Blender 2.57 is Released – Video Overview

by Jonathan Williamson

Blender 2.57 is released and available now! With many new features and thousands of bug fixes, Blender 2.57 is the first official, non-beta of 2.5x and is available now after two full years of development: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

Below you will find an overview video of Blender 2.57 that goes through all the changes and additions to Blender 2.57 since 2.56.

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Discussion

65 Responses to “Blender 2.57 is Released – Video Overview”
  1. Gottfried Hofmann
    Posts: 25

    Thanks for the overview – had missed a few things :)

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    1
     Apr 13, 2011 at 4:29 pm
  2. Christopher Wright
    Posts: 13

    Is there a way you could make a tutorial for the 3delight render engine with blender? that’d be awesome. I wanna try other render engines, other than povray/yafaray/etc.

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    2
     Apr 13, 2011 at 5:28 pm
  3. JOHNSON VICTOR
    Posts: 6

    yeah i agree with wright and how can i use luxrender on this?

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    3
     Apr 13, 2011 at 6:07 pm
  4. Jean-Paul
    Posts: 4

    It’s very impressive, now it’s realy return to the last session when it crash with a new Addon (joke).
    Thanks for all of these improvements to the team.

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    4
     Apr 13, 2011 at 6:16 pm
  5. moonwolf12
    Posts: 2

    You forgot to mention that with Windows users the second Python window isn’t there any more when you open the program.

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    5
     Apr 13, 2011 at 6:30 pm
    • Greg Zaal
      Posts: 39

      uhm… yeah it is :P for me anyways

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      5.1
       Apr 14, 2011 at 11:16 am
    • ickathu
      Posts: 14

      Yeah… the console window is not here for me either..

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      5.2
       Apr 14, 2011 at 9:10 pm
  6. Danny Kneip
    Posts: 175

    OK!! I’m starting to get real excited now!! :D

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    6
     Apr 13, 2011 at 7:28 pm
  7. Andy Ghysels
    Posts: 1

    They need the external window for you to play your games on w/o Blender. I think it was a runtime thing? That needs to come back

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    7
     Apr 13, 2011 at 8:08 pm
  8. Victor Feitosa
    Posts: 1

    Still i miss backface culling in Blender. My normals are never perfect when i export to another program…

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    8
     Apr 13, 2011 at 8:13 pm
  9. Aditia A. Pratama
    Posts: 10

    thanks mate…it will be a legend :)

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    9
     Apr 13, 2011 at 9:45 pm
  10. ammonite
    Posts: 2

    +1 for 3delight

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    10
     Apr 13, 2011 at 9:49 pm
    • SCUEY
      Posts: 10

      +1 for 3Delight from me too.

      I got the installation working previously, but now – after some reinstalls and new blender versions – I can’t get it to work. Also, a general overview would be really great. I know Matt Ebb had said he was working on a working version for the exporter (for 2.57? Don’t remember). So, what I mean is, I don’t remember if the current version of the exporter works with 2.57 yet. When this is ready, I think a tutorial would be awesome!

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      10.1
       Apr 27, 2011 at 11:15 am
  11. Ben
    Posts: 24

    Are two sided textures in 2.57??

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    11
     Apr 13, 2011 at 10:28 pm
    • Paulo Bardes
      Posts: 53

      As far as I know the two sided textures were there for a long time, before 2.53 I think…

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      11.1
       Apr 14, 2011 at 5:27 pm
  12. comeinandburn
    Posts: 62

    You’re doing a real service to the Blender community by giving updates of new tools and additions in each release.

    thanks Jonathon!

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    12
     Apr 13, 2011 at 10:45 pm
  13. verticies
    Posts: 228

    In 2.49 Preferences you could go to the OPEN GL tab and there were 3 sphere’s you could use to adjust the lighting for the 3D view port and game engine. Is it hiding somewhere or is it gone?

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    13
     Apr 13, 2011 at 11:30 pm
    • Richard
      Posts: 73

      User Preferences (ctrl+alt+U or file menu) > System tab. It’s on the right hand side of the window.

      It’s no longer three spheres. You can chooses the X,Y and Z direction of the lamps, as well as the diffuse and specular colours. Pressing the light bulb icons will toggle the lamp on/off to see the effect in the 3D-view port.

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      13.1
       Apr 14, 2011 at 7:30 am
      • verticies
        Posts: 228

        Sweet, THANKS :)

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        13.1.1
         Apr 14, 2011 at 12:38 pm
      • verticies
        Posts: 228

        Thanks for showing me, got to say the spheres were much easier to control.

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        13.1.2
         Apr 14, 2011 at 12:46 pm
  14. Philippe M.
    Posts: 43

    …I’m kinda speechless. And frustrated that it’s 2am and I can’t try any of these awesome new tools out :( I spent what time I had editing a new tutorial…oh, and Alpha in the Node Editor’s Backdrop option?!? I was talking about that in the tutorial! O_o

    thanks a tonne for this video Jonathan, it’s awesome to be able to watch overviews like this :D

    …Node Groups! Bridge! Float! argh, awesomeness overload! will I be able to sleep at all with stuff like that sitting unused in my laptop? ;)

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    14
     Apr 14, 2011 at 1:05 am
  15. M@xo
    Posts: 3

    the loop tools are real saviours for modeling! i remember merging faces 1 by 1 for ours while moddeling a spacecraft! :D

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    15
     Apr 14, 2011 at 3:25 am
  16. Seba
    Posts: 4

    Excellent, I like this kind of occasional video showing at one time a bunch of useful functions.
    Thanks Jonathan for this overview.

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    16
     Apr 14, 2011 at 4:20 am
  17. AL_NERI
    Posts: 1

    Still no such thing as Extrude Inset?

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    17
     Apr 14, 2011 at 5:32 am
    • Joe
      Posts: 5

      hit E for extrude then hit S right away for scale.

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      17.1
       Apr 14, 2011 at 10:22 am
      • Daniel
        Posts: 3

        That isn’t really the same thing.

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        17.1.1
         Apr 14, 2011 at 11:21 am
    • Brian Lockett
      Posts: 38

      Well, until Blender does have this by official or community support, you could use Wings 3D for your Extrude Inset modeling needs. In the mean time, maybe someone will work on an Extrude Inset add-on (or an add-on for extended Extrude features altogether) if you bring it up on Blender Artist. Heck, if I can make some time for it, I could take a whack at it! That’d make a good first add-on for me.

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      17.2
       Apr 14, 2011 at 11:46 am
  18. John D Smith II
    Posts: 234

    wow nice. thank God for the bridging and lofting and such. Blender is now almost meeting my every need! There is really only one thing that seems to be missing for me now… When will we get Reactor Particles back??? Am I the only one who would use these all the time? When I think about manually placing a new particle system for each of my original particles and getting them all perfectly lined up and timed… my hair stands on end! I mean how else can you do good fireworks? or a meteor shower crashing and breaking up or exploding on impact? Secondary explosions? It seems as tho they would save such VAST amounts of time and effort. I could be overlooking some other easy way to do these things but my guess is that there are so few professional Blender users that a heavy tool like this just isn’t thought about and is getting overlooked. Personally I prefer Blender over Max any day, unless I’m making a landscape(yet to try Maya tho) so I hope to see it back soon! But if anyone knows a good work around, Please let me know! Thanks for the overview BlenderCookie!

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    18
     Apr 14, 2011 at 7:44 am
    • Fábio
      Posts: 1

      I missing some IPO Curves and the reactor particles, too.

      Maybe you can create the fireworks and explosion/crashing effects using blender 2.49 and combine with your scene created in blender 2.57 by using Node Editor.

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      18.1
       Apr 14, 2011 at 12:41 pm
      • John D Smith II
        Posts: 234

        hehe, I’d rather do it all by hand if it means avoiding Blender2.49! It is even more UN-intuitive than Max is…and thats saying a lot.

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        18.1.1
         Apr 15, 2011 at 8:13 am
  19. John D Smith II
    Posts: 234

    Ohh! Yes! I finally found it on a todo list. Eagerly anticipating!

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    19
     Apr 14, 2011 at 8:39 am
  20. Jonathan Torres
    Posts: 12

    Sweet I love the bridge tool, The improvements in 2.57 are by far surpassing than 2.56 :D I wonder if they will ever add the reactor option in the particles/physics system?

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    20
     Apr 14, 2011 at 9:56 am
  21. Max Berends
    Posts: 169

    anyone know’s if the treescript is now included? haven’t been able to spot it yet…
    Great walktrough!

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    21
     Apr 14, 2011 at 10:14 am
  22. jeanedouard
    Posts: 4

    a million thanks Jonathan!!

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    22
     Apr 14, 2011 at 10:19 am
  23. Austen C.
    Posts: 2

    Live Unwrap, yes! Thanks for the video!

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    23
     Apr 14, 2011 at 11:13 am
  24. mikh3x4
    Posts: 12

    I want my reactor particles!!!
    or node particles

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    24
     Apr 14, 2011 at 11:25 am
  25. Brian Lockett
    Posts: 38

    I’m glad for those things that Blender does again that is used to do, but I’m gladder about the features Blender never had! I also appreciate the neater reorganizations of physics features and better revisions of the node group feature as well. The progress made in developing Blender is nothing short of amazing! I love Blender 2.57! I think when B-Mesh comes out, unlimited clay is finished, and YafaRay and LuxRender development for 2.57+ are stable, Blender will basically be the perfect 3D package (as least for me). I already prefer Blender over Maya and Max.

    Thank you for this informative video, Jonathan!

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    25
     Apr 14, 2011 at 11:39 am
  26. James F
    Posts: 54

    Thanks alot for this video, these updates are really awesome, 3 cheers to those guys at the Blender Foundation!

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    26
     Apr 14, 2011 at 3:51 pm
  27. Carlos Sosa
    Posts: 14

    awesome tutorial, 2.57 rocks!!!

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    27
     Apr 14, 2011 at 9:00 pm
  28. Mike
    Posts: 17

    As the scaling in 2.57 been changed?
    It used to be that I could scale as much as I want when pressing s then moving the cursor (as it reappeared of the other side of the screen). Now I can’t seem to do that anymore in this version :( The scaling is limited within the screen area.

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    28
     Apr 14, 2011 at 10:35 pm
    • doug rowland
      Posts: 8

      lol my bad i just saw this and posted without reading

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      28.1
       Apr 15, 2011 at 12:22 am
  29. doug rowland
    Posts: 8

    anyone know why they got rid of the wrap around mouse? like when you would scale or move something you could move the mouse forever in a direction and the mouse wouldn’t stop when you reached the end of your screen?

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    29
     Apr 15, 2011 at 12:22 am
    • Mike
      Posts: 17

      I have figured out how to solve this :D

      Got to user preferences -> Input -> then on the top left, under the mouse section, you see “Continuous Grab”. Check that then it will go back to the way it was :D

      Enjoy

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      29.1
       Apr 15, 2011 at 12:49 am
      • doug rowland
        Posts: 8

        i had that thought too after i posted. just signed back on to put that as well. thanks mike!

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        29.1.1
         Apr 15, 2011 at 2:17 am
  30. ron the hybrid
    Posts: 8

    Great Video as always! I’m just wonder, how does one get the ‘Operator’ on the Toolshelf?

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    30
     Apr 15, 2011 at 2:33 am
  31. Can
    Posts: 4

    Hey Jonathan. I want to ask, if on blendercookie.com there is a fluid tutorial ??

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    31
     Apr 15, 2011 at 4:45 am
  32. Marv
    Posts: 2

    Thanks for the overview Jonathan.Could you please tell me how you are toggling through the bone color sets without opening the menu at min 22:59 ?

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    32
     Apr 15, 2011 at 9:47 am
    • Jonathan Williamson
      Posts: 2965

      ALT + Scroll up/down :)

      -Jonathan

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      32.1
       Apr 15, 2011 at 10:01 am
      • Marv
        Posts: 2

        Thank you so much, I’ve been looking for that functionality for ages but only tried scrolling :-)

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        32.1.1
         Apr 15, 2011 at 10:55 am
  33. Konstantins
    Posts: 3

    Didn’t know about some features. Nice review.
    Yay for old splitting!

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    33
     Apr 15, 2011 at 3:22 pm
  34. Aaron Thompson
    Posts: 71

    I downloaded the official release and my middle button doesn’t work in 2.57. I decided to try downloading 2.57 from graphicall and it works great :)

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    34
     Apr 15, 2011 at 7:37 pm
    • John D Smith II
      Posts: 234

      if this happens all you have to do is close out and reopen Blender. Happens to me every time I save settings on a new version for the first time.

      #
      34.1
       Apr 16, 2011 at 6:01 am
  35. H Genett
    Posts: 1

    Im loving the Loft tool…IMG I needed that last week lol :D , Thanks for the tutorial!!

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    35
     Apr 17, 2011 at 7:38 pm
  36. wicked
    Posts: 8

    great video, thanks

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    36
     Apr 18, 2011 at 12:49 pm
  37. scatman
    Posts: 1

    STUPID QUESTION OF THE DAY:
    With both the 32bit and 64bit version of blender installed, how can I tell (from within blender) which version I’m actually running? The splash screen for blender 2.57 doesn’t say “64bit” or “32bit”, and the user preferences that I’ve set are appearing in both the 32 and 64 bit versions.

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    37
     Apr 19, 2011 at 9:58 am
    • Day
      Posts: 5

      Don’t think you can tell within Blender. In Windows you can open task manager and find the blender.exe process. If it has a star next to it then Windows is running it as a 32-bit app. 64-bit apps will not have the star. Dont know how to tell in non-Windows OS’s.
      Both versions reference the same location for settings which is why your preferences appear in both.
      Other than for testing purposes or the 1 or 2 libraries not available in 64-bit (I think) there really isnt a reason to install both.

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      37.1
       Apr 20, 2011 at 12:10 pm
  38. daymel
    Posts: 2

    have you guys thought about doing a tutorial on water that can be interacted with for animations

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    38
     Apr 20, 2011 at 9:00 pm
  39. Jen
    Posts: 2

    I hope in YafaRay stable implementation…

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    39
     Apr 21, 2011 at 6:26 am
  40. Pieter Vandecandelaere
    Posts: 15

    .blend files now have thumbnails when installed with installer.

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    40
     Apr 23, 2011 at 7:49 am
  41. MonicaH
    Posts: 1

    Okay,
    I barely got started on 2.49 when the bugs began bugging me, so I moved to 2.57. You are cramming 10 lbs of information in a 5 lb video. How about slowing down some. Not all of us are in our 20′s. And, you move across the screen so quickly and don’t really let us see what you are doing. Remember, many of us watching this are greener than a chroma key backdrop. Just a month ago, a blender was something you mixed food and drinks in. I want a very basic 2.57 beginners tutorial that you don’t have to have super powers to follow. You have any of that?

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    41
     Apr 23, 2011 at 8:12 pm
  42. Newel Hirst
    Posts: 20

    Um is it just me or has anyone else had trouble UV unwrapping in 2.57?

    cheers

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    42
     Apr 24, 2011 at 9:53 pm
  43. PL
    Posts: 9

    wow, 2.57a and now 2.57b ready for download…fortunately they’re opposite to a Autodesk Delay Fix Program;)
    nice job Jonathan!

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    43
     Apr 27, 2011 at 1:07 pm
  44. Beau Dreier Gligoor
    Posts: 37

    Awesome man!

    But still! where’s the chamfer? Bevel?

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    44
     May 2, 2011 at 9:33 am
  45. Nicolaas Kotze
    Posts: 1

    Wow! Amazing how Blender has changed since the days I used it when NaN was involved! This is just so motivating!

    Thank you for the version update – This helps a lot with training on the new features and how to use the feature allowing users to productive so much quicker.

    Keep up the version videos!

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    45
     Sep 4, 2011 at 1:01 pm

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