SUMM

Blender 4.5 is highlighted as a versatile, open-source 3D modeling program capable of photorealistic rendering, simulations, and even full movies.
The software is completely free, open source, and users can modify or extend its code.
A recent movie made in Blender won an Oscar, underscoring its power and industry relevance.

The ray tracing engine, Cycles, now features adaptive subdivision to refine geometry based on camera proximity.
Adaptive subdivision makes 3D displacement effects 10 to 15 times faster than before.
Normal mapping allows low-polygon geometry to appear high resolution.
Improved bump filtering on normal maps now preserves more shadow edge detail and enhances bump maps overall.
Cycles now supports custom scripted cameras using OSL with reduced image noise compared to the past.

AMD devices now default to HIP raytracing hardware acceleration, improving render times on new AMD GPUs by up to 30%.
The EV renderer is up to twice as fast in some scenes due to threaded optimization and faster texture loading.

The presenter shares a personal connection to Blender, emphasizing years of use and development during their PhD.
They had the honor of announcing new features in the official Blender 4.5 announcement video.

Blender introduces a new volume shader with physically accurate functions for modeling light scattering, benefiting foggy and misty scenes.
Implementation of the reverse Z algorithm greatly increases distance precision, solving Z fighting issues near the camera.
The grease pencil tool, used for 3D drawing, has received numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements.

Grease pencil now integrates better with geometry nodes, enabling advanced artistic effects.
Blender 4.5 includes new nodes to further combine grease pencil and geometry creations.

The built-in video editor features improvements like the slip operator for more precise content positioning.
Users can now switch the backend renderer from OpenGL to Vulkan, drastically speeding up loading, editing, and sculpting.
Vulkan support makes handling scenes with over 40 million polygons possible in real time.

Tutorials and test scenes are available for newcomers in the video description.
Demonstration of running the Deepseek AI model (671 billion parameters) quickly and reliably using Lambda GPU Cloud.
Lambda offers powerful NVIDIA GPUs for running chatbots and experiments, with a promotional link provided.

Blender 4.5 - How My Dream Just Came True!