Animatica Marionette: Pull Less, Pose More
Animatica brings offline posing and motion editing to Blender. We examine its Platige pedigree, practical limits and the Cascadeur connection.
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Blender
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NKZ Retopia 1.4.0: Relax Means Relax
NKZ Retopia 1.4.0 improves drawing on folds, rebuilds Relax and connects contour cuts, with in-tool saving and optional polygon animations.
RenderJuice Contest: $5,000 for Speedy Blender Animators
RenderJuice's free Blender Speed contest offers $5,000 in prizes for 5–30 second animations. Entries run October 15–31, 2026.
ShotLink Brings Unreal Renders into After Effects
ShotLink feeds Unreal renders into After Effects, with separate passes, surface nulls and camera baking. A Blender integration is in beta.
Nitro Retopo Tames Dense Blender Meshes
Nitro Retopo segments, repairs and rebuilds dense Blender meshes with artist-guided patches, topology patterns and automatic UVs.
Blender Survey 2026: What Should They Fix Next?
Blender wants your feedback again. The 2026 survey covers workflows, development priorities, money and the future of the project.
CatPin Cuts Models for a Better Fit
Editable cuts, adjustable connector clearances and batch part export bring Blender sculpts closer to a workable printed assembly.
IngeTrazo: A Home for the Render Farm
A free architectural modeller combines SketchUp import, BIM quantities, drawing sheets, Blender rendering and Python extensions.
Vision Canvas: Blender’s UI, On Your Terms
Build a Blender control panel that answers to you: targeted properties, camera widgets, Python buttons, reusable animation and asset favourites.
Alpaca3D: Retopo With a Reality Check
Live bake feedback, UV constraints and editable projection cages: Alpaca3D connects low-poly construction to texture-map output.
Hair Bone Generator Maps Blender Strands
Hair Bone Generator maps stylised Blender hair into connected deform-bone chains, with three guide methods and controls for spacing and root placement.
Plugin Hub Tames Blender’s Tab Jungle
Plugin Hub herds Blender’s proliferating add-on panels into one tidy tab, with optional menu and floating-window access.
Higgsfield Brings AI Generation Into Blender. Oh, goodey.
Higgsfield’s Blender add-on generates editable scenes, meshes, rigs and media from the viewport, with cloud inference and credit billing.
Blender 5.3 Brings Gaussian Splats Home
Blender 5.3 brings Gaussian Splats into the core app, with native import, Geometry Nodes access and rendering across Workbench, EEVEE and Cycles.
Animo Sliders Bring Maya Controls to Blender
Ehsan Bayat brings 16 Animo animation sliders to Blender for faster pose, timing and keyframe adjustments.
Hardcraft Tames CAD Meshes in Blender
Hardcraft turns CAD structure into controllable Blender topology, with quads where they help and triangles where they make more sense.
GhostPencilPro Gives Max a Grease Pencil
GhostPencilPro brings Grease Pencil-style drawing, animation, .ABR brushes and scripting into 3ds Max, without making Max users learn Blender.
FreePencil2 Draws Blender Lines in One Click
FreePencil2 turns Blender geometry into editable line art with one setup button, compositor edge detection and manual paint fixes.
ArmorPaint 1.0 swaps Haxe for C
ArmorPaint 1.0 swaps Haxe for C, trims memory use and adds local AI, UV tools, sculpting and broader interchange.
Free Glass Distortion Node for Blender
A free Blender compositor node creates patterned-glass distortion from grayscale textures, with masking and five supplied patterns.
Edge Decal Generator generates edgy Edge Decals
Gilad Baruch’s Blender add-on creates editable mesh decals for wear, welds and seams, with layers, masks, FBX export and an Unreal workflow.
EDGY Cuts Mesh Damage in C4D and Blender
EDGY cuts chips, cracks, craters and breaks into closed Cinema 4D and Blender meshes while leaving the original object untouched.
PostPro Analytics Counts Creative Work
PostPro Analytics logs project activity across nine Mac creative apps and turns it into local dashboards, CSV reports and billing evidence.
Spider Walker automates multi-leg animation
Spider Walker turns body motion into procedural multi-leg steps, raycasted surface contacts and bakeable Blender animation.
Softie Adds XPBD Collisions to Blender
Softie combines fast Geometry Nodes deformation with an experimental XPBD mode for soft contact, self-collision and interactive sculpting.
Cut Plane Makes Blender Bisects Interactive
Cut Plane turns Blender mesh bisecting into a live, positionable operation with snapping, mirrored cuts, numeric input and selective editing.
UV Flex 0.3 Adds Spline UV Deformation to Blender
UV Flex 0.3 adds interactive split, merge, reshape and spline controls to Blender's UV Editor, including falloff and 2D IK.
KIRI Brings Gaussian Splats to After Effects
KIRI Innovations releases a free, open-source After Effects plugin for rendering, styling and animating Gaussian Splat scenes from PLY files.
Armature 2 automates character rigging
FabricatorStudio's Windows app combines local AI and geodesic skinning with manual rig tools, USD hand-off and a free indie licence.
InstaMAT Guided Scatter Controls Rock Patterns
InstaMAT’s Guided Scatter steers tile-based rock patterns with masks, vectors, scale maps and collision controls; Abstract also reports SOC 2 compliance.
Blendkit expands to Maya, Godot and Rhino
Blendkit opens its asset library to Maya, Godot and Rhino through free open-source plugins, although the integrations remain early-stage software.
Let’s talk to the Caddis developer.
Digital Production spoke with developer Mike Gaynor about the creation and implementation of Caddis.
Sculptools Palette Organises Blender Sculpting
ProjectArgo’s free Blender extension puts sculpt brushes and tools into configurable radial palettes with hotkeys, sliders and JSON presets.
AccuFACE 2 Grand Launch: Professional-Grade Facial Mocap for CC5 HD Characters
Reallusion's AccuFACE 2 adds GPU facial tracking, CC5 HD mapping, non-linear curves, AMD support and a wider iClone mocap pipeline.
Workshop: Building a Real-Time Location
A practical workshop on reconstructing real locations in Unreal Engine, using Sonagraf’s Yoyogi project to explain each production decision.
Physical Atmosphere² 2.7.4 for Blender
Physical Atmosphere² 2.7.4 brings spectral skies, procedural clouds and weather-driven lighting to Blender 5.2.
Rebelle 8.3 Adds EXR Heightmap Export
Rebelle 8.3 adds brush colour jitter, interactive selection controls, smoother gradients and Pro-only 16-bit EXR impasto heightmaps.
Autodesk Flow Studio adds 3D Editor and Canvas
Autodesk adds 3D scene direction and a node-based Canvas to Flow Studio for more controllable AI-assisted filmmaking.
RenderMan 27.3 Adds MaterialX to XPU
Pixar’s RenderMan 27.3 adds native MaterialX and initial Cryptomatte support to XPU, plus stylized-look, hair and volume updates.
Mixos paints PBR in the browser
Browser-based PBR painter Mixos supports mesh imports, layer masking, 4K paid exports and a 2,669-material CC0 library.
Cascadeur 2026.2 Adds Animation Layers
Cascadeur 2026.2 previews additive animation layers, easing controls, localised UI packs, environmental posing and Python workflow updates.
Animates Suite tunes Blender keys
Blender animators get key selection, retiming, Key Amp, onion skins, editable motion paths and world-space locks in one add-on.
SmartUndo+ makes Blender Undo excellent
The Blender add-on adds per-object histories, per-F-curve undo, node-tree tracking and checkpoints for less Ctrl+Z Shenanigans.
Sisir Free Hair Grooming Tool
Free standalone grooming for Windows adds guide styling, procedural controls, masks, DCC bridge scripts and Alembic export.
B4D Tools Adds Blender 5.2 Support
B4D Tools 1.5.1 targets Blender motion graphics with cloners, effectors, fields, object tools and tiered licenses.
AutoRemesher Final Goes MIT
AutoRemesher reaches its final release under MIT, adding target quads, CLI operation and builds for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Hurricane puts multiphysics in Blender
Hurricane brings fluid, fabric, soft body, sand and grain simulation to Blender, with paid tiers, support and future GPU plans.
InstaMAT adds 2D UV painting
The July update brings 2D UV painting, UDIM handling, faster rebakes and fresher DCC support for texture-heavy work.
CameraMatch Adds Cinema 4D Workflow
CameraMatch AutoSetup v6 now supports Cinema 4D, adding automated camera matching for photomontage and archviz workflows.
Character DNA Goes Free
Poly Hammer’s Character DNA base edition is free, GPLv3 source is public, and release 0.10.3 adds Blender 5.2 support.
Blender 5.2 LTS lands with node physics
The LTS release brings XPBD hair and cloth, texture-aware Cycles rendering, new Geometry Nodes tools and EEVEE cleanup.
TXTRCast syncs Photoshop to Blender
TXTRCast syncs 2D paint strokes from apps such as Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop into Blender, with GPL-3.0 code and Windows-only limits.
Overgrown targets an open feature pipeline for Blender
Blender Studio is pushing Overgrown as a feature project with production logs, tools and docs, funded first through subscriber growth.
ByHand Makes Digital Sculpting Free on Windows
ByHand is a free, early-alpha Windows sculpting app for form studies, character work and commercial projects.
Quick Finger Collision for Blender
Blender hand posing gets a tiny helper: finger bones stop at mesh contact, wrap around props, and cost $7.99.
Callipeg Studio Heads to Desktop
Callipeg goes desktop with macOS and Windows builds, familiar 2D tools, beta caveats and a price that avoids subscription bingo.
Blender Roadmap Puts Plans in One Place
Blender gets a central Roadmap for active projects and recent features, giving artists and studios a clearer view beyond release-note excavation.
Fifty Ultimate Generators Enter the Node Garden
Over 50 procedural contraptions tackle cities, fluids, fractures and magic trails. Manual library wrangling remains entirely optional.
Cloud Paint Shapes Painterly 3D Skies
Casey Sheep and MeiU release a $12 Eevee-only cloud generator for Blender, with mesh conversion, ten presets and built-in sky assets.
Sneeze Brings a Browser Engine to Spatial 3D
Sneeze applies the browser-engine model to spatial services, combining multi-origin 3D scenes, WASM isolation and proximity discovery.
NeXus Beta Lands in Blender
NeXus arrives in Blender with GPU particles, fluids, smoke, fire and live viewport feedback. The beta is paid, perpetual and already patched.
Free Komodo Rig for Fun
Free Komodo rig for portfolio work, plus paid tiers for commercial pipelines. Big lizard, small invoice, careful license.
DroneSiteBuilder adds Google 3D Tiles option
DroneSiteBuilder Enterprise v1.2 turns original drone DNG or JPEG folders into a 3ds Max site plus matched cameras, in one run.
Let’s Animate Splats in 3DGS Render?
3DGS Render 5.0 lets Blender artists drive Gaussian splats with proxy meshes, bake lighting and export animation as PLY sequences.
3DCoat 2026 gets GPU nodes
3DCoat 2026 beta adds GPU node texturing, procedural smart materials and masks. Shiny, useful and still beta-shaped.
These are the Bugs You Were Looking For (in Blender)
Flying Bugs Generator brings 10 insect types, three motion modes, and Asset Browser-ready drop-ins for fast and vast bug swarms in Blender.
Image Blaster turns images into Splats
image-blaster uses a single reference image to generate an SPZ Gaussian splat environment via Marble, written as local files you can inspect and iterate fast.
NVIDIA brings DLSS denoising to Blender 5.3
DLSS Ray Reconstruction lands in Blender 5.3 Cycles this fall, adding a new denoiser option built on the existing OptiX path. Expect faster lookdev, then test hard.
True Sky 3 brings planet-scale skies to Blender
True Sky 3 goes planet-scale in Blender, adds HDRI output and performance presets, and demands Blender 5.1 because Python moved.
VOXIFY turns Blender Meshes to Voxels and animates
VOXIFY voxelizes any Blender mesh via Geometry Nodes, tries to keep your textures intact, and ships with animation and static mesh options.
Free area light textures for Blender
A free 20 pack of area light textures for Blender aims at softer, less flat lighting, with a sample file and a Patreon free signup gate.
Levels cleans up alpha maps fast
Levels makes alpha masks from photos in your browser: channel mix, levels, crop, perspective warp, then copy or export PNG.
ZOZO Contact Solver gets Blender add-on
Official Blender add-on client for Contact Solver is out, open source, remote GPU friendly, and already shipping updates like armature deformable colliders.
If you yearn for the pines, go Blender
Stylized Tree update 2.0 adds pine trees, optimizes nodes, and bundles wind plus scatter tools, with pricing tiers from $12.50.
PFTrack gets Hero Cloud
PFTrack 26.05.19 adds Hero Cloud for single shot point clouds, plus COLMAP export to Postshot and better USD point cloud export. Try it, then trust it.
MoonRay Renderer joins ASWF as hosted project
MoonRay lands at ASWF as a hosted project, keeps DreamWorks engineering support, and gets a July Open Source Days keynote slot in Los Angeles.
Scene Auditor Pro targets Blender bloat
Scene Auditor Pro maps Blender datablock dependencies, flags orphans and duplicates, and pushes a safer cleanup workflow for big scenes.
Blender Singularity lands in 4K HDR
Singularity drops as a 4K HDR short, with free downloads of assets and encodes. Also: painterly brushstrokes meet procedural crowds.
Blender 5.2 LTS targets texture-heavy renders
Blender 5.2 LTS adds a Cycles texture cache that builds .tx tiles and loads only what the render needs. Less VRAM waste, more scene headroom.
Poly Hammer brings MetaHumans to Blender Rigify
Character Control Rig targets MetaHuman animation in Blender with Rigify controls, UE roundtrips, and multi character handling. Test it first.
Autodesk launches Project Falcon
Project Falcon is a free, browser-based kitbashing tool that exports USD and STL, aiming to speed up hard-surface blockouts and handoffs.
FilmSet kit lands in KitBash3D
Finally, a kit that lets you build a film set without filing a rental PO. 139 models, 112 PBRs, and game ready bits for Unreal.
Free Tire Rig Generator for Blender Automates Tire Deformation
Tire Rig Generator is a free Blender plug-in that automatically builds and skins tire rigs for pressure, ground deformation and tire pivoting. Vehicle wheels, finally allowed to suffer accurately.
ArcBrush turns image editing into a node graph
ArcBrush ships free for Windows and macOS with 75 nodes, batch export, sprite sheets, texture helpers, and optional paid AI credits.
Abstract brings native InstaMAT and InstaLOD on Linux
Abstract has released public preview Linux builds of InstaMAT and InstaLOD, adding native support for RHEL-compatible production environments, Blender and Maya integrations, GPU acceleration, and automation-friendly deployment.
KeenTools GeoTracker enters Houdini open beta
GeoTracker lands in Houdini as a SOP node for OBJ and Solaris, free in open beta. Geometry driven tracking, lens estimates, and quick sim colliders.
VirtuCamera 2: The Weird Byte goes Android
VirtuCamera 2 lands with Android support, refreshed UI, updated DCC plug-ins, and a Python API. Yes, your phone is still the camera now.
Inertia brings clicky physics to Blender
Inertia targets physics-style motion in Blender 5.1 with three ready-made systems and a live viewport trajectory preview, plus docs and demo scenes.
Anthropic funds Blender, ships Claude connector
Claude gets a Blender connector, plus patron money for Blender core work. Your pipeline gets a new helper. Your lawyers get new reading.
OctaneRender 2026.3 adds virtual texture netrender
OTOY ships OctaneRender 2026.3: virtual textures finally work on the farm, NRC uses less memory, and USD plus MaterialX get more pipeline glue.
Autodesk Flow Studio adds AI Rigging and Neural Layer for character workflows
The Flow Studio update introduces automated rigging, video-driven animation, neural rendering enhancements, and export to Maya, Blender, and Unreal.
Reallusion ships Headshot 3 for CC5
Headshot 3 arrives for Character Creator 5 with single photo heads, mesh wrapping, texture tools, and an early bird bundle through May 31.
Drivers 2.0 cleans up Blender rigs
Drivers 2.0 puts shape key drivers, rig UI panels, and action constraints in one Blender sidebar. Less hunting, more animating.
Volume Forge for Blender
Volume Forge drops local beams and fog into Blender without bathing the whole scene in volume. Two modes, two creation methods, lots of knobs.
HiPhyEngine wants clean sims in Blender
HiPhyEngine lands in Blender with unified rigid, cloth, hair, and soft body sims, plus snow and sand. Windows and Linux only.
Plasticity 2026.1 adds hidden lines and PolySplines
Plasticity 2026.1 turns models into clean SVG linework and brings PolySplines for smooth NURBS from meshes. Studio users get the fancy stuff.
ShaderError Light Painter paints light in Blender
Light Painter turns lighting into brush strokes on a light texture, with layers and masks. Cycles only, so keep Eevee in its lane.
KeenTools 2026.1: Nuke 17 and Blender 5.1
New host support, calmer refinements, fewer UV surprises. 2026.1 targets the unglamorous stuff that breaks shots at 2 am.
Cargo 3.0 merges two asset libraries
Cargo 3.0 folds two libraries into one app, adds smarter search, and hands you hundreds of free assets so you can start dressing scenes today.
Spark Story at NAB
Spark Story promises rapid previs from browser to iOS, with scripts, OpenUSD assets, and Gaussian Splats. NAB gets the first hands-on.