Blender 2.80 Now Coming In Early 2019 With Many Improvements

The Blender 3D modeling software is facing a slight set-back in their release schedule for the big Blender 2.80 release, but it's moving along and they intend to have it ready by early next year.

The Blender folks outlined some of their recent work and current 2.80 release state. Highlights include:

- Blender 2.80 Alpha 2 is now available but they won't reach the Blender 2.80 Beta milestone this month as originally planned.

- Their new plan for Blender 2.80 is to reach the feature-completion beta milestone by October and to issue the stable Blender 2.80 release in early 2019.

- Blender 2.81/2.82 is likely next year as well with whatever features didn't make the cut for this big 2.80 milestone.

- The new grease pencil feature has landed to make Blender much more capable for 2D animations.

- Other recent work includes subdivision features using Pixar OpenSubdiv, an EEVEE light cache, improved bundled matcaps, a principled hair shader for the Cycles renderer and bevel modifier improvements.

- Other ongoing work for Blender 2.80 include supporting EEVEE and the viewport on more GPUs, tool system enhancements, more subdivision feature work, user-interface polishing, edit mode modifiers, and other improvements.

All the details can be found via Blender.org.