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Blender 4.3 is here, bringing with it improvements to rendering and scuplting, new nodes and tools, and more.

One of the most prominent changes is a “rewrite” of the Grease Pencil feature, which introduces layer groups, gradient support, an erase tool designed to be more effective, as well as integration with Geometry Nodes.

Speaking of nodes, the new Metallic BSDF shader node enhances the realism of metallic materials, while the new Gabor Noise texture gives users the abiltiy to generate and play with procedural patterns.

There’s also a new addition to EEVEE, Blender’s rendering engine, which gains light and shadow linking that help provide greater control over how lights and shadows interact with objects. And thanks to its fresh “iterative unwrapping method”, Minimum Stretch will work to offer better texture mapping when working with organic shapes.

Sculpting tools have received a performance overhaul. Now, entering Sculpt mode, for example, should be up to five times faster, and brush evaluation when mesh sculpting up to eight times faster. Brushes themselves are also now classified as assets, centralizing their location for easier saving and sharing across projects.

Overall community response to Blender 4.3 looks positive – with reviews spotlighting the new Grease Pencil features – but we have noticed a bit of pushback regarding sculpting, specifically the removal of sculpting shortcuts from the UI.

Par for the course with Blender updates, there’s quite a bit more both on and under the hood here, so be sure to check out Blender 4.3’s full release notes for all the details.

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License: The text of "Blender 4.3 Brings Grease Pencil ‘Rewrite’, Improves Sculpting Performance" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.