Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite for modeling, sculpting, animation, rendering, visual effects, compositing, and video editing. Available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, it provides professional tools for creating everything from 3D models and animations to visual effects and detailed virtual environments.

What are the best ways to learn Blender as a complete beginner?

Most beginners start with YouTube tutorials, especially series that cover the UI and basic modeling techniques. Channels like Blender Guru's "Donut Tutorial" are widely recommended. After that, diving into small projects and using Blender's own manual can help solidify learning.

What render engine should I use: Cycles or Eevee?

Eevee is real-time and great for previews or stylized visuals, while Cycles provides photorealistic results at the cost of longer render times. Many users switch between both depending on the project and hardware capabilities.

What are the system requirements to run Blender?

Blender runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. While it can work on modest hardware, a 64-bit quad-core CPU, 16 GB RAM, and a graphics card with at least 4 GB VRAM are recommended for smooth performance, especially when using Cycles rendering or high-poly scenes.

Can I run Blender on my laptop?

Yes, Blender can run on most modern laptops, but performance depends on your hardware. For best results, a dedicated GPU and at least 8 GB of RAM are recommended. If your laptop struggles, you can adjust settings to optimize speed.

Features

3D Modeling and Sculpting

  • Polygonal modeling with modifiers and subdivision surfaces.
  • Digital sculpting with customizable brushes.
  • Procedural modeling using Geometry Nodes.
  • UV mapping, texture painting, and retopology tools.

Animation and Rigging

  • Character rigging with armatures and inverse kinematics.
  • Keyframe animation and nonlinear animation editing.
  • Shape keys, constraints, and motion paths.
  • Grease Pencil tools for 2D animation in 3D environments.

Rendering and Materials

  • Cycles path-tracing renderer for photorealistic results.
  • EEVEE for real-time rendering and previews.
  • Node-based materials and shader editing.
  • GPU rendering acceleration on supported hardware.
  • Native support for 3D Gaussian Splatting.

Visual Effects and Simulation

  • Physics simulations for fluids, smoke, fire, and rigid bodies.
  • Procedural effects and simulations using Geometry Nodes.
  • Motion tracking and camera reconstruction.
  • Node-based compositing tools.

Video Editing and Post-Production

  • Built-in video sequence editor.
  • Video trimming, transitions, and basic color adjustments.
  • Audio synchronization and timeline editing.

Workflow and Customization

  • Python scripting and automation.
  • Extensive add-on and extension support.
  • Asset libraries and reusable materials.
  • Support for common 3D interchange formats.
  • Cross-platform compatibility with Windows, macOS, and Linux.

What's New

Make a Splat

Welcome native 3D Gaussian Splats support to Blender 5.3!

Import them as point clouds, experiment with Geometry Nodes, preview them in Workbench, and render them natively with EEVEE or Cycles.

Gaussian Magic

3D Gaussian Splats are commonly used to reconstruct 3D scenes from photos or videos. They consist of many small, soft, transparent blobs that combine to represent complex geometry and shading.

Blender can now import Gaussian Splats from PLY, SPZ, and glTF files, store them as point clouds, process them with Geometry Nodes, and render them in EEVEE, Cycles, and Workbench (solid mode).

Point of View

Gaussian splats are represented as point clouds, using a new type to tell them apart and with special attributes:

  • scale: A vector representing the size of the splat.
  • rotation: A quaternion to control the rotation of the splat.
  • radiance:base: 4D Vector as base (DC) radiance of the splats, followed by opacity.
  • radiance:sh_{index}: Coefficients of the spherical harmonics bands >= 1. The order is , , , … where L is the band index and M is the basis function.=2>=1>=1>=1>

Radiant Future

By default, a 3D Gaussian Splat is rendered using an emissive shader. The radiance attribute provides access to the resolved radiance of the splat at the current shading point.

There is rudimentary support for making the splat relightable by replacing the Emission node with a hard surface BSDF such as Diffuse BSDF.

Performance is still being optimized. Rendering may produce inaccuracies due to differences between the sRGB space used by most Gaussian Splat authoring tools and Blender's linear color space, particularly in areas with low opacity and high radiance.

Divide and Shine

The Principled BSDF now supports Dispersion!

Turn ordinary glass and diamonds into beautiful little rainbows by splitting white light into its colorful components.

A diamond in the Rough

With Dispersion in the Transmission panel, the Principled BSDF can now reproduce the characteristic rainbow effect seen in glass and gemstones. This corresponds to OpenPBR v1.1.1.

Roughness anisotropy is also now supported by the Glass BSDF and the transmission component of the Principled BSDF. It behaves just like anisotropy for specular reflections.

Gone with Denoise

Blender 5.3 integrates DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction as a new denoiser, delivering cleaner images faster by upscaling and reusing samples from previous frames.

Think Cycles looks with EEVEE responsiveness.

NVIDIA DLSS brings near-final render quality to the viewport, making lighting and look development faster and more responsive while virtually eliminating flickering between frames during animation playback.

Find it in the Denoise panel under Render properties, Sampling.

Ready to Spark

Blender 5.3 brings native support for NVIDIA RTX Spark devices running Windows 11, including memory optimizations.

Lights Meet Material Nodes

Material Lighting nodes allow authoring how the Material reacts to Lights.

This can, for example, be used for toon and stylized shading, but also for complex physical effects like iridescence.

Lighting to Your Liking

Per-light data, evaluation, and shadow information are now available in the Shader Editor, giving you more control over how materials respond to individual scene lights.

Four new nodes and two that received a "Light" mode/space:

  • Light Accumulation: Evaluates its inputs for each light in the scene and accumulates the results.
  • Light Info: Exposes light data properties (Color, Power, and Position).
  • Light Evaluation: Evaluates position-dependent light properties (Diffuse/Specular Term, Attenuation Mask, Direction, and Distance).
  • Shadow Raycast: Outputs a shadow mask value for the light being shaded.
  • Attribute (Light Mode): Queries custom properties from the Light Object or Light Data being evaluated.
  • Vector Transform (Light Space): Transforms coordinates to and from the local space of the light being evaluated.

A Wider Perspective

EEVEE can now render panoramic cameras, supporting all types of projections, from equirectangular and cubemap formats to various fisheye models and mirror ball.

Read the complete release notes here.