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See the 2026 Blender development roadmap
Check out the major features now in development for the open-source 3D software and due for release in Blender 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 and beyond.
BlendShape Monitor for Maya helps fix your messy character rigs
Neat new add-on displays the effect of individual shapes as real-time heatmaps, helping troubleshoot complex facial and full-body rigs.
MetaTailor 2.5 is out with new bridge plugins to Unity and UE5
Tool for auto-fitting 3D clothing to 3D characters gets new plugins for round-tripping assets to Unity and Unreal. Supports MetaHumans.
Tutorial: Animating Characters for Feature Films
Take your character animation to the next level with Disney animator Alissar Kobeissi's masterclass for The Gnomon Workshop.
Open Image Denoise 3 will support temporal denoising
Long-awaited update will let you denoise animation properly with the CPU/GPU denoiser, used in apps like Blender and V-Ray.
Free Houdini add-on GGro creates crazily beautiful organic forms
Generate growth animations for forms from corals to crystals with motion designer Gio Gargiulo's neat Houdini toolset, now free in beta.
Get free Maya character rigging toolset mGear 5.2
Open-source rigging and animation framework gets a new blueprint system - and a Softimage-inspired alternative to Maya's Outliner.
BiteTheBytes releases World Creator 2026.1
Check out the new features in the terrain-generation software for games and VFX, including better support for tablets and pen displays.
Adobe releases Photoshop 27.3 and Photoshop 27.4 beta
Check out the latest features in the image-editing software, including two new adjustment layer types and updates to the generative AI tools.
Netflix Animation Studios donates €240k/year to Blender dev fund
Animal Logic-incorporating Netflix subsidiary becomes 'first major animation studio to support Blender's continued development'.
Discover 5 (plus 5) key features for CG artists in Godot 4.6
Read our pick of the key changes to rendering, animation and physics in the open-source game engine - plus five neat quality-of-life updates.
Lazy Composer 2 adds one-click film emulation to Blender
New add-on adds DaVinci Resolve-inspired controls for cinematic color grades, film grain and lens effects in Blender's compositor. Free edition.
This $25 PDF lists PBR color values for 600 real-world materials
Games artist Grzegorz Baran's meticulously researched PBR Color Reference list is an vital source for look dev and shading artists.
Autodesk lays off a further 1,000 staff
Second major round of layoffs at the 3ds Max and Maya developer in a year will affect sales staff and is not "an effort to replace people with AI".
Howler 2026.3 is out
Check out the new features in the digital painting and animation app, including a new rich text system and built-in video transcoding.
Dell backs the Blender Development Fund
Dell becomes the first major PC manufacturer to back development of the open-source 3D software, contributing €30,000/year.
Pulldownit 6.5 for Maya gets neat new non-destructive workflow
Thinkinetic's destruction plugin now lets users update the geometry or shatter pattern of the object being broken after a sim has been run.
Try new Houdini GPU liquid solver Paradigm free in open beta
Check out the promising new GPU-accelerated sparse liquid solver from Theory Accelerated, creator of the popular Axiom fluid solver.
Storm HydroFX 1.0 is a GPU-based standalone FLIP fluid simulator
Now production-ready: neat new tool creates VFX-quality fluid simulations for export to CG software in USD or Alembic format.
Adobe releases After Effects 26.0 with native Substance support
Check out the new features for CG, VFX and motion graphics artists in the latest major update to Adobe's compositing software.
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