The Wait for Blender 2.8 Release Date: Worth It?

As a long-time user of Blender, I've been eagerly following the development of its latest version, 2.8. With each new build, I've been impressed by the UI changes and improvements. However, I believe that Blender's focus on features should take precedence over UI tweaks for now.

One of the most significant features missing from Blender is Eevee, which has finally arrived. This powerful rendering engine has been a long time coming, and it's about time. Another feature that's been overdue is collections, which Softimage introduced 12 years ago. By prioritizing these feature-rich additions, the developers can then focus on cleaning up the code to make it more accessible to users.

I'm excited to see how Blender will address UI customization in the future. The ability to modify the UI with Python and make C-coded areas more public would be a massive step forward. It's clear that the priorities are shifting towards a more user-centric approach, which is welcome news.

Blender's development process can be slow due to its open-source nature and committee-based decision-making. This lack of a centralized authority means that decisions are often made through consensus-building, resulting in a slower pace. However, this democratic approach has led to hundreds of improvements already implemented into the software.

In recent live videos, I've noticed that topics discussed have already been implemented in Bforartists, Blender's forked version with a focus on UI development. This is reassuring, as it shows that the UI system is working and being actively improved.

The community-driven approach has led to some misconceptions about Bforartists' goals, with some believing it aims to assimilate Blender into something more like Autodesk. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. The vision of Bforartists is to create a user-friendly interface that complements the powerful features of Blender.

Overall, while the wait for Blender 2.8 may seem long, I believe it will be worth it in the end. With its focus on features and UI improvements, Blender is poised to become an even more powerful tool for creators. The democratic development process ensures a slow but steady pace, resulting in a software that's truly community-driven.

Blender 2.8 release date