Blender 3.5 Update: A Major Leap Forward for 3D Design

Here are some key points to keep in mind when working with VDM brushes:

• VDM brushes work best on smooth surfaces.
• To enable VDM brushes, load an OpenEXR file suited for Vector Displacement, set the brush texture “Mapping” to “Area Plane,” and enable the “Vector Displacement” toggle.
• Avoid any overlaps with previous strokes when working with VDM brushes.
• Use a high “Hardness” brush setting to make the VDM effect more accurate. A lower Hardness will make the boundary of the stroke softer.
• Most VDM brushes and examples use the “Anchored” stroke method, which provides good control of the size and rotation of the displacement.
• The “Drag-Dot” stroke method can be used for more precise positioning.
• The typical “Spacing” stroke method can be used for making an array of shapes.
• Pressure sensitivity can give additional variations of size and strength along the stroke.

I. Hair Assets

• Blender now comes pre-packed with a bunch of hair grooming assets.
• With these assets you can just drag and drop them to your systems and get going with it right away.
• The Essentials asset library contains 26 hair assets, which are split into categories such as deformation, generation, guides, utility, read, and write.

II. Hair Generation

• Blender 3.5 offers three new nodes for hair generation: generate hair curves, interpolate hair curves, and duplicate hair curves.
• Generate hair curves creates new hair curves on a surface mesh from scratch at point locations.
• Interpolate hair curves interpolates existing guide curves on a surface mesh.
• Duplicate hair curves duplicates hair curves a certain number of times within a radius.

III. Hair Guides

• Blender 3.5’s hair guides make it possible to clump, curl, and braid hair curves.
• Clump hair curves clumps together existing hair curves using guide curves.
• Curl hair curves deforms existing hair curves into curls using guide curves.
• Braid hair curves deforms existing hair curves into braids using guide curves.

IV. Hair Deformation

• Three new hair deformation nodes added in Blender 3.5.
• The hair deformation Nodes allow for frizz, smooth, and roll hair curves starting from their tips.

Cycles Lights

Blender 3.5 has introduced some exciting updates for Cycles, the powerful renderer in Blender.

One of the most notable improvements is the use of a light tree to more effectively sample scenes with many lights. This feature allows for many light sampling, which results in reduced noise and provides better rendering results.

In addition to this, Cycles’ spot lights now support non-uniform object scale, which matches how EEVEE renders them. This allows for greater control and accuracy when lighting scenes.

Another exciting update for Cycles is the spread property in Cycles area lights, which mimics a gridded softbox in real life. This feature allows for more control over the softness and direction of light in your scene, resulting in more realistic and dynamic lighting.

Animation

The updated Pose Library now offers new options and shortcuts that allow you to work more efficiently.

For instance, holding Ctrl will flip the pose, while pressing E will let you “exaggerate” it beyond 100%. You can also drag to the left to subtract a pose, saving you precious time and effort.

Another new addition is the Ease operator in the Graph Editor, which helps align keys on an exponential curve.

Grease Pencil

The new Natural Drawing Speed timing mode in the Build modifier replays strokes using the speed of the stylus when it was performed, giving it a more natural feel.

Other Improvements

And that’s not all – there are plenty of other enhancements too:

UV Copy & Paste between meshes, improvements to Constrain to Image Bounds in Shear Operator, and better handling of poles in Sphere/Cylinder Projection.

Additionally, the new asset library “All” and improved Asset Libraries list makes it easier to keep track of all your assets.