Blender
| Blender | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Type | 3D computer graphics software |
| Industry | Computer graphics |
| Developer | Blender Foundation |
| Written In | C, C++, Python |
| Operating System | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| License | GNU GPL v2 or later (binaries GPL v3 or later) |
| Supported Devices | OpenXR-conformant VR headsets |
| Release Date | January 2, 1994 |
| Website | blender.org |
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software suite used for modeling, sculpting, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, video editing, and 2D animation.[1] It is developed by the Blender Foundation and a community of volunteer contributors, and is distributed under the GNU General Public License.[2] The software runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and is written in C, C++, and Python, with Python serving as its scripting and add-on language.[1]
Blender includes a built-in virtual reality feature set, the VR Scene Inspection add-on, which uses the OpenXR standard to display a scene on a head-mounted display. The capability was first shipped in version 2.83 LTS in June 2020 and is aimed at reviewing 3D work at scale in virtual reality rather than at building geometry inside the headset.[3][4] The current stable release is Blender 5.1, published on March 17, 2026.[5]
History
Blender originated at NeoGeo, a Dutch animation studio founded by Ton Roosendaal. The first version of the software was launched on January 2, 1994, a date that the project treats as Blender's birthday.[1][6] In 1998 Roosendaal founded a separate company, Not a Number (NaN), to market and develop Blender as a compact, cross-platform 3D application, and Blender was distributed publicly as freeware.[1]
NaN ran into financial difficulty, and in 2002 its investors decided to shut the company down and halt Blender's development.[6] Roosendaal then established the non-profit Blender Foundation in 2002 to keep the software alive. In July 2002 the Foundation launched the "Free Blender" campaign, an early crowdfunding effort that asked supporters to raise EUR 100,000 so the Foundation could buy the Blender source code and intellectual-property rights from the former NaN investors.[1][6] The target was reached in seven weeks, and on October 13, 2002, Blender was released to the public under the terms of the GNU General Public License.[6] Development has continued since then through the Blender Foundation and its associated development fund.[2]
Later releases reorganized the user interface and added or rewrote major systems. Blender 2.80, released on July 30, 2019, introduced a redesigned interface and the EEVEE real-time render engine.[1] Blender 2.83, released in June 2020, was the project's first long-term support (LTS) version and the first to ship virtual reality support.[3][4]
Functions
Blender covers most stages of a 3D production pipeline in a single application. Its components include polygon and curve modeling, digital sculpting, UV unwrapping, texturing and a node-based material system, character rigging and animation, particle and physics simulation, camera and object motion tracking, compositing, and a non-linear video editor.[1]
The suite ships with three render engines. Cycles is a physically based path-tracing renderer used for photorealistic output. EEVEE is a real-time rasterization renderer that approximates many of the same effects at interactive speeds and can be used to draw the viewport during VR scene inspection. Workbench is a lightweight engine intended for modeling and animation previews.[1]
Blender can read and write several interchange formats relevant to real-time and VR/AR work, including FBX, glTF 2.0 (and its binary GLB form), OBJ, and Universal Scene Description (USD). The glTF exporter is maintained as a built-in add-on and is documented as a transmission format for 3D models in web and native applications.[7]
Licensing
Blender's source code is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or any later version. Official binary builds are distributed under GPL version 3 or later, a consequence of bundled Apache-licensed libraries.[1][2] The GPL applies to the Blender software itself; the Blender Foundation states that artwork and other files a user creates with Blender belong to the user.[2]
Virtual reality support
Blender's native virtual reality functionality is built on OpenXR, the cross-vendor standard from the Khronos Group for virtual reality and augmented reality runtimes. The feature first appeared in Blender 2.83 LTS, which the Blender Foundation and Khronos describe as the first milestone in VR support: scene inspection.[4][3] Because it uses OpenXR, the feature works with any OpenXR-conformant runtime rather than being tied to one vendor, although at launch it was reported as working with Windows Mixed Reality hardware and the Oculus Rift.[3]
The user interface for these features is provided by an add-on named VR Scene Inspection, which is disabled by default and is enabled from Blender's preferences like any other add-on.[3][8] When enabled, the add-on opens an OpenXR session and mirrors the active 3D viewport to the headset, showing the same shading as the desktop viewport it was started from.[3]
Capabilities and limits
The stated scope of the VR feature is inspection, not authoring. A user can put on a headset and walk around or fly through a scene at true scale, which suits design review and previsualization, but the toolset does not let the user model, sculpt, or otherwise edit geometry while inside VR.[3][4] Editing still happens on the 2D desktop; the headset is a viewer onto the same scene.
Blender 3.0 expanded the VR feature beyond simple viewing by adding motion-controller support. The release introduced controller-based navigation through teleport, fly, and grab actions, optional visualization of the tracked controllers and a teleport beam, and continued support for navigating with a gamepad. It also added landmarks, which store reusable base poses (a position and rotation) for the viewer; a landmark can follow the scene's active camera, track a chosen object, or hold a manually defined pose, and a new camera can be created from a landmark.[9][8]
Headset and runtime support
The add-on ships with default controller bindings for several OpenXR devices, including the HP Reverb G2, HTC Vive Cosmos, HTC Vive Focus 3, and Huawei controllers, and it can fall back to a Microsoft Xbox gamepad for viewport navigation.[9] Varjo documents Blender as a supported OpenXR application on its headsets, including the company's quad-view rendering and eye-tracked foveated rendering extensions, which split each eye into a high-resolution focal view and a lower-resolution peripheral view to raise effective resolution without rendering the full field of view at full detail.[8][10]
Role in VR and AR content creation
Beyond viewing scenes in a headset, Blender is widely used as an upstream tool for producing assets that ship inside VR and AR applications. Models, textures, rigs, and animations made in Blender are exported and brought into real-time engines and runtimes through the interchange formats it supports. FBX and glTF are the common routes into Unity and Unreal Engine, glTF and GLB are typical for Godot and for web-based AR through WebXR, and USD and USDZ are used for larger collaborative pipelines and for AR on Apple platforms.[7][1]
Blender is one of the rendering and game engines that adopted OpenXR. The engine's initial OpenXR support arrived with the 2.83 LTS release in June 2020, placing it alongside Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot among the authoring tools that target the standard.[4][3]
Because Blender's own VR mode is limited to inspection, creators who want to model or sculpt directly in VR generally use dedicated VR modeling applications and then move the result into Blender for cleanup, retopology, texturing, or rendering. Tools in this space include immersive sculpting applications whose output is exported as standard mesh files for finishing in Blender.[11]
Versions
The following table lists selected releases relevant to Blender's interface and VR history.
| Version | Release date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2.80 | July 30, 2019 | Redesigned interface; introduced the EEVEE real-time render engine[1] |
| 2.83 LTS | June 2020 | First long-term support release; first version with VR scene inspection via OpenXR[3][4] |
| 3.0 | 2021 | VR motion-controller support (teleport, fly, grab), landmarks, controller visualization[9] |
| 4.5 LTS | July 15, 2025 | Long-term support release[5] |
| 5.0 | November 18, 2025 | Major release[5] |
| 5.1 | March 17, 2026 | Current stable release[5] |
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 "Blender (software)". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "License". Blender Foundation. https://www.blender.org/about/license/.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 "Open-source Modeling & Animation Tool 'Blender' Now Includes Basic VR Support". 2020-06-04. https://www.roadtovr.com/blender-vr-support-openxr/.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 "Blender 2.83 released with initial OpenXR support". Khronos Group. 2020-06-04. https://www.khronos.org/news/permalink/blender-2.83-released-with-initial-openxr-support.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "Release Notes". Blender Foundation. https://www.blender.org/download/releases/.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 "Blender's History". Blender Foundation. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.82/getting_started/about/history.html.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "glTF 2.0". Blender Foundation. https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/import_export/scene_gltf2.html.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "How to View Blender Content in VR with Varjo Headsets: A Step-by-Step Guide". https://varjo.com/blog/how-to-view-blender-content-with-varjo-headsets-a-step-by-step-guide.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "Virtual Reality - Blender 3.0 release notes". Blender Foundation. https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/3.0/virtual_reality/.
- ↑ "Update on Varjo Quad View, Eye Tracked Foveation and Varjo Base Settings". https://varjo.com/blog/make-the-best-out-of-your-varjo-experience-update-on-varjo-quad-view-eye-tracked-foveation-and-varjo-base-settings.
- ↑ "How to use Blender with Shapelab to unlock the potential of VR in 3D modeling". https://shapelabvr.com/blender-and-shapelab-for-vr-3d-modeling/.