Apple's latest update to the entry-level iPad doesn't add much, sits in a strange spot in the lineup, and is not powerful to join the company's Apple Intelligence push.2025 iPad 11 review: A new entry-level tabletThe entry-level iPad has always filled the role of the default cheap tablet for consumers. It's always been a staple of the iPad lineup, but it doesn't tend to get as many updates as others in the range.The 11th-generation iPad replaces the late 2022 model, and a lot has changed in Apple's world since then. However, for the iPad itself, there's not really that much change this time around to consider. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

A crime ring successfully stole thousands of iPhones being delivered to customers, using a combination of scraping delivery tracker sites and occasional bribery to pull it off.FedEx boxes being moved - Image Credit: FedExPorch pirates are often thought to consist of opportunist criminals stealing deliveries from neighbors. But, like other crimes, it has evolved into a sophisticated enterprise, optimized for maximum results.One group taken down by law enforcement demonstrates how much effort it took for a team of individuals to steal thousands of iPhones across the United States. It was a feat primarily accomplished with a technological assist, aided by bribery. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

While NetEase has previously spoken about wanting to strike a balance when it comes to developing Marvel Rivals for both casual players as well as more competitive players that might be interested in esports, Marvel Games executive producer Danny Koo has reiterated the idea.Speaking to PCGamer at GDC 2025, Koo spoke about Marvel Rivals developers prioritising fun gameplay over wanting competitive balance. While the latter might be popular amongst a smaller subset of players, the fun gameplay is where Marvel Rivals gets its massive audience of casual players from.So every character we balance for fun, first and foremost, as in if the character is fun or not [to play], thats always number one, said Koo. And then the team has data on win rates, making sure that no one character is too painful and oppressive so that everybodys still having fun. But thats secondary.Koo went on to talk about wanting to make sure players are having fun by offering unique characters that all manage to play differently. He brings up Human Torch and Storm as two examples that have unique gameplay, but still manage to work together well thanks to their abilities mixing up to create a larger threat for opposing teams.[Players] want to feel like theyre playing as unique a character as possible, said Koo. And the team has pulled it off with every single character. I mean, the latest content with Human Torch and Storm, the flame and whirlwind combination, becomes a firestorm. That in itself is visually spectacular. But then I think the graphic team also needs to make sure that it doesnt kill your entire graphic resources, especially if youre in the eye of the storm.He also spoke about wanting to find a balance between casual and competitive play, and wanting both styles of gameplay to co-exist. According to Koo, most players tend to not go for the more competitive style of gameplay, instead preferring to have quick, casual matches through Quick Play rather than jumping into Ranked modes.[Casual and competitive] co-exist, but the majority of the players will not play competitive anyway, thats for sure, Koo explained. They just want to have fun with friends and go, Hey, lets queue and do a quick play. But competitive is also important, right? Because [players] also want an avenue to show off their mastery.Koo spoke about making sure that a team is balanced by pairing up more casual players with high-skill competitive ones. This allows both teams in any given Marvel Rivals match to have an even chance at winning the game while still experiencing the style of gameplay they prefer.We always look at it and balance it, if necessary, each season to see how fast players progress, Koo said. And in terms of matchmaking, we always pair you with people with the same level and the same rate as you to make it a comfortable experience.Koo wrapped things up by reiterating that there are still no plans to add a Role Queue mode to Marvel Rivals. No role queuethats what makes this game so unique, he said.Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play competitive shooter available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review for more details.

With the incredible success of Larians RPG Baldurs Gate 3, Hasbro seems to be keen on expanding the franchise further. Hasbros SVP of digital games, Dan Ayoub, revealed in a conversation with IGN at GDC 2025 that the company is internally working on future plans for the Baldurs Gate franchise, and that fans should expect some details in pretty short order.Were kind of working out our plans for the future and what were going to be doing with that. And actually, in pretty short order, were going to have some stuff to talk about around that, said Ayoub.For some context, Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast the company in charge of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, alongside other properties like trading card game Magic: The Gathering. While Ayoub didnt expand too much on what kind of future plans were in store for Baldurs Gate as a franchise, he did mention that a sequel to Larians RPG is something he would like to see.Its somewhat of an unenviable position, said Ayoub. I mean, were not in a hurry. Right? Thats the thing, were going to take a very measured approach Weve got a lot of plans, a lot of different ways to go about it. Were starting to think about, okay, yeah, were ready to start dipping toes a little bit and talking about a few things. And I think, in really short order, like I said, again, not to over-tease that point, were going to have some other things to talk about around that.Ayoub also spoke about how Hasbro would keep the momentum that Dungeons & Dragons as a property got from the release of Baldurs Gate 3. Wizards of the Coast, for example, recently kicked off its refresh of the fifth edition rules for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPG.Im never one to shy down from a challenge, he said. And I think anything that forces us to raise our creative bar, and developers love to have a high bar to go after, and I think weve actually seen the team push some really interesting ideas that theyre like, Okay, we need to raise our bar. We need to go bigger on this. And things like that. So, I think thats our hope, right? We would keep raising the bar and everyone just tries to go a little higher.Ayoubs statements are a reflection of similar ones made by Hasbros SVP of Digital Strategy and Licensing Eugene Evans, who spoke about the company talking to partners about the future of the Baldurs Gate franchise back in April 2024. He Evans also spoke about the cast of Baldurs Gate 3 showing back up in future games down the line, since they were beloved by players.Larian created a much loved cast of characters, who were even celebrated by their nominations, the voice actors behind them and the talent behind them was celebrated at the [BAFTAS], and they are now essentially part of D&D canon, said Evans. I think its too early to express specifics and I think that theres a much bigger question about how we approach Baldurs Gate in the future. But I would like to think that all of those characters, for the sake of the fans, could potentially appear in future products.Baldurs Gate 3 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Check out our review for more details.

Cecily Eckhardt. Photo credit: Perkins&WillArchitect Cecily Eckhardt has joined Perkins&Will as managing director of the firms Toronto and Ottawa studios.Eckhardt succeeds DArcy Arthurs, who led the Ontario practice for nearly two decades. Born and raised in Ontario, Eckhardt has practiced architecture in Canada and Europe for more than two decades. She has contributed to various high-profile projects including Centennial Colleges Centennial Place and Culinary Arts Centre in Toronto; McMaster Universitys 10 Bay Graduate Residence in Hamilton; Toronto Metropolitan Universitys School of Medicine in Brampton; and The New Vic at McGill University in Montreal.Its rare to find a firm where design feels both deeply personal and globally impactful, said Eckhardt. Perkins&Will has the reach to shape cities around the world, but the heart of a studio that understands the nuances of each community it works in. What excites me most is knowing that the work we do improves the quality of life for peopleand I want to be part of that.She comes to Perkins&Will following 17 years with another prominent Toronto-based architecture firm, where she focused on complex institutional projects.In her new role as managing director at Perkins&Will, Eckhardt will work to ensure the continued growth and success of the Toronto and Ottawa studios in partnership with design director Andrew Frontini and operations director Robert van Lin. Additionally, she will champion Living Design, Perkins&Wills holistic design approach, and create opportunities for mentorship and professional development.Im excited to help cultivate a supportive team environment where sharing ideas is safe, honest feedback drives innovation, and collaboration pushes us to deliver the best design possible, Eckhardt says.She will also work closely with Arthurs, who has held a leadership role at the firm for 40 years, throughout her first few weeks on the job to ensure a smooth transition.Its been a privilege to lead our Ontario practice for all these years, and now feels like the right moment for fresh energy and new ideas, says Arthurs, under whose leadership the Toronto and Ottawa studios earned national and international acclaim for projects like Rseau Express Mtropolitain, the School of Continuing Studies at York University, the Albion District Library, and the Daphne Cockwell Health Sciences Complex at Toronto Metropolitan University. Im delighted to pass the baton to Cecily to usher us into the future. Shes a consummate professional and highly respected architect with much to offer our teams and clients. Were looking forward to seeing where she takes us.Eckhardt is a LEED Green Associate, a Passive House Certified Designer, and a frequent speaker at academic and professional design workshops and seminars. Shes also an active member of the Ontario Association of Architects and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Eckhardt holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Toronto, a Master of Social Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a bachelors degree from McGill University.The post Perkins&Wills Toronto and Ottawa Studios Welcome New Managing Director appeared first on Canadian Architect.

Wednesday, March 19th, 2025Posted by Jim ThackerNVIDIA unveils Blackwell RTX PRO GPUs with up to 96GB VRAMhtml PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"NVIDIA has unveiled the RTX PRO Blackwell series, its new range of professional workstation, laptop and data center GPUs based on its current Blackwell GPU architecture.The first two desktop GPUs, the 96GB RTX PRO 6000 Workstation Edition and RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition, will be available through distribution partners next month.NVIDIA pitches the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition the larger, more power-hungry version of the card as the most powerful desktop GPU ever created.The other desktop cards the RTX PRO 5000, RTX PRO 4500 and RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell GPUs will be available later in the year, along with the laptop and data center GPUs.NVIDIA describes the RTX PRO Blackwell series, which is being marketed at agentic AI, simulation, 3D design and VFX, as a revolutionary generation of GPUs with breakthrough accelerated computing, AI inference, ray tracing and neural rendering technologies.Below, weve rounded up their key specs for DCC work, and what we know about their likely performance in CG software.The first professional GPUs based on NVIDIAs new Blackwell architectureThe new cards are the first professional GPUs based on NVIDIAs Blackwell architecture, following the rollout of their consumer counterparts, the GeForce RTX 50 Series, earlier this year.All feature the latest iterations of NVIDIAs key hardware core types: CUDA cores for general GPU compute, Tensor cores for AI operations, and RT cores for hardware ray tracing.NVIDIA claims that their fifth-gen Tensor cores and fourth-gen RT cores offer up to 3x and up to 2x the performance of their counterparts in its previous GPU Ada Lovelace architecture.Their Streaming Multiprocessors, into which the CUDA cores are grouped, have up to 1.5x faster throughput than their predecessors, and feature new Neural Shaders that integrate small neural networks into programmable shaders.The new GPUs use GDDR7 memory and PCIe 5.0 buses, increasing data transfer bandwidth over the Ada Generation cards, and support the current DisplayPort 2.1b display standard.The RTX PRO 6000 and 5000 cards also support NVIDIAs Multi-Instance GPU (MIG) technology for partitioning a single GPU into smaller instances.NVIDIA Blackwell workstation GPUs and their previous-generation counterpartsRTX PRO6000 BlackwellW/ERTX PRO6000 BlackwellMaxQ W/ERTX 6000RTX PRO5000BlackwellRTX 5000RTX PRO4500BlackwellRTX 4500RTX PRO4000BlackwellRTX 4000ArchitectureBlackwellBlackwellAda LovelaceBlackwellAda LovelaceBlackwellAda LovelaceBlackwellAda LovelaceCUDA cores24,06424,06418,17614,08012,80010,4967,6808,9606,144Tensor cores(752)(752)568TBC400TBC240TBC192RT cores(188)(188)142TBC100TBC60TBC48Compute performanceFP32 (Tflops)125 TFlops110 TFlops91.1 TflopsTBC65.3 TflopsTBC39.6 TflopsTBC26.7 TflopsGPU memory96GBGDDR796GBGDDR748GBGDDR648GBGDDR732GB GDDR632GBGDDR724GB GDDR624GBGDDR720GB GDDR6Memory bandwidth1,792 GB/s1,792 GB/s960 GB/s1,344 GB/s576 GB/s896 GB/s432 GB/sTBC360 GB/sGraphics busPCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16PCIe 5.0 x16PCIe 4.0 x16TDP600W300W300 W300W250 W200W210 W140W130 WDisplay connectors4 x DP 2.14 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.44 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.44 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.44 x DP 2.14 x DP 1.4Size (H x L)5.4 x 12.0Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5 Dual slot4.4 x 10.5Dual slot4.4 x 10.5 Dual slot4.4 x 9.5 Single slot4.4 x 9.5 Single slotLaunch date2025(April)2025(April)20222025(Summer)20232025(Summer)20232025(Summer)2023Launch MSRPTBCTBC$6,799TBC$4,000TBC$2,250TBC$1,250Figures in brackets are taken from third-party websites. W/E refers to the Workstation Edition.Key specifications for CG workNVIDIA has only released full specs for the top-of-the-range RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell cards so far, but they are a clear step up from the previous-gen RTX 6000 Ada Generation.Hardware core counts and compute performance are significantly higher, while GPU memory doubles to 96GB, and memory bandwidth almost doubles.Power consumption is unchanged at least for the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition, which features the same standard cooling design as its predecessor.That figure doubles to 600W in the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition, which uses a double flow-through design, although the increase in compute performance is much smaller.The specs for the lower-end cards, which also use standard cooling designs, still contain a number of TBCs, although we would expect them to follow a similar pattern.What we dont yet know is how the Blackwell cards will stack up in terms of price-performance, since NVIDIA hasnt announced recommended pricing.NVIDIAs spec chart for the RTX PRO Blackwell laptop GPUs. Click the image to view it full-size.Also available as data center and laptop GPUsNVIDIA has also announced its RTX PRO Blackwell series laptop and data center GPUs.We dont usually cover either on CG Channel, but you can see NVIDIAs summary chart for the laptop GPUs above: as well as counterparts for the desktop RTX PRO 5000 and 4000 Blackwell, there are four lower-end cards, the RTX PRO 3000, 2000, 1000 and 500 Blackwell.Specs for the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition can be found on NVIDIAs website.How will the RTX PRO Blackwell GPUs perform with CG software?The new RTX PRO Blackwell series cards mark a change of branding from the current RTX Ada Generation GPUs, with the new PRO tag clearly targeting them at professional users.What constitutes a professional user is perhaps less clear, since NVIDIA now acknowledges in its marketing for its Blackwell consumer cards, the GeForce RTX 50 Series, that they are used by both gamers and creators, with many CG artists using them for rendering.Rather than video production or VFX, the use cases cited in NVIDIAs release announcement for the RTX PRO Blackwell cards are computational AI, health care, and design visualization.As a result, its hard to assess how the new GPUs specs will translate into real-world performance in CG applications.Of the examples given, the closest to DCC work is Cyclops, architecture firm Foster + Partners GPU ray tracing product for view analysis, which is described as running at 5x the speed on the new RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition as on the NVIDIA RTX A6000 its counterpart from two GPU generations ago, which is now over four years old.Electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian is also quoted as saying that the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition delivers the most stunning visuals we have ever experienced in VR in Autodesks VRED visualization software, but no actual performance figures are given.Prices and release datesThe RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition and Max-Q Workstation Edition will be available via PNY and TD SYNNEX in April 2025, and via workstation manufacturers in May 2025.The RTX PRO 5000, 4500 and 4000 Blackwell desktop GPUs will be available in the summer.RTX PRO Blackwell laptop GPUs will be available via Dell, HP, Lenovo and Razer later this year.NVIDIA hasnt announced recommended prices for the new GPUs yet.Read NVIDIAs announcement of the RTX PRO Blackwell server, desktop and laptop GPUsFind specifications for the RTX PRO Blackwell desktop GPUs on NVIDIAs websiteHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsNVIDIA unveils Blackwell RTX PRO GPUs with up to 96GB VRAMNew series of pro workstation and laptop GPUs include the 'most powerful desktop GPU ever created'. See its key specs for CG work.Wednesday, March 19th, 20255 key features in Blender 4.4Check out the key changes in the latest version of the open-source 3D app, including important updates to animation and the CPU compositor.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025Sketchsoft releases Feather 1.1Promising 3D sketching app for iPad gets time-saving new workflows for Apple Pencil users, including support for haptic feedback.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025GIMP 3.0 is out after seven years in developmentLong-awaited update to the open-source image editor adds non-destructive layer effects and better interoperability with Photoshop.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025Adobe releases Substance 3D Modeler 1.21Check out the new export features in the VR modeling software. Now available via Adobe's new Substance 3D Indie subscriptions.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025Adobe releases Substance 3D Painter 11.0Check out the new features in the 3D texture painting app, including an Auto-update system, and more path tools, filters and texture generators.Monday, March 17th, 2025More NewsFree tool: Lens Cap for BlenderCelsys releases Clip Studio Paint 4Assetify 2.1 converts Blender assets to game-ready formatsTutorial: Creature Combat Animation in MayaWonder Studio becomes Autodesk Flow StudioPolygonflow releases Dash 1.9Get KitBash3D's Gaea fantasy architecture asset pack for freeCheck out open-source Blender character generator MPFB 2Check out neat AI-trained hand mocap tool HandCraft ProTutorial: Creating Production-Ready Hero Assets Using MariAMD releases Capsaicin 1.2AMD launches FSR 4, AFMF 2.1 and RIS 2.0Older Posts

Tuesday, March 18th, 2025Posted by Jim Thacker5 key features in Blender 4.4html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"The splash screen artwork for Blender 4.4: a still from Oscar-winning animated feature FlowThe Blender Foundation has released Blender 4.4, the next version of the open-source 3D software for VFX, animation, game development and visualization.Compared to its predecessors, its a workflow-and-bugfix-focused release, with no new features of the scale of Eevee Next in Blender 4.2 or Grease Pencil 3 in Blender 4.3.However, there are significant changes, so below, weve picked out five, from the way animation works to a major rewrite of the compositor and yes, the bugfixes themselves.At the end of the story, you can find a summary of whats new in other key toolsets, including sculpting, Geometry Nodes, the Cycles and Eevee renderers, and the Video Sequencer.Blender 4.4 changes the structure of the Action data-blocks used to store animation data. The Action above has two Slots, one for the Camera Object and one for the Camera Data.1. Animation: slotted Actions simplify animation workflowMany of the key changes in Blender 4.4 are under the hood. One of the most significant is that the structure of Actions the data-blocks used to store animation data has changed.Actions now have Slots, making it possible for a single Action to store multiple kinds of data.As a result, a single Action can store more complex animation: for example, an object that changes color as it moves can be represented using separate slots for its position and material.The change should simplify workflow when animating cameras, as shown in the image above, and materials, where the material and its shader node tree can have separate slots.It is also now possible to merge the animations of multiple objects into one Action, or split slots of one Action into many, increasing flexibility.Changing the way that Blender stores animation data was one of the first major proposals for the Animation 2025 Project, the ongoing overhaul of Blenders character rigging and animation tools, although the original idea was to replace Actions with a new Animation data-block type.The change introduces a new Python API, and is not fully backwards-compatible, although existing .blend files should be updated automatically on import.Although the new Vulkan backend, used for real-time rendering, remains an experimental feature in Blender 4.4, its performance relative to the default OpenGL backend has improved.2. Viewport rendering: a big update to the new Vulkan backendThe Vulkan backend introduced in Blender 4.1 for rendering the UI and viewport gets a big update in performance, stability and compatibility.Startup times, from loading a scene to the final viewport appearing on screen, are now around 5x faster than the OpenGL backend for a cold start, and 2x faster for a warm start.Vulkan is also now used to display the rendered output of Cycles, Blenders production renderer although not to run Cycles, which is still described in the online documentation as not viable.The Vulkan backend is supported on relatively old GPUs: NVIDIAs 10-year-old GeForce GTX 900 Series and AMDs eight-year-old Radeon 400 Series are supported on Windows and Linux.However, it remains an experimental feature: it lacks support for key features like OpenXR and OpenSubdiv, and animation performance still needs to be improved.https://www.cgchannel.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/250318_Blender44_5KeyFeatures_tw.mp4The updated Glare node in Blenders CPU compositor provides more control over glow effects. Excerpt from the Blender Foundations official overview of the new features in Blender 4.4.3. Compositing: faster CPU compositing and a revamped Glare nodeAnother under-the-hood change in Blender 4.4 is that the CPU compositor the original compositor, not the new Viewport Compositor introduced in Blender 3.5 has been rewritten.The work was done in preparation for future development, but it does bring significant speed improvements: key nodes, including blur, filter and mask nodes, are now 2-10x faster.The Glare node, used to add lens flares and glows to images, has also been made more usable: you can see an overview of the changes in the video above.Blender 4.4 updates key libraries, including OpenColorIO, OpenEXR and OpenVDB, to match the new CY2025 specification for the VFX Reference Platform.4. Pipeline integration: CY2025 support for VFX Reference PlatformFor visual effects and animation studios, another key feature of Blender 4.4 is that it has been updated to match the CY2025 specification for the VFX Reference Platform.Overseen by the Visual Effects Society, the annually updated spec is intended to ensure that tools used in VFX production pipelines all use the same versions of key software libraries.The Blender Foundation had previously considered moving away from the platform, but reversed the decision in 2022, with full compliance returning in Blender 4.0.A key focus during the development of Blender 4.4 has simply been to fix bugs, with more than 500 reported issues fixed during January 2025 alone.5. And bugfixes: lots and lots of bugfixesHowever, a key objective Blender 4.4 was simply to fix bugs, not to introduce major new toolsets so much so that weve chosen the bugfixes as one of our five key changes.According to a recent post on the Blender Developer blog, more than 500 reported issues were fixed during January alone, as part of the Winter of Quality initiative.The part of the software to get the most fixes was Grease Pencil, Blenders 2D animation and storyboarding toolset, following its major overhaul in Blender 4.3.The user interface, viewport and Geometry Nodes framework also each got over 70 fixes.Changes to Blenders other key toolsets in Blender 4.4 include an update to the OptiX denoiser used in the Cycles render engine, improving consistency of denoising on NVIDIA GPUs.Other changes: whats new in the other key toolsets?Blenders user interface gets a lot of small improvements in Blender 4.4, including updates to UI fonts, tooltips, common UI panels and dialogs, and the Status Bar, which now shows warnings for more common issues, like negative scale values on objects.The 3D modeling toolset gets improvements to topology, including options to select all three- and five-pole vertices in a mesh, and to join tris to quads in a way that favors an even quad grid.In the sculpting toolset, the existing Flatten, Fill and Scrape brush types have been consolidated into a single new brush type, the Plane brush.The Geometry Nodes and physics framework gets new Collection and Object input nodes, although most of the changes are workflow improvements.In the character rigging toolset, membership of bone collections is now mirrored when symmetrizing an armature.For character animation, the Pose Library can now export pose assets as external libraries, making them easier to reuse between projects.Cycles, Blenders main production renderer, has been updated to use a newer version of NVIDIAs OptiX denoiser, resulting in more consistent denoising for users with older GPU drivers.The Grease Pencil 2D animation toolset has been updated to restore features removed by the major overhaul it received in Blender 4.3. The Video Sequencer gets workflow improvements, particularly to text strips, but the key change is probably support for the industry-standard H.265/HEVC video codec.In addition, the sequencer now supports 10- and 12-bits-per-channel video formats there is currently no handling of HDR video, but proxies for HDR image strips should now work properly and videos rendered from Blender now explicitly use BT.709 color space used for HDTV.Other pipeline integration changes include support for the AAC audio format, and updates to USD workflows, including better export of animated volumes and instanced non-mesh objects like point clouds and curves, and support for displacement in UsdPreviewSurface.System requirementsBlender 4.4 is compatible with Windows 8.1+, macOS 11.2+ and glibc 2.28+ Linux.Read the Blender Foundations overview of the new features in Blender 4.4Read a longer list of new features in the Blender 4.4 release notesDownload Blender 4.4Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsNVIDIA unveils Blackwell RTX PRO GPUs with up to 96GB VRAMNew series of pro workstation and laptop GPUs include the 'most powerful desktop GPU ever created'. See its key specs for CG work.Wednesday, March 19th, 20255 key features in Blender 4.4Check out the key changes in the latest version of the open-source 3D app, including important updates to animation and the CPU compositor.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025Sketchsoft releases Feather 1.1Promising 3D sketching app for iPad gets time-saving new workflows for Apple Pencil users, including support for haptic feedback.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025GIMP 3.0 is out after seven years in developmentLong-awaited update to the open-source image editor adds non-destructive layer effects and better interoperability with Photoshop.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025Adobe releases Substance 3D Modeler 1.21Check out the new export features in the VR modeling software. Now available via Adobe's new Substance 3D Indie subscriptions.Tuesday, March 18th, 2025Adobe releases Substance 3D Painter 11.0Check out the new features in the 3D texture painting app, including an Auto-update system, and more path tools, filters and texture generators.Monday, March 17th, 2025More NewsFree tool: Lens Cap for BlenderCelsys releases Clip Studio Paint 4Assetify 2.1 converts Blender assets to game-ready formatsTutorial: Creature Combat Animation in MayaWonder Studio becomes Autodesk Flow StudioPolygonflow releases Dash 1.9Get KitBash3D's Gaea fantasy architecture asset pack for freeCheck out open-source Blender character generator MPFB 2Check out neat AI-trained hand mocap tool HandCraft ProTutorial: Creating Production-Ready Hero Assets Using MariAMD releases Capsaicin 1.2AMD launches FSR 4, AFMF 2.1 and RIS 2.0Older Posts

Mythica announced that Sprocket Games and Unleashed Games will open source key aspects of their projects throughMythicas platform.Read More