Blender 2.8 Beta

We’ve now officially entered the Beta phase of development for Blender 2.8. That means all the major features are in place, and the Blender core developers start focusing on bug fixes and polishing features based on user feedback. For users this means there will be fewer disruptive changes.

Blender 2.80 Beta is available for download as a continuously updating build, getting more stable and day by day.

We do not recommend using Beta versions in production, there are still many bugs and data loss is possible. The exact release data for Blender 2.80 final is unknown at this point, but we estimate at least 4 months before things are fully stable.

Add-on authors can now start updating their code for Blender 2.8. There may still be some smaller API changes, particularly if user feedback requires use to adjust new features. However in general we will try to keep breaking changes limited.

The bug tracker is open for any bug reports. We expect there will be many reports, so it may take a while for a developer to get to yours. As usual, please carefully follow the bug reporting instructions to make the process as efficient as possible.

71 comments
  1. Rebrand it as 3.0 to distinguish it from the 2.X family! It deserves a distinction of its own! Thanks for a great release!

  2. At first I was excited as many others, but after trying the current Blender 2.8 BETA, and I’m quite concerned.

    – The new hardware requirements exclude many people. Blender used to be the accessible, very light-weight and fast alternative to other monsters out there. Humble and at the same time superbly powerful. – What has changed?
    – The focus on fancy viewport rendering might be nice for people who do rendering in the first place. – When I model and animate 3D content for realtime use, I normally do not require expensive and “image-altering” shading methods. WYSIWYG. To see the raw polygons and texture with some simple shading is enough. – Blender Render (maybe even BGE) was good and quick for doing that.
    Now, as it seems (please correct me) there’s not a single viewport mode anymore, where you can see simple OpenGL materials. Not everybody works with BSDF/PBR etc. – Sometimes a simple textures on flat shaded or even non-shaded polygon is enough. – To setup an emission shader in the nodes editor to make something that basic is cumbersome. Please bring Blender Render back. Why do you introduce SO MANY totally new features at the same time? – Like the new Workbench Render? That’s totally fringe and clutters the program even more. – Why not grow and develop things in a slow, incremental and feedback driven fashion?
    – Crashes. Although my graphics card supports OpenGL 3.3, Blender 2.8 BETA crashes often, esp. when I try to switch from viewport mode to another (e.g. LookDev).
    – The new GUI hides important features. Cleaner looks do not help in some cases.
    – Remove doubles. Search by default with space.

  3. wow so out there !!! Thank you for the hard work.!!!

  4. That is incredible, I can’t even believe in that. Congratulations! For sure I will test it, I’m very excited with all these features.

  5. Hi, i am a Mac User long time, now after 20 years I am switching to a PC got a AMD Threadripper 2950x and a Titan RTX, would like to use Linux instead of Windows, is it possible ? How is the performance, compared to Windows, do I have the full potential of the Hardware in Linux, thanks

  6. Rip Blender 2019, the new UI is a pain in the ass.

  7. Hello again
    Other very important feature for Blender would be modelling through procedural textures. Just as an idea i modelled several fungus but could not controll its shape detail as i would with a procedural texture so the holes on it must be retouched by hand if you want a realustic result…
    More procedural types would be great for extrude or make holes in shapes!!!

  8. I wanted to ask the Dev is there any plan to improve the unpacking algorithms of UVs? everything else is great except this unpacking it’s really sad.

    I am convincing the team to switch from Maya to Blender the only drawback for them for this time was Unfold is better than Blender current UV Unpack.

    Thank you for the time Dev as always!

  9. the textools was gone in the new release of blender 2019-01-17 10:44 latest build.

  10. Hi, I love blender, but in 2.8 beta Its completely slow, I Use a mac book pro mid-2012, whit two video cards, Intel 4000 HD and an Nvidia gt 650M, I so sad, my pc isn’t gonna be compatible with blender any more? :(

    Thanks for your time.

  11. Thanks for the great work and dedication, you put a lot of love into this and it’s tangible in every detail.

    The GreasePencil is a great tool. It is a major step, more because of the design than the technology. In other words, you identified the potential and accordingly designed the technology so it can seduce creation in this lane. The hype around speaks high show it a success.

    Obviously, I struggle with it, probably because it’s a ‘new software’ inside Blender.
    In particular I noted the following:

    – Points – what are they exactly, how to they differ from Vertices and why they form stroke and not an edge? I didn’t find clear info about it.

    – Fill Color acts in a very erratic manner. It fills parts of the form and what seems to be arbitrary division. It varies with the brush type and I lose the logic behind, I’m sure there is, I just cannot connect with it.
    – When ‘fill’ layer is added and is set separately from the lines layer the system crashes. (I reported a bug on that regard).

    Looking forward for explore and keep this great work, brilliant.

  12. Error, invalid syntax! This sentence is incorrect.

    “Blender 2.80 Beta is available for download as a continuously updating build, getting more stable and day by day.”

    It should read, “Blender 2.80 Beta is available for download as a continuously updating build, getting more stable day by day.”

  13. Antes que nada felicitaciones por este espectacular Software!!!. Pero el 2.80 beta no me funciona. (Beta 2.80 is not working in my pc)
    Directamente no arranca. (It crashes at the starting). Tengo windows 7 de 32 bits. en una Lenovo c 205. AMD e-350.
    Espero respuesta o sugerencias, muchas gracias!

  14. I happy for this 2.8 version and I implement my scripts to the new API version.
    Please remove usercounter because my symantec remove the executable file.

    Gabor

  15. Release the Blender!

  16. Do a lot of modelling and after about 3 weeks I dont go back to 2.79 anymore. I love it. It still crashes randomly so save your work more often. Undoing (assigned materials to faces e.g.) sometimes gives unpredictable effects.
    To bad that you cant bake normal maps in Eevee, but Bumpmapping go fine.
    Congrats with this great update!!!!!

  17. when i delete anything, then software get crashing

  18. Thank you devs for your hard work. This is fantastic! [Two thumbs up!!]

  19. Hello guys,

    I used the beta version yesterday on both desktop and notebook. Somehow, only on my desktop, when i delete an object on viewport, blender closes without any notifaction. I think there is a bug.
    Thank you for all.

    • I ran into that yesterday. The good news is it’s already fixed. :D

  20. Congratulations blender. The world will never be the same now

  21. i just started using the beta a few days ago after getting over my initial ‘they changed it now it sucks’ allergies. I’ve gotta say love it so far but there are a few small things that still feel a little awkward.

    like how using the mouse inside the dope sheet is still right click to move the timeline around by default and I did notice that turning on emulate num-pad button basically over wrote my ability to change from vertice, edge and face mode. i know these are nit picks and 2.8 feels a lot better than previous versions, thank you for all the hard work ^^

  22. It would be very good for Blender to implement a real LOD (Level Of Detail) feature. I mean the object (shape) substitute method of course. Think in game developers not changing to Blender because this…. and also…. rotoscopy not solved for Eevee… volumetric shapes…..
    Eevee needs a lot more programming and optimization i think…. but it is a great step for 2.8. Maybe in future versions….?
    If Blender developers solve those problems and improve big data scenes performance and dynamic simulations…. i am sure many big companies will change their minds about Blender as a MAIN PRODUCTION tool….

  23. Im wondering one thing in these Builds. Why are they released with not ready addons. That makes the download size bigger than needed.

  24. 2D Related:
    – The grease pencil stuff is great, but as far as I remember, the alpha version had a much better erase tool. Not sure if they changed the way the lines are made now or if its the erase tool, but with the hard erase, I get semi transparent edges and can clearly see where each vertices are because the lines erase to specific points. Not like before where it felt like I was erasing a drawing at the exact spots I touched. The drawing part of it I have 0 complaints about because it feels amazing, but the erasing worked better in Alpha. Of course better fill tools would be nice. (I’m sure that’s already been addressed/is planned to be improved though, so won’t go into detail)

    – Image sequences are not working as far as I can tell. If anything, I’m sure probably will be implemented on full release, but if not: I can import images as planes, but Image Sequence won’t work. I used image sequences all the time in 2.78, but pretty sure it’s not working. If it is, please let me know how to have it work whoever knows/reads this. Also import images as planes can’t be accessed with the shift a shortcut anymore (shift a bringing up the menu to put geometry in)

    If anyone has info on these, would love to know. Let me know if I’m mistaken about the eraser tool. I deleted 2.8 Alpha and only used a couple times, but I’m almost certain of the eraser thing because I really hate the eraser in Opentoonz and thinking that Blender 2.8 Alpha’s eraser was perfect.

  25. The apearance of icons in the middle with a click is wonderful. Can more operations possible to add, and to apear and disapear with mouse move.

  26. Thanks a ton, Ton and team!

    :D

  27. I need help from someone who knows Blender Python API.
    I am adapting old addon “Sure UVW Map” and in 2.80 TOOL_PROPS floating panel in 3D does not appear when pushing the button to run the action. Action is running but panel does not show up.
    Here is the addon to download:
    https://github.com/muchasty/Lightmap-Auto-UV/tree/master/SureUVbox-2.80

    Please help!

  28. Thank you for this new release, it’s looking nice so far.
    I only have one question because I failed to find a solution despite the many tries: is the particle hair missing in the final render a bug, or am I missing something key? Works fine in the viewport, but doesn’t show up on the image once it’s done. Before reporting I wanted to be sure it’s not an issue on my hand, thank you!

  29. Nice guys! I had a bug: When I pressed control+z, everything glitched and crashed. But other than that, you guys totally surprised me!

  30. Is it possible to get a off of all the new keyboard shortcuts?

  31. Awesome work! Thank you guys and gals!!

  32. I would like to ask one question regarding keyboard shortcuts. I know there are a lot of changes in that area and I don’t mind them – I will learn new shortcuts when I will finally do the switch. But I have a question related to this:
    I want to do the switch from 2.79 now, not wait till release. I’m not working professionally in 3D, I’m just a hobbyist so beta stage is not very painful for me and I hope I could be useful for testing and bug-reporting this way. But since switch requires from me learning new set of shortcuts, I would like to know, how stable shortcut map is at this stage? Is it already established and only small cosmetic changes are expected during beta, or it’s still up to debate and shortcuts map might change significantly?

    • There won’t be a lot of changes anymore, probably a handful still to resolve conflicts with the tool system or other minor features.

      • Thanks for response. 2.80 downloaded and I will start using it from now. :)

  33. expecting transparent background rendering on eevee by quick toggle button
    you are just awesome

  34. I tried the Beta quickly after a few months of not checking at the Alpha and I can say that Blender on the surface at least feels like a professional software now. Let’s hope that it also works (and will continue to look) like one. This is an amazing development! Keep on the great work guys!

  35. And yes, we love your work.Thanks so much!! (was useful also the Ctrl + arrow UP for zoomify current window, hope it will return)

  36. Hi, loving the work guys, I download the new builds almost every 2nd day.
    Just wanted to see when the ALT+B sectioning tool was coming back. Also will there be an option to change pie menus to list in future.
    Thanks, keep up the awesome work.

  37. Where I can ask about my next graphic card for eevee and 2.8 in general? ( I’m actually thinking about a rtx 2080 on Linux Mint.. not supported yet?! .. )

  38. First of all, congratulations on this amazing milestone! I’ve seen quite a few comments of people disliking the new icons and I have to include myself, for it is very hard to distinguish features fast. Maybe we can have a vote? Or an option for the old icons? Anyways, I am sooo happy with 2.8 so far!

  39. i am beta

  40. Not very happy about this honestly. As addon dev I feel this has been pushed into the most stressful month for people with jobs. XMAS definitely not a good time to update addons to a news API.

    • The final release is still quite a few months a way. Add-on authors don’t have to start updating now, there is no rush.

      • Thanks for clarifying this! Sorry I can be negative at times when stressed out. Awesome work and very nice response, appreciate it and took some presoure out of my head.

  41. you guys are making a killer app especially with the brave moves recently , well done..however we would love to see more love for other areas in the future..here a free addon with it’s source(i don’t think the dev mind probably i should ask though) which i think at least should be an inspiration if not integerated directly to blender, but nontherless keep rocking ;)
    https://blenderartists.org/t/textools-for-blender/700811

  42. What an achievement, thanks to all who contributed to this. I left Blender for a while but what a great thing to lure me back in. ;)

  43. Nicely Done Blender team. Well done, and big thanks.

  44. Let’s go make this the biggest thing in CGI. Because now we can. Thank you!!!

  45. Will there be a signed release of “the beta”? So peeps on company machines can try it out too.
    That’d be great!

    • +1 for this. Maybe that would work with beta 1 beta 2 releases? Like 2.5 if I can trust my memory

  46. Huge thanks to all developers and users making Blender 2.80 Beta possible. It’s like the 2.50 days. There’s no turning back to older versions once you start to use 2.80.

    Ton, Pablo, Brecht, Campbell, Clément. Thank you guys!

  47. When will 2.8 be merged into Master?

    • Still to be decided. Either way we’ll keep what is master now around as a “stable” branch, so any change in this area would be mostly just naming.

  48. I was thinking this was an April Fools joke, but then remembered it’s not April but November. So this is AWESOME news. I am new to Blender and waited for this version so I didn’t have to learn one then another.

  49. Wow. Awesome work.

  50. Still can’t render with nvidia 2000 gpus… blender sure is “cutting edge” technology :X

  51. Very good news. Keep up the great work!

  52. Blender 2.8 is in Beta already? Oh my. Wasn’t expecting that until the end of the year given the major changes… no not this year, the next year.

  53. Thanks for all Blender team, we are so proud of you! <3

  54. Awesome work guys and gals. This update is a gamechanger. I’m going to download it right now and start playing with it until it breaks!

  55. i will be the first to say congratulation, long way to get here and we are entering a new age, this is history in the making and hopefully more awesome moments in the near future…i got just a simple question about future project, like everything nodes which i know it’s just in beginning phase..will we possible to have something like substance desinger for authoring materials..etc it’s now the norm to do PBR materials,i think this should be discussed with the core team and see how it’s possible.
    and to make things more interesting here a smart guy trying to do it in blender side, hopefully he grow and one day can contribute directly to blender , cheers.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAwRxkMKsNM

  56. Sweet! Polishing time

  57. Greaaaaat! You guys are the best! Thank you for your hard work!!

In order to prevent spam, comments are closed 15 days after the post is published.
Feel free to continue the conversation on the forums.