UbuntuHandbook | Tag Archive

Archives For November 30, 1999

Blender 2.91 Released with Better Cloth Sculpting, Improved Animation Tools

Last updated: November 26, 2020

Blender 2.79

Blender 2.91 was released on Wednesday as the fourth major release in 2020. It features the user experience improvements, powerful new booleans, better cloth sculpting with support for collisions, volume objects modifiers, improved animation tools and more.

Changes in Blender 2.91 include:

Introduce collision support for the sculpt cloth brush and filter.
New Sculpt Trim tool.
Curve and text objects now support for custom bevel profiles
New modifier for volume objects allows to dynamically convert them into a mesh, ideal for stylized fluids.
Convert any mesh into a volume and combine it with the new Volume Displace modifier.
Convert images into Grease Pencil objects with just one click!
New Holdout option in materials allows to paint holes in strokes and filled areas.
Property search, Fuzzy search support.
Colors, drag & drop supports in outliner.
Animation curves can now become much snappier.
Once click to convert proxy objects into overrides.
And much more other changes, see the release note.

How to Install Blender 2.91 in Ubuntu:

Blender offers official Ubuntu binary via Snap package, which can be installed directly from Ubuntu Software.

Blender also available as universal Flatpak package, which can be installed from flathub.org repository.

For those prefer installing .deb package via apt, there’s a well trusted Ubuntu PPA available though it’s not updated to v2.91 at the moment of writing.

In News blender

Blender 2.90 Released with Intel Embree, NVLink Support for CUDA / OptiX

Last updated: September 1, 2020

Blender 2.79

Open source 3D creation software Blender 2.90 was released as the new major series with huge feature updates and performance improvements.

Blender 2.90 release highlights include:

Faster motion blur with Intel Embree.
NVLink support for CUDA and OptiX.
New search menu.
Motion blur in EEVEE rewritten from scratch
New physically based texture for smulating the colors of the sky.
Initial Wayland Support

And improvements to EEVEE, Cycles, sculpt, VR, animation, modeling, UV editing and so much more. See the release note for details. Or see what’s new with the Youtube video:

How to Install Blender 2.90 in Ubuntu:

The official Blender snap package has been updated for the new release. You can install it either from Ubuntu Software or by going to https://snapcraft.io/blender

Or run command in terminal to install Blender Snap package:

sudo snap install blender --classic

If you have already installed the Snap package, it will be automatically updated to the latest.

Also the Blender download page offers Linux portable package, which you can extract and run the executable file to launch the software.

In News blender

Blender 2.82 Released with UDIM, USD Support

Last updated: February 15, 2020

Blender 2.79

Blender 2.82 was released as the second update for the 2.80 series. The snap package has been updated for Ubuntu 18.04 and higher.

Blender 2.82 comes with over a thousand fixes and several important updates. Changes in the new release include:

New Mantaflow system allows to create mind-blowing fire and smoke simulations.
New FLIP solver to create lifelike liquids
Improved Cloth Simulations
The popular tiled-based UV mapping system is now fully integrated
Pixar’s USD export support.
Cycles supports AI-Accelerated Denoiser from OptiX, for NVIDIA RTX graphics cards.
AI denoising, Grease Pencil improvements, and much more!

How to Install Blender 2.82 in Ubuntu:

Blender offers official Snap packages (runs in sandbox) for Linux Desktop. If you’ve already installed the snap package, it will be updated automatically.

For Ubuntu 18.04 and higher, simply search for and install it from Ubuntu Software:

Note there are 3 Blender packages in Ubuntu Software: blender snap, native .deb package, and blender-tpaw (abandoned).

Go check the package details, and install the one from Snap store.

For Ubuntu 16.04, first open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install snapd:

sudo apt install snapd

Then install the official Blender snap package via command:

sudo snap install blender --classic

Once installed, launch it from your system application launcher and enjoy!

In News blender

Blender 2.79 Released! How to Install it in Ubuntu

Last updated: June 9, 2021

Blender 2.79

Blender 2.79 was finally released a day ago after 2 release candidates. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.04, and derivatives.

Blender 2.79 release highlights:

OpenCL support has improved and should be closer to parity with Blender’s CUDA capabilities.
10~20% faster performance for modern x86_64 CPUs with AVX2
automatic DPI support for determining HiDPI displays
an overhaul to Blender’s video output support
new denoiser, PBR shader, shadow catcher, filmic color management
and over 700 bug-fixes.

blender 2.79 splash

How to Install Blender 2.79 in Ubuntu:

The official Blender tarball (non-install) for Linux is available for download at:

Blender Download (non-install version)

For third-party binaries, Blender is also available via Snap and traditional PPA. You can install both or either one via following steps.

Install Blender in Ubuntu via Snap:

Blender 2.79 is also available as snap package, which is large in file, but bundles almost all required libraries. Available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and higher.

1. For Ubuntu 14.04 only, install snapd daemon if you don’t have it:

sudo apt-get install snapd xdg-open-snapd

2. If you have installed the snap package “blender-tpaw” (2.78c so far), first remove it via:

sudo snap remove blender-tpaw

3. Finally run command to install blender 2.79 snap maintained by another guy:

sudo snap install blender --classic

Install Blender 2.79 via PPA in Ubuntu:

Thomas Schiex’s PPA contains the Blender packages for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 17.04.

NOTE that Blender 2.79 is not ready in the PPA at the moment of writing. Be patient, it will be there in a few days.

The PPA is abandoned, see this tutorial instead.

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or from app launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

2. Then upgrade Blender if you have a previous installed via Software Updater:

upgrade to blender 2.79

or run commands to check updates and install blender package:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install blender

How to Remove:

To remove Blender packages either use your system package manager or run commands:

To remove Blender snap app, run command:

sudo snap remove blender

To remove Blender installed from PPA, run command:

sudo apt-get remove --autoremove blender

And to remove the PPA repository, launch “Software & Updates” utility and navigate to Other Software tab.

In Howtos, News blender, blender ppa, blender snap

Blender 2.78b Releaesed! How to Install in Ubuntu

Last updated: February 11, 2017

Blender 2.78b, a 2.78a release-compatible update was announced yesterday with important speedups, especially in Cycles and for Dependency graph.

BLender 2.78b comes with Cycles Speedups that were announced last month. Most notable will be faster rendering of Motion blur with hair, which has a 5-10 time speedup – important for production rendering. Also there are various bug-fixes.

How to Install Blender 2.78b in Ubuntu:

Blender is now available as SNAP package, first install snapd via command sudo apt install snapd in terminal, then you’re able to search for and install blender-tpaw in Ubuntu Software.

For those who don’t like the SNAP version, Blender 2.78b is also available in Thomas Schiex’s PPA, supports for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 16.10, and derivatives.

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

Type in your password (no visual feedback) when it prompts and hit enter.

2. Then you can upgrade Blender from an existing version via Software Updater (or Update Manager) after checking for updates.

Or install blender package either via Synaptic Package Manager or via commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install blender

Uninstall:

If you installed blender from PPA repository, run the following command in terminal to remove the PPA and downgrade Blender to the stock version available in Ubuntu main repositories.

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

In Howtos, News blender

How to Install Blender 2.78 in Ubuntu 16.04, 14.04

Last updated: June 9, 2021

The Blender Foundation has recently announced the release of Blender 2.78. Here’s how to install or upgrade it via PPA in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 14.04, and Linux Mint 18, 17.

What’s new in Blender 2.78:

spherical stereo rendering support for VR
a grease pencil for full 2D drawing and animations
viewport rendering improvements
freehand curves drawing over surfaces
bendy bones support
alembic support
The Cycles Render Engine has NVIDIA Pascal support
new physics capabilities, and various new add-ons.

Install/upgrade to Blender 2.78 via PPA:

Thomas Schiex is maintaining a PPA with most recent Blender release for Ubuntu 16.10, Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 14.04, and Linux Mint 17, 18.

So you can easily install Blender 2.78 or upgrade from a previous release by following the steps below:

The PPA is abandoned, see this tutorial instead.

1. Open terminal from Unity Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T keys. When it opens, run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

2. To upgrade from a previous release, simply launch Software Updater and install the updates after checking for updates:

Or install Blender for the first time or upgrade Blender via command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install blender

3. (Optional) To restore to the stock version of Blender in Ubuntu’s main repository, purge the ppa via command:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

In Howtos blender

Blender 2.77 Released [How-to Install in Ubuntu]

Last updated: March 20, 2016

The Blender Foundation finally announced the stable release for Blender 2.77 this weekend.

The new release features:

Cycles Rendering has better Subsurface Scattering, GPU support for Smoke/Fire and Point Density, and a few other features and optimizations.
User Interface has faster OpenGL rendering and better Anti-Aliasing, and other improvements
Modeling now has an edit-mode boolean tool, better decimate modifier, selection tools
Sequencer has a Gaussian Blur effect speedup, and other strip and modifier improvements
Sculpting/Painting has better extruding and weight painting tools
Animation has a new constraint interpolation method, and improvements in graph editor, dope sheet, armatures and motion paths
Grease pencil now has stroke sculpting, and several other workflow improvements
Library handling has been improved to better manage missing and deleted datablocks
Game Engine has a few new small features
A new Add-on supports packing .blend files and their dependencies, some other IO Add-on was improved, and Python was upgraded
OpenVDB caching is now supported for smoke/volumetric simulations, multithreading is now massively
supported, and also 2D stabilization node, Image editor, Cubemap and spotlights were improved
Support for Windows XP was removed, and the SCons build system too.
And, as usual, a massive bug fixing!
Read more at its features page.

Blender 2.77 Splash

How to Install Blender 2.77 in Ubuntu:

Blender 2.77 can be installed via either the official Linux binary, or a third-party PPA for better Ubuntu integration.

1. See this how-to to install blender via official Linux binary. Need to remove the previous installation first.

2. To install Blender 2.77 from PPA.

There may be a little delay before the current release being made into PPA. Check out the PPA webpage, and read the PPA description before doing below steps.

1.) Open terminal from App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T keys. When it opens, paste below command and hit run:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

2.) Then upgrade Blender by launching Software Updater.

Or install it by running the commands one by one in terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install blender

In Howtos blender, blender ppa

How to Install Blender 2.76b in Ubuntu 15.10, 14.04 via PPA

Last updated: November 9, 2015

Blender, a professional free and open-source 3D graphics software, has reached the 2.76b release. The ‘b’ release brings a few bugfixes to the 2.76 release which was released a month ago.

For Blender 2.76 new features see HERE, and the 2.76b fixed:

Crash generating previews
crash with metas & particles
Select linked crash with wire seam edges

Install / Upgrade Blender via PPA:

Besides installing from the official binary manually, you can install Blender and receive future updates using a PPA repository.

Thomas Schiex is maintaining a PPA with latest Blender packages, support for Ubuntu 15.10 and Ubuntu 14.04 so far. Follow below steps to add PPA and install/upgrade Blender.

1. Add PPA.

NOTE: As an unofficial PPA, you may first check the PPA page for the current Blender packages and supported Ubuntu editions.

Open terminal from Unity Dash, App Launcher, or via Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key. When it opens, run below command to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

Type your password when it asks (type in mind and hit enter, there’s no display when typing password).

2. If you have a previous installed via Ubuntu Software Center or PPA, launch Software Updater and upgrade Blender after checking for updates.

Or, install it via Software Center (check updates needed), Synaptic Package Manager, or via commands:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install blender

In Howtos blender, blender ppa

Blender 2.75 Released, How-to Install or Upgrade it in Ubuntu

Last updated: July 3, 2015

Blender, an open source 3D content-creation program, has recently reached the 2.75 release, which features AMD OpenCL rendering and fully integrated stereo/multiview support.

Blender Foundation and developer community announced the release of Blender 2.75 on July 1st. The main highlights of this release are:

Blender now supports a fully integrated Multi-View and Stereo 3D pipeline
Cycles has much awaited initial support for AMD GPUs, and a new Light Portals feature.
UI now allows font previews in the file browser.
High quality options for viewport depth of field were added
Modeling has a new Corrective Smooth modifier.
The Decimate modifier was improved significantly.
3D viewport painting now supports symmetry and the distribution of Dynamic Topology was improved
Video Sequence Editor: Placeholders can now replace missing frames of image sequences
Game Engine now allows smoother LOD transitions, and supports mist attributes animation
And: 100s of bug fixes and smaller feature improvements.

For details, release the announcement.

How to install/upgrade Blender in Ubuntu:

Blender website provides pre-built binary packages for Linux 32-bit/64-bit, you may read this post to install the official package and make a shortcut icon for Ubuntu desktop.

Since the official package is not well integrated with Ubuntu desktop, you can alternatively install Blender from Thomas Schiex’s PPA, and receive future updates through Software Updater.

To do so, run below commands one by one in a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) window:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thomas-schiex/blender

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install blender

Note that there might be a small delay before a new release to be made into the PPA. You may check out the PPA web page for the Blender version.

In addition, to associate .blend files with Blender go to file’s context menu (right-click menu) -> Properties -> Open With tab -> select Blender software from the list and finally click the Set as default button.

In Howtos blender

Blender 2.74 Released with Lots of Improvements

Last updated: April 2, 2015

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: