Officials have announced the release of the latest version of Blender, a free, open-source tool for 3D modeling and animation, adding a collection of bug fixes and new features, including subsurface scattering support.
The release, version 2.44, was originally intended simply to address bugs within the program, however the developers took the opportunity to make Blender now fully 64 bit compatible. The update also includes an update to the software's mesh primitives, as well as new modifiers (“smooth” and “cast”) and new composite nodes, expanding Blender's composite node editor.
The addition of subsurface scattering is the biggest update introduced with version 2.44. This new material option allows users to render surfaces such as skin, marble or milk. Materials such as these permit light to scatter under the surface and leave at another position, leading to a softer appearance, as light is blurred out over the surface.
Other changes include tweaks to the tool's Bullet physics engine to “give better reproducibility and precision/quality for physics simulations,” and character animation updates including a new constraint and a new "preview range" option.
