At the beginning of 2025, several projects were announced as the initial targets for the year. Now that we’re in the middle of the second quarter, let’s take a look at where each project stands.
Complete
Vulkan
Vulkan is now officially supported in the upcoming 4.5 LTS release, offering feature parity and comparable performance to the OpenGL backend.
The next step is to monitor bug reports and eventually make it the default backend for non-macOS systems.
Almost Complete
UV Sync
All issues from the (five-year-old!) UV Sync design task have been addressed. Development is ongoing in the pr-uv-sync-select branch (builds are available here).
The remaining work involves finalizing the port of certain selection operators and resolving minor issues. Follow the project at #136817.
Better integration across node trees
The compositor is moving closer to feature parity with shading and geometry nodes, thanks to the addition of new nodes such as Vector Math, Vector Rotate, Vector Mix, Value Mix, Clamp, Float Curve, and Blackbody.
The next step is to expose most of the existing node options as socket inputs, (#137223). This will enable compositor node assets to be bundled with Blender.
After that, the focus will remain on simplifying onboarding for new compositor users by making node trees reusable (#135223).
In Progress
Project Setup
The first milestone (Blender variables) was recently merged. The next step is to handle Path Template errors in a more robust way.
After that, work will begin on the Project Definition phase. Follow the project at #133001.
Shape Keys Improvements
What was originally framed as a performance problem has shifted focus toward usability and management of shape keys.
As part of this, new operators for duplicating and updating shape keys have already been merged, with their mirrored counterparts to follow.
Additionally, work on multi-select and editing of shape keys is gaining momentum. Follow the project at #136838.
Remote Asset Libraries
The project has broadened in scope to address usability improvements, including:
- Preview generation for all selected assets.
- A more compact view with a horizontal list and two-line names.
- Snapping for dragged collection assets.
Meanwhile, the code for handling downloads has been submitted for review but encountered a setback.
Development is taking place in the remote-asset-library-monolithic branch. Follow the project at #134495.
Hair Dynamics
The Hair Dynamics project consists of multiple deliverables:
- Embedded Linked Data (#133801) — still under review
- Bundles and Closures — merged as experimental
- Declarative Systems — published as a design proposal
- Hair Solver — see below
For the hair (physics) solver, the plan is to use the upcoming Blender Studio project—currently unnamed but focused on a facial rig—as a use case, at least to develop it as an experimental feature.
This will also involve addressing existing issues with animated hair and integrating animation and simulation for the same character—initially using separate hair objects.
Design/Prototype
Texture cache and mipmaps
Initially unplanned due to limited resources, this project was eventually added to the agenda. A rudimentary prototype is already available in the cycles-tx branch. In the Attic and Bistro benchmark scenes, memory usage is already significantly reduced.
These scenes were chosen because they include texture cache (.tx) files. Follow the project at #68917.
NPR
The NPR (Non-Photo Realism) prototype received extensive feedback, helping to map out all planned and unsupported use cases for the project.
More details, including the final design and development plans, will be shared soon.
In brief:
- Some features will be implemented as EEVEE nodes.
- Others will be enabled via per-material/object compositing nodes.
EEVEE features will be prioritized first, while the per-material/object compositing nodes require further design.
Story Tools
So far, the focus has been on prototyping and finalizing the design to pull VSE strips out of the scene and create a dedicated sequence data-block.
The next step is to finalize the design by either:
- Exploring once more the idea of keeping the sequence as part of the scene; or
- Settling on a per-camera and file settings design.
After that, a technical breakdown will follow, then development. Follow the project at #131329.
Not Started
Layered Sculpting
Layered sculpting hasn’t started yet. The original plan was to first address multi-resolution undo and rebuild issues, followed by fixing propagation spikes.
However, in recent months the focus shifted to tackling sculpting performance issues present since the 4.3 release, mainly:
- Performance problems with smaller brush strokes.
- Local brush management.
The performance patches are currently under review and expected in time for the upcoming 4.5 LTS release. Once completed, work on undo and multi-resolution will resume.
Dynamic Overrides
The team is busy with the 5.0 breaking change targets and other tasks and could not reserve the time to start the initial changes expected to simplify the overrides process.
The team is currently focused on the 5.0 breaking change targets and other tasks, so they have not yet been able to start the initial changes aimed at simplifying the overrides process.
And more…
Beyond these projects, daily activity continues across various development modules. For a more frequent, day-to-day view of progress, check out the Weekly Updates and Module Meetings.
All this progress is made possible thanks to donations and ongoing community involvement and contributions.
Support the Future of Blender
Donate to Blender by joining the Development Fund to support the Blender Foundation’s work on core development, maintenance, and new releases.
