Blender 2.79 released

After a period of testing and bug hunting, we finally have the final and stable version of Blender 2.79 available to download. You can grab your copy at this link. In recent years this release may be the most significant update to architectural visualization artists, after the Cycles first appearance back in version 2.61.

Why is it so important? Blender 2.79 will give you a collection of “magic” features. That is the way a lot of people are calling some of the new tools!

From the release notes we can point three features that will have a direct impact on the way we work:

• Filmic
• Denoising
• OpenCL performance

The filmic log encoding base is something really “magical,” because it will upgrade the color management options in Blender and boost the dynamic range. What does it mean? Using the same settings (Sun+Environmental Texture), you will get much more light. For interior rendering the results are amazing!

After that, you will have Denoising, which will remove that noise aspect from renders with low sample values. As a result, renders that are “usable” with much less time required to process.

Another important upgrade is the OpenCL performance, which will allow you to pick a GPU from AMD to use with Cycles. They offer more options and eventually better prices than NVidia cards.

For the full list of features, you can check out the release notes.