Blender 4.2 LTS Beta

We are just a few weeks away from the release of Blender 4.2 LTS. A major upgrade with loads of new features and improvements that require testing.

It is impossible for developers to cover all use cases that need to be tested, this is where the power of the community comes in. Let’s put it to the test!

What to Test

While Blender 4.2 LTS brings updates in pretty much every corner, some of the main ones are:

  • EEVEE – Known as project “EEVEE Next”, a new render engine replaces the old one and needs as much testing as possible. Open your old files and check that they render properly. Read the migration process for details.
  • Cycles – Ray Portals, Thin Film Interference, updates to shaders, denoising, sampling, and more. Open your old scenes and check if they still render the same.
  • GPU-accelerated Compositor – A new performance setting allows you to use the GPU to compute the compositing. Find it under the Performance panel in Render properties. In most cases it should render faster and look fairly similar (although not 100% the same).
  • Python API – Try out the new methods, commands, and see if the documentation about breaking changes regarding statically typed IDProperties, EEVEE, and others is clear.

Plus plenty of new features such as the introduction of Extensions, per-collection export, sculpt polyline tools, re-visited Shade Auto Smooth workflow, and so much more.

Hardware Requirements

Hardware requirements have changed as well, on Windows and Linux a CPU with SSE4.2 is now required. This is supported since AMD Bulldozer (2011) and Intel Nehalem (2008).

Make sure to check the full list of compatibility changes (for Blender 4.2 LTS and future releases).

How to Test

Testing can be pretty straight forward:

  1. Download the latest Blender 4.2 LTS Beta
  2. Open your old scenes (backup first just in case)
  3. Check that everything looks and works fine
  4. Found a bug? Report it. Within Blender go to Help → Report a Bug.
    Read more about writing good bug reports.

You can also try out the usual demo files.

For feedback on the features and changes, check the individual threads under Feature & Design Feedback on the forums.

Thank you for helping to make Blender rock solid!

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31 comments

  1. A Light Link feature in Eevee would be very useful. Are there any plans for this option in a future version? The possibility of using light nodes is also interesting.

  2. The volumes in blender 4.2 release candidate refuse to show.
    Each time I add a volume scatter or principled volume, nothing shows up. The cube becomes invisible.
    This problem only exists in eevee next.
    I’m running blender 4.2 on a gtx 1070.
    I dont know if this is a bug or some hidden feature I’m supposed to activate.

    • When in doubt, always report please.

      Go to the Help menu, “Report a Bug”, this way information about your OS and current drivers (which should always be up-to-date btw!) comes along the report.

      Thanks!

  3. Why is not the simulation side of blender (other than simulation nodes) getting improved, like, correct me if I am wrong but I have barely seen any updates with blenders physics systems, Mantaflow is still very slow at times and rigid bodies still don’t work well with large scenes, there is also little flexibility and range with the existing fracturing tools that blender has, like cell fracture

  4. Blender v4.2 EEVEE (Raytracing) Flamenco v3.5
    https://youtu.be/1Juo92ZKP3w

  5. Hello, in the use of the new Eevee renderer, everyone has found that under the material preview viewport, as long as it is enabled, it will occupy the corresponding value of video memory space. For some complex scenes, the reaction speed will be slowed down.
    Hope for more intuitive optimizations.

  6. When will Blender get rid of the Title bar (as requested in right-click select for years)?
    https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/bKfbbc/?sorting=hot

    Are there plans to improve Texture drawing any time soon with improved brush (keeping the size, etc) and layers?

  7. para cuando la IA en blender? un de 2d a 3d directo?

  8. I hope you continue to develop updates after the asset library. For example, the ability to make animations a library

  9. l love you guys and also love blender,pray you guys get what your goal was for creating it and am planing on donating because this tool is one that one could hope to be free but you guys have given chance to all creaters and artists in the world to develop our talents

  10. 1 view from many cameras in seperate vindows
    2 full functionaly sketch style like a sketchup for architecture

  11. There have been many changes in the shortcuts from version 4.1, and there is no comprehensive article or resource summarizing these changes. I wish the shortcuts hadn’t changed so much.

    I had to download the legacy addon pack to get the addons I used before, like LoopTools and F2. It was a hassle to disable all the new addons I didn’t recognize or use.

    I wish we could choose the addons we want to install from the beginning, just like in version 4.1.

    • I agree with that 100%

      Due to my illness, it is very difficult for me to remember things like shortcuts.

      I have been using Blender since version 2.8 and only with version 3.6 have I mastered the most important shortcuts.

      That is why I only use LTS versions.

      I also wish that we could use the addons we want to install from the beginning, just like in version 4.1

    • > There have been many changes in the shortcuts from version 4.1

      Which ones did you notice? I don’t think there have been any shortcut changes between 4.1 and 4.2? At least not that I remember or that are highlighted in the release notes.

      • Sorry, I only noticed the error now.

        I wanted to write version 3.6. This is the LTS version I am currently using.

        That’s the curse of the disease. Sorry again

        • There is a page that lists all of the keymap changes from 3.6 to 4.0: https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/4.0/keymap/

          I hope this helps.
          Keep in mind that there are two different keymaps in Blender: The default Blender keymap, and the “Industry Compatible Keymap”. Both received large changes in the 4.0 release. If you use the default Blender keymap you can ignore all of the changes under the “Industry Compatible Keymap” section of that page.

  12. Adding shadow catcher to EEVEE next would be a really great touch with the new
    Global illumination for VFX

  13. 1. I want to draw polyline inputting dimensions like CAD.
    2. I also want in edit mode offset edge slide only on one direction as an option with both side option.
    3. New add camera shortcut
    4. Modifiers could be used in group, sub group and all the child group in each layer.
    5. SketchUp 100% import export maintaining all the textures, components and layers.

  14. I want snapping to work on background scene also while I working in current scene.

  15. Should be highlighted more often on blender.org
    likewise for the extension platform when it becomes available.

    • We agree that Beta releases should be promoted more prominently, that’s what we are trying now by making this blog post and also announcing it on social media and blender.org homepage. Let’s hope it helps! Otherwise we can try again in 4 months.

  16. A lot of artists are switching over to Plasticity because of its ease of use and flexibility. One of the main reasons is perhaps hard surface modeling.
    What’re your thoughts on this and will the same features (Plasticity) be introduced in blender anytime soon?

    • Ali, I bought Plasticity so I can address your question. Plasticity is by no means a replacement for Blender. Ask the developer and he will eagerly tell you this. It doesn’t –and will never–have a renderer or animation or any tools to properly add rich materials. There will never be simulations. Plasticity is a nice companion to Blender as it adds NURBS modeling features that standard DCCs like Blender, c4d, maya, max do not have.

    • I’d say that CAD tools are probably out of scope for Blender.

      • Surface Psycho is looking very promising for native NURBs.
        If Blender had a way of combining Grease Pencil views onto Technical Drawing Sheets (with View scales) then it would attract a mass of new users – and then hopefully more funding. This link is VERY close, I’m sure the Blender Devs could get it working with some minor tweaks. https://studio.blender.org/blog/automatic-model-sheets/

  17. Why wil in Blender 4.3 this be removed?

    Support for AMD and Intel GPUs through the Metal backend on macOS has been removed.

    • Basically most of the recent features were disabled already because they are super slow, since Apple hasn’t worked on supporting those in old hardware.

      Quoting one of the developers:

      Some of the features were already permanently disabled, and almost all newer features are conditionally disabled on those platforms as they cause huge performance regressions. So none of the development past the 4.2 state would be usable in practice, but it will cost a lot of development power trying to find workarounds to avoid regressions caused by refactors.

      Read more on DevTalk.

      If you need support for that hardware the best you can do is dual-boot Linux (or Windows even) to extend the lifetime of your hardware as long as possible. Anyways Blender 4.2 is an LTS release meaning rendering using AMD and Intel GPUs will have support until 2026.

      • Ok I understand at some point you must look into the future :)

        I’m really missing Blender Today, Pablo :(
        Do you already know how/what will be done in the future on youtube?

        Could it be possible to make a video about 4.2 LTS? Many big changes!
        I enjoyed the extensions platform video and it really got me up-to-date!

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