This year we are celebrating 20 years of making Open Movies. 17 titles, all different and beautiful in their own way. We want to thank you for being a part of this journey – without the community support, all of these projects would not be possible!

To celebrate the 20 years of Open Movies in a special way during the Blender Conference 2026, we have created an installation that represents the projects frame by frame. And in the spirit of sharing and being open, visitors of the exhibition can take a frame with them.

Thank you for doing your part. Let’s see what the next decade of open filmmaking will bring!

Blender Foundation and the online community proudly present Blender 5.2 LTS!

Blender 5.2 LTS brings a great balance of new features and stability improvements. With 2 years of support (until July 2028), it is the perfect choice for long-term productions.

The Geometry Nodes department stands out most as Blender 5.2 LTS welcomes an experimental procedural approach to physics for hair and cloth simulations, a variety of new Geometry Nodes, and string nodes support in the Compositor. Asset Libraries now support remote hosting, enabling users to access the Blender Online Essentials library on demand as well as host their own.

Texture cache in Cycles and Principled BSDF Thin Wall mode are major highlights in rendering, while EEVEE contributes to the LTS release by resolving a number of long-standing usability issues. Grease Pencil changes the game with a new fill algorithm, introduces new settings for line materials, and expands the brush toolset with new online assets.

Sculpting expands with the new Scene Project brush and Add Primitive operator, and the voxel remesher now preserves vertex colors and other attributes. Animation, the Video Sequencer, and the UI receive polish, optimization, and quality-of-life improvements that matter for everyday workflows. And last but not least: VR location scouting!

To get the full picture, explore the release notes to see everything new!

Watch the video summary on Blender’s YouTube channel.

Releases are made possible thanks to the contributions of the Blender community, and the support of over 7200 individuals and 47 organizations contributing to the Blender Development Fund 🧡

The Blender Team
July 14th, 2026

Blender Foundation and the online community proudly present Blender 5.1!

Blender 5.1 focuses on refinement, bug fixes, and a few key features, improving the entire pipeline.

Grease Pencil adds a new Fill workflow with support for holes, while curves and text benefit from a smarter rendering algorithm. Rendering, animation, and the viewport see major performance boosts. Geometry Nodes expand further, especially for volumes and string handling, and shading gains the powerful Raycast node, ideal for NPR workflows.

Compositing, Video Sequencer, modeling, and snapping get polish, and hundreds of bug fixes and optimizations make Blender faster, stable, and more reliable. Many libraries have been updated to align with the VFX Platform 2026, including Python 3.13.

Explore the release notes to see everything new!

Watch the video summary on Blender’s YouTube channel.

Releases are made possible thanks to the contributions of the Blender community, and the support of over 7800 individuals and 44 organizations contributing to the Blender Development Fund.

Happy Blending! 

The Blender Team
March 17th, 2026

Blender Foundation is thrilled to announce that Netflix Animation Studios is joining the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron.

This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development, to continuously improve content creation tools for individuals and teams working in media and entertainment-related workflows.

This membership is a significant acknowledgement of Blender becoming more embedded in high-end animation studios’ workflows. I deeply appreciate this strategic initiative from Netflix Animation Studios as an investment in a diverse, public, and open-source friendly ecosystem of creative tools that will benefit the global community of content creators.

Francesco Siddi, CEO at Blender

Netflix Animation Studios’ corporate membership with Blender reflects our ongoing support for open-source software in the animation community. We are proud to be the first major animation studio to support Blender’s continued development and growing adoption by current and future generations of animation professionals.

Darin Grant, SVP Global Technology at Netflix Animation Studios

Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services, with over 300 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time. Discover more about Netflix Animation Studios at https://www.netflixanimation.com/

Blender, the world’s most popular free and open-source 3D creation software, offers a comprehensive solution for modelling, animation, VFX, and more. Maintained by the Blender Foundation, it’s the tool of choice for a vast global community of professional artists and enthusiasts, committed to open collaboration and 3D technology innovation.

Blender Foundation and the online developer community proudly present Blender 5.0!

Blender 5.0 is good news across the board. For many, the biggest change is probably the full support for ACES pipelines, improved color management, and HDR capabilities. For others, it might be the new Volumes and SDF nodes in Geometry Nodes. Storytellers will appreciate the new Storyboarding template, if you’re further along in your project perhaps all the new Array or Scatter on Surface modifiers for modeling, the reworked UV Sync, or you may enjoy all the animation and rigging improvements. One thing is certain, everyone will benefit from the 588 bugs fixed.

Explore the release notes for an in-depth look at what’s new!

Watch the video summary on Blender’s YouTube channel.

This work is made possible thanks to the outstanding contributions of the Blender community, and the support of the over 7900 individuals and 41 organizations contributing to the Blender Development Fund.

Happy Blending! 

The Blender Team
November 18th, 2025

At today’s Blender Conference keynote, Ton Roosendaal announced to step down as chairman and Blender CEO per January 1st 2026, passing on his roles to Blender COO Francesco Siddi. New Blender Foundation board positions will also include Sergey Sharybin (head of development), Dalai Felinto (head of product) and Fiona Cohen (head of operations).

Francesco Siddi has been part of the Blender organization since 2012, functioning in many roles including as animator, web developer, pipeline developer, producer and managing Blender’s industry relations.

“We’ve been preparing for this since 2019,” said Roosendaal, “I am very proud to have such a wonderfully talented young team around me to bring our free and open source project into the next decade.”

Ton Roosendaal will move to the newly established BF supervisory board.

More details will be provided later this year.

Amsterdam, 17-09-2025

Blender Foundation

Blender Foundation is delighted to announce that Bolt Graphics, the developer of an upcoming graphics processor to enable faster renderings and simulations for users in the creative, gaming, and research industries, is joining the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron sponsor.

This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development, with the goal of continuously improving content creation tools for individuals and small teams.

Bolt Graphics’ vision of open source tools being a key component of the content creation landscape is strongly aligned with Blender. We are grateful for this support, which enables core development activities that will benefit the entire community.

Francesco Siddi, COO at Blender

It’s important to us that everyone has access to high quality content creation tools no matter their budget. Our team uses Blender everyday to benchmark our technology and create art. I grew up using Blender myself when I had no money to give back, so being able to support Blender at the Patron level now is a dream come true!

Darwesh Singh, Founder, CEO, CTO at Bolt Graphics

Bolt Graphics is a semiconductor startup building the fastest and most efficient graphics processors for rendering, HPC, and gaming. Power consumption continues to rise with minimal performance improvements, resulting in increased cost and negative environmental impact. Our mission is to reduce the barrier of entry for content creation and consumption to enable everyone to easily create, simulate and consume immersive experiences as vividly as they can imagine them.

Blender, the world’s most popular free and open-source 3D creation software, offers a comprehensive solution for modelling, animation, VFX, and more. Maintained by the Blender Foundation, it’s the tool of choice for a vast global community of professional artists and enthusiasts, committed to open collaboration and 3D technology innovation.

Blender Studio has partnered up with GRAMMY Award-winning rock band OK Go, BAFTA-winning filmmaker and animator Will Anderson, and acclaimed designer and artist Lucas Zanotto to bring their track “Impulse Purchase” to life in a spectacular new visual. Watch it HERE. 

Crafted entirely in Blender, the “Impulse Purchase” visual combines Will Anderson’s signature fun and quirky animation style with Lucas Zanotto’s iconic design language. OK Go frontman Damian Kulash controlled the main character in real time via face-capture; unlike the careful determinism of traditional animation, this system captures a live performance.

It began with my love of Lucas Zanatto’s short animated loops — they’re so inventive, so full of joy, always delivering little doses of the kind of wonder we’re always searching for in our own videos.  So I thought the universe flowing from his brain might be the perfect setting for a lyric video, but when I reached out to him, he had a more ambitious project to propose: a ‘live performance’ with me as one of his characters. Suddenly it was a much weirder, more wonderful project than what I’d envisioned. 

OK Go frontman and video director, Damian Kulash

The pair teamed up with Will Anderson to design a dynamic procedural system in Blender for puppeting  a digital character via face-capture software that anyone can use. The clip released today features a performance tracking Damian’s face, but, like all Blender Studio projects, the source files for “Impulse Purchase” are free for all to use and adapt, and the Blenderheads have already started going wild with them.

All of the necessary files, tools, and documentation, are available for download on the Blender Studio website. The project aims to share both the file and the process behind it, so users can not only interact with the main character from the video, but also learn how to create their own interactive animations.

Blender Studio is all about exploring technical and artistic solutions for creative challenges, and this project is a perfect example. We are proud to support and partner with these talented artists, who share Blender’s values of creating and sharing knowledge with the world. 

Blender COO, Francesco Siddi

Blender Foundation is delighted to announce that Wacom, the pioneer of digital pen and tablet technology, announced an expanded its strategic partnership with Blender, the world’s leading open-source 3D creation suite. 

As part of this enhanced relationship, Wacom will upgrade its support to Patron-level sponsorship of the Blender Development fund program. The partnership focuses on the optimization of the pen and touch performance and the development of a next-generation Blender experience for Android tablets – a critical step in making 3D creation more mobile and intuitive for artists, educators, and innovators worldwide.

We see a deep, shared understanding between Blender and Wacom of the transformative value of creative tools. Our joint responsibility and passion for the creative community drives us to enhance how creators interact with their tools – whether in studios, classrooms, or on-the-go.

Nobutaka Ide, Wacom President and CEO

Our collaboration with Wacom is a major step in making Blender more intuitive on pen and touch devices,” said . “It’s about bringing the full power of Blender to where artists are—on tablets, on the move, and beyond the mouse and keyboard.

Francesco Siddi, COO at Blender

Wacom is a global leader in digital pen solutions, offering intuitive tools for writing and drawing. Our products are trusted across creative fields—from studios and classrooms to healthcare—supporting students and professionals alike. Wacom pen technologies also power many pen-enabled PCs, tablets, and phones through partnerships with top tech brands.

Blender, the world’s most popular free and open-source 3D creation software, offers a comprehensive solution for modelling, animation, VFX, and more. Maintained by the Blender Foundation, it’s the tool of choice for a vast global community of professional artists and enthusiasts, committed to open collaboration and 3D technology innovation.