# Blender Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite maintained by the [Blender Foundation](https://www.blender.org/about/foundation/). It covers the full 3D production pipeline in a single tool: modeling, sculpting, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, and video editing. ## Core capabilities - **Modeling and sculpting** — polygon, NURBS, and sculpt workflows; Geometry Nodes for procedural modeling - **Rigging and animation** — armatures, shape keys, NLA editor, graph editor - **Simulation** — fluids, smoke, cloth, particles, soft-body, rigid-body, hair - **Rendering** — EEVEE (real-time, GPU) and Cycles (path tracer, CPU/GPU/OptiX/HIP) - **VFX / compositing** — node-based compositor, motion tracking, green-screen masking - **Video editing** — built-in non-linear video editor - **Scripting** — Python API for scripting, addons, and automation - **Asset management** — built-in asset library system (Blender 3.0+) ## Key characteristics - Licensed under GPL-2.0+; source code on [projects.blender.org](https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender) - Cross-platform: Linux, Windows, macOS - Community-driven development model with paid Blender Development Fund contributors - Regular release cadence with LTS (long-term support) branches for studios - Geometry Nodes (introduced in 2.92) shifted Blender toward procedural/non-destructive workflows - EEVEE Next (Blender 4.x) dramatically improved real-time rendering quality ## Release milestones | Version | Notable change | |---------|----------------| | 2.80 (2019) | Complete UI overhaul, EEVEE renderer | | 2.93 LTS | First LTS branch | | 3.0 (2021) | Asset library, Cycles X (major rewrite) | | 4.0 (2023) | EEVEE Next, principled hair BSDF | | 4.x | Continued Geometry Nodes expansion | ## References - https://www.blender.org/ - https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender ## Related - [[Ton Roosendaal]] — original creator of Blender and chairman of the Blender Foundation