdini Indie. Houdini Indie is the lower-cost edition of Houdini from SideFX, targeted at individual artists and small studios. Previous limitations restricted some editions of The Grove to full commercial Houdini licences. The addition of Indie support broadens access for freelancers and small teams.

According to coverage by CG Channel, the update makes The Grove available in Houdini Indie environments, although the vendor release page remains the primary source of technical detail.

On the Blender side, The Grove is compatible with the Blender 5 series. Blender is developed by the Blender Foundation. The Grove is distributed as a Blender add-on and integrates directly into the host application interface.

Editions and pricing

The Grove 2.3 is available in three editions: Starter, Indie and Studio. All editions include the Blender plugin. The Studio edition adds full Houdini support.

At the time of writing, pricing listed on the vendor site is 99 euro for Starter, 199 euro for Indie and 799 euro for Studio. The vendor also offers separate Twigs geometry packs containing leaves, flowers and fruits, priced individually.

Production considerations

The Grove remains a specialised tool focused on biologically plausible growth rather than purely parametric mesh generation. Its value in production depends on whether growth behaviour is part of the creative requirement or simply a means to an end.

Version 2.3 does not introduce a new solver or simulation paradigm. Instead, it refines interaction, reduces storage overhead and adjusts export behaviour. For studios already using The Grove, the update appears incremental rather than disruptive.

For new users, the addition of Houdini Indie support lowers the entry barrier. The storage reduction may also make the tool more viable in asset dense scenes where file size becomes a concern.

As always, new tools and updates should be tested in a controlled environment before deployment in live productions. Behavioural changes in data storage and export structure should be validated against existing pipeline assumptions.

// F12 The Grove homepage
// https://www.thegrove3d.com/

// F12 The Grove 2.3 release notes
// https://www.thegrove3d.com/releases/23/

The post The Grove 2.3 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the LTS-Branch: A Long Term Support version of Blender is a release branch maintained for production use over a fixed period, receiving only bug fixes and critical corrections. LTS versions explicitly exclude new features or workflow changes, allowing studios to lock software versions for long-running projects without unexpected behaviour changes or pipeline breakage.

Two LTS branches, one goal

The Blender Foundation has released Blender 4.5.6 LTS and Blender 4.2.17 LTS as maintenance updates. Both versions are part of Blender’s Long Term Support programme and are limited strictly to bug fixes. No new tools, interface changes, or behavioural updates are included.

According to the Foundation, LTS releases are designed to remain stable for studios and long running projects. Only critical bug fixes and regressions are addressed. Feature development continues exclusively in regular, non LTS releases.

Blender 4.5 LTS policy clarified

The official Blender 4.5 LTS documentation confirms that the 4.5 branch is supported until July 2027. During this period, users can expect corrective updates onyl. The Foundation explicitly states that LTS releases will not receive new features, performance experiments, or workflow changes.

Blender 4.5 LTS is positioned as the recommended baseline for production environments starting from mid 2025 onward. It replaces Blender 3.6 LTS as the primary long term support version once studios complete qualification and testing. This guidance comes directly from Blender’s own release policy and documentation.

The 4.5.6 update itself addresses approximately 60 reported issues compared to the previous LTS patch. These fixes span multiple subsystems including Grease Pencil stability, sculpt mode crashes, USD import behaviour, Video Sequencer errors, and various UI edge cases. Exact issue lists are maintained in Blender’s public bug tracker.

Blender 4.2 LTS remains in maintenance

Blender 4.2.17 LTS continues to receive maintenance updates and remains supported until July 2026. This branch is intended for productions that locked to 4.2 and are not yet ready to migrate to 4.5.

The 4.2.17 update includes a smaller number of fixes, around eight issues since the previous patch. These relate mainly to animation baking, linked object transforms, graph editor redraw issues, and naming consistency in NLA strips. No behavioural changes outside bug correction are documented.

What Blender means by long term support

Blender’s LTS model differs from rolling release strategies often used in open source software. The Foundation commits to maintaining LTS branches for two years, focusing exclusively on reliability. Security updates, crash fixes, and serious regressions are addressed, while experimental development is kept out.

This approach allows studios to standardise on a known version without fear of silent changes affecting shots mid production. It also allows add on developers and pipeline TDs to target a stable API surface for longer periods.

Production implications

For studios already on an LTS version, updating to the latest patch within the same branch is generally low risk, as no new functionality is introduced. However, Blender explicitly recommends testing updates in controlled environments before deploying them into active shows, particularly where custom add ons, USD interchange, or automated render workflows are involved.

As always, new tools and innovations should be tested before use in actual production environments, even when they are labelled as maintenance updates and LTS fixes, to avoid unexpected behaviour and pipline regressions.

The Blender Foundation has made it clear that stability, not novelty, is the defining goal of LTS, and these releases follow that policy closely, with no attempt to quietly slip features or workflow changes into the branch at this late stgae of the cycle.

// Blender 4.5 LTS official documentation
// https://www.blender.org/download/lts/4-5/

The post Blender LTS patches, still no surprises first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Storm makes landfall

Blender Studio has released Storm, a production-ready character rig built exclusively for Blender 5.0. The rig, developed by the Blender Studio team, merges their in-house rigging system CloudRig with a sculpt-driven facial setup designed for expressive animation. It is the latest addition to Blender Studio’s growing library of open production assets, aimed at animators and riggers seeking professional-grade tools inside Blender without third-party dependencies.

Technical build and requirements

Storm’s body rig is constructed using CloudRig, the procedural rigging system developed by Rigging TD Demeter Dzadik. CloudRig allows the modular generation of complex body setups, supporting inverse kinematics (IK), forward kinematics (FK), parent switching, and snapping options. Storm inherits this functionality, offering standard animator controls such as IK/FK toggles, stretchy limbs, hinge switches, and parent snaps. These controls are embedded in a custom UI that appears directly within Blender’s interface, requiring no additional add-ons beyond those included in the file.

The facial rig was designed by Lead Animator Rik Schutte and takes a hybrid approach using shape keys, ribbon guides, and lattice deformers. This setup blends traditional deformation techniques with sculpted corrective shapes, enabling detailed facial performance while maintaining animator-friendly control layouts. The design provides layered control for expressions, including mouth and eye movement, with a focus on maintaining smooth deformation and preserving volume across a wide range of poses.

The download package also includes a pose library containing a comprehensive range of facial, hand, and full-body poses. These assets are integrated into Blender’s Asset Shelf system, allowing animators to quickly browse, apply, and tweak poses directly in the 3D viewport. The rig is fully self-contained; all necessary scripts and dependencies are embedded within the .blend file.

Storm requires Blender 5.0 or later. It is explicitly incompatible with earlier versions, as the rig uses new Blender 5.0 features and API changes. Users opening the file for the first time will be prompted to allow Python script execution, which is needed for the rig’s custom UI panels and tool automation.

The character and rig are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence, which permits both personal and commercial use with proper credit to Blender Studio.

Workflow and production context

Storm’s design reflects Blender Studio’s open-movie production workflow. By building on CloudRig, the team has transferred tools and processes developed during feature projects directly into a publicly available rig. The sculpt-driven facial system emphasises precision deformation over real-time simplicity, making Storm a strong fit for high-quality keyframe animation or performance-based facial acting inside Blender.

The inclusion of the pose library and layered control system streamlines the initial animation phase. Animators can access predefined poses for facial expressions or full-body gestures, modify them on the fly, and store custom versions within the Asset Browser.

Unspecified technical data

While the Blender Studio pages document Storm’s rigging approach and dependencies, several technical metrics remain unpublished. Polygon count, vertex count, rig complexity (number of bones and controls), and viewport performance benchmarks are not stated. Similarly, no formal details are provided about compatibility with motion-capture systems or real-time retargeting. Users seeking to integrate Storm into hybrid pipelines or game-engine projects should therefore conduct their own compatibility tests.

Suitability and testing

For animation and VFX professionals working within Blender, Storm provides an immediately usable, high-fidelity character asset. Its rig structure, UI controls, and deformation fidelity place it at a professional standard similar to Blender Studio’s production characters such as Rain or Sprite Fright’s Ella. However, as with all production assets, the rig’s suitability should be verified in real workflows.

Get it here!

The post Blender Studio drops “Storm” rig for Blender 5.0 first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.