A new stable release of the open-source 3D software Blender 2.74 was released at the end of March with some new features and numerous improvements.
Blender 2.74 release highlights:
- Cycles got several precision, noise, speed, memory improvements, new Pointiness attribute.
- Viewport has new cool compositing features, outliner now manages orphan datablocks better.
- Modeling now allows custom normals, and transferring data layers between meshes!
- Massive improvements to hair dynamics and editing tools: a big step forward with more to come…
- A new tool “Cavity Mask” was added to sculpting/painting, along with other improvements.
- Great memory consumption optimization in Freestyle NPR stroke rendering.
- Grease pencil and Game engine improvements, and more…
Read the detailed changes at this page.
How to Install or Upgrade to Blender 2.74 in Ubuntu:
While Blender website provides a portable version for download, you can always install the latest release via these steps in another post (You may first remove the previous Blender installation).
There are some guys maintaining the most recent Blender release in PPAs. Below are some of them:
- Thomas Schiex’s PPA: https://launchpad.net/~thomas-schiex/+archive/ubuntu/blender
- hjmooses’s PPA: https://launchpad.net/~heyarje/+archive/ubuntu/blender-2.7
To add a PPA, run below command in terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository PPA_NAME_HERE
For example, running sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender to add the Thomas Schiex’s PPA.
After adding a PPA, open Software Updater and upgrade Blender after checking for updates.
