Blender 3.x Roadmap Has Big Plans For Vulkan, Other Improvements

With Blender 3.0 releasing soon, the Blender project has published a Blender 3.x road-map outlining some of their plans for future releases.

The Blender 3.x road-map was published this morning to provide a fresh look at the changes ahead for this leading open-source 3D modeling software. Blender 3.x will see a lot of work on using the Vulkan API along with other exciting areas. Some of the Blender 3.x road-map items include:

- The overall workflow should be similar to Blender 2.8 with no breaking of existing workflows unless there ends up being good reason to do so.

- Ongoing improvements to the core architecture and code will continue, particularly for better modularity and performance.

- A proposal for hybrid sculpting/painting workflow is currently under review.

- Blender's procedural texturing system is in "urgent need" of upgrades.

- Next year Blender's improved animation project should come back to fruition.

- The new Cycles X render code will continue to be improved upon with new features, performance, and better handling of complex scenes.

- The Eevee 3D rendering engine is being upgraded and also preparations for Vulkan-based GPU ray-tracing. A real-time compositing system for Eevee is also planned.

- As part of their Viewport efforts, Blender 3.x will be working to "move Blender to entirely use the Vulkan open standard". A Vulkan back-end is being developed along with an Apple Metal back-end. They intend to replace Blender's OpenGL back-end by end of 2022.

- Real-time camera tracking for AR and VR headsets might come in Blender 3.x.

See the road-map in full on code.blender.org.