Blender, the free open-source 3D creation tool, just released version 2.82. These are its most important new features:

1. MantaFlow, the open-source framework targeted at fluid simulation, is now integrated into Blender. It allows for better smoke and fire simulations. The new FLIP fluids solver allows creators to better simulate different fluids.
2. IK segments property to control how many IK bones are going to be created for posing.
3. Improved cloth simulation allows defining internal air pressure in objects.
4. The addition of UDIM, a popular tile-based UV mapping system, that allows users to create and edit textures on surfaces directly.
5. Blender 2.82 supports Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (USD) file format now.
6. An AI-based algorithm, working on multiple GPUS, allows for better results when denoising images – if you happen to have a graphics card with Nvidia’s RTX GPU.
7. Additional improvements on the new sculpting system introduced in Blender 2.81.

There are many more interesting tweaks and improvements. For the full overview, please visit the release page of Blender 2.82.

You can download Blender 2.82 for free here.

Currently, the Blender project enables almost 20 people to contribute to the software toolset full-time. If you want to join the 3700 volunteers, you can do this on Blender’s website.

(Source: Blender release page)