The New Blender 2.80 Alpha 2 – Leading the way for the open source 3d graphics industry

Repository

https://github.com/dfelinto/blender

Introduction

The new Blender 2.80 is in a development phase for quite some time. The development began in 2015. This project took a lot of time and effort by a community of hundred of world-wide developers.

This is a leading project in the 3d graphics open source industry. It gives creative freedom to a lot of people all over the world. Let’s see what this new version is bringing to the Blender community.

Blender history

The Blender creator is Ton Roosendaal. He created Blender in 1995 for the Dutch company NeoGeo. Later the company will be dissolved, but Ton will continue with Blender development. In 2002 he started the Free Blender campaign to open source Blender for a one-time payment of 100,000€, collected from the community. The campaign was successful and on August 20, 2003, the first free version of Blender was released.

That was Blender 2.26. The main version of Blender that followed are outlined below, as well as their release dates.

Version	Date
Blender 2.3	November 22, 2003
Blender 2.4	December 22, 2005
Blender 2.5	June 13, 2009
Blender 2.6	October 19, 2011
Blender 2.7	March 19, 2014

Blender has been shaping the 3d graphics industry for 15 years. This is quite a legacy. And all this time it is an open source, free to use software.

It is a feature reach software as well. One can create animated films, visual effects, art, 3D models, etc.
There is a possibility to create smoke simulations, particle simulation, animating characters, make video editing and composting.

There are so many things that this open source software can do, that usually people are using just a bit of it. Everybody finds his niche within and stick to it. Amazing.

Blender 2.80

Blender 2.80 is not officially released yet. The official released date is scheduled for early 2019. However, the Blender 2.80 Alpha 2 version is out, and from recently it is available for users to test it. It can be downloaded from the official Blender page blender.org. This is exactly what I did. I downloaded and started testing it.

The Beta version of Blender 2.80 is scheduled for the annual Blender conference in October 25-27, 2018 in Amsterdam. Until then we should have a Beta version for Blender 2.80.

In this way, they are making the release gradually, testing it within the community, until a stable build is released.

I would like to warn anybody who is interested in downloading and testing this version of Blender, that this is not a stable version, so it can crash at any time. This happened to me multiple times. Don’t use it for production work, but only for test purposes. Also, back up the files that you will test on.

Blender and Me

It all starts with games. I play a lot of games, I'm passionate about them, so at one point I decided to make my own. My official education is not in this domain. I had some experience in using CAD software, but this is completely different.

I made research on the topic, and after some time I decided to use Visual Studio and DirectX. What can I say, not a good decision! I used this tool for a year or two, learning coding in C++ and making some basic code. But then the Unity game engine started appearing and after some time I decided to give it a try. It has a free version as well so there was no need for initial investment.

I started with Unity, learning from online tutorials, free and paid ones. Soon, I realized that the most important thing is missing. Unity cannot create the nice-looking models and the art that is needed for a game. So, another twist on the road, and I finally started exploring Blender. Until this day, I’m still exploring it 😊.

What is new in Blender 2.80 Alpha 2?

Some of the most important things in Blender 2.80 Alpha 2 are:

• User interface redesign
• EEVEE, the brand-new rendering engine
• New Matcaps (Material Capture), for better sculpting
• New Shaders, Hair Shader, Volume Shader, AO Node
• Grease Pencil, for nice looking 2D Animation
• New work engine OpenGL
• Pixar’s Open subdiv modifier

Obviously, I can’t go in details about all the new things that are built in, so I will cover some of the basics.

User interface redesign

Blender has a bad reputation about its user interface. It is not like any other program that I’ve used. There are double menus, different modes, multiple file and edit options and can be a bit confusing. Furthermore, the amount of options, menus, sub-menus is astonishing. One can get lost in it. So, they redesigned the user interface, which is very helpful.

They have removed some of the options from the bottom of the page and put them up. Also, the options from the left are shown only for the mode you are in. In this way, the menu is cleaner and better structured, without the tons of option shown all at ones.

Here is a comparison of the starting screen from Blender 2.79 and Blender 2.80.

Blender 2.79

Blender 2.80 Alpha 2

The difference is clear, and the menu doesn’t look that much cluttered as before. On the top bar there are default work-space setups for animation, sculpting, modeling, rendering etc. The user can quickly browse through them and find the one that is most suitable.

EEVEE, the brand-new rendering engine

One of the things, that was very uncomfortable for me in Blender, was the rendering. I’m making a lot of procedurally generated materials and textures with nodes. Which means, I do a lot of tweaking in the node editor (now called shader editor). With every little tweak, the rendering starts all over again. This is a tedious process. Also, sometimes my eyes hurts from the rendering.

Here comes EEVEE. A brand-new rendering engine. It is showing the final render of your scene, in real time. Every little tweak that you made to your scene, material, lightning is immediately shown in the scene. You can see it instantly. I can’t say how grateful I’m for this.

Here is a scene I have made, rendered with EEVEE.

The renders are looking quite nice.

I have added volume scatter shader, which is also available in this build. This is the one that is giving that fogy effect. Now in this scene, as it is, I can go and edit it. Adjust lighting, move objects around, change shapes and materials. No need to go back and forward from render to object mode. This is truly a great improvement. Well done to all developers working on this.

New MatCaps for better sculpting

I sculpt a lot in Blender. I use it for game models and this is my prime usage of Blender. MatCaps allows a better look the model. In essence they are premade materials for sculpting. There was some MatCaps in Blender 2.7, but now there is more. And the more, the better.

Here are all the available MatCaps.

If I counted well there is a total of 22 MatCaps. There are a lot of ways to see your model.

Here are some different MatCaps applied to a model.

New Shaders and Ambient Occlusion Node

One of the cool new shaders is the Principled Hair Shader. With this shade you can create a realistic looking hair in just a couple of minutes. It had options for choosing different hair color. But the best thing for creating a realistic looking hair is the melanin concentration options. It simulates the melanin in the hair and it gives all those realistic color variations of the hair color.

Another interesting shader is the Principled Volume Shader. This is a great shader for smoke and fire simulations. It has a lot of options to tweak and adjust, and it is easy to use.

The Ambient Occlusion node is very handy. I love to work with nodes and procedurally generated textures and materials, so this is one more thing to play with. Before there was the option to bake the AO, import it as image in the node editor and then adjust it with ColorRamp node. Now it is just another node in the node editor to play with. Also, there is no need to lower the polys of the model in order to be able to bake. You can place the AO node on a high poly model. Excellent.

New work engine OpenGL

Obviously, a lot of work has been put in the render engines. Until the version 2.79, Blender had 3 rendering engines: Cycles, Blender Render and Blender Game. Most advanced and used was the Cycles rendering engine. That one is still around. But the other two Blender Render and Blender Game, have been removed, and replaced with OpenGL. It is a working environment for building the scene, before switching to Cycles and EEVEE for the final render.

Grease Pencil

Grease Pencil has been around in Blender for some time. Now, they have upgraded it and turned it in a full 2D animation toolset. This is something that is unique for Blender and I’m not aware of any other software, with simular features. It allows you to create awesome 2D animations directly in Blender.
It has a lot of effects, like blurring, lighting, rim light, etc.
It has this thing called onion skinning, that lets you see the past and the future frames of the 2d animation.

Pixar’s open subdiv modifier

The subdivision surface modifier is one of the most important modifiers in Blender. It subdivides the mesh, as much as you wish, or as much as your computer can handle. It can turn a very basic and unpolished shape in a smooth and nice-looking model.

This modifier has always been a part of Blender but now they are upgrading it with a new one. This is the one that Pixar uses, and it is Open source. They have taken it and build it in Blender. Now the subdivision surface will look even better.

Here is an example from Blender mascot, Susanne the monkey.
On the left the low poly model and on the right the model subdivide 4 times. I have Used the subdivide modifier frequently, and the difference between the old one and the new one is evident.

All the photos are taken from my working environment in Blender.

Resources

• https://www.blender.org/2-8/
• blender developer page
• Blender developers YouTube channel
• Zacharias Reinhardt YouTube Chanel
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender

Series Backlinks

• Filmic Blender – Software for realistic rendering in Blender
• Node Setup For Blender Cycles Material
• Setting Up Gradient Texture In Blender Node Editor
• Pointiness Future in Blender Node Setup – Give Shape To YourModel
• Moss, Snow, Dirt or Just Creating Variations in Blender - Node Setup With Normal Map
• Node setup for detailed procedural generated texture and material in cycles - blender