Released on 2026 Sep 26

Release Youtube video: https://youtu.be/J5CKgpA_8Lk

Highlights

• Permission Groups
• Commands can be run from the server console (Linux)
• Player whitelisting and banning
• Servers can be restarted seamlessly (without kicking online players), can be used to change some of the per-world assets

Changelog categories:

• Gameplay
• Engine
• Terrain
  • Biomes
• Blocks and items
• Commands
• UI/UX
• Addons

Active contributors with 100+ lines of code added:

• @careeoki for suffering through the new outline colorings as well as adding all the new biomes and blocks
• @Wunka for finishing the Command refactor, permission groups, and for not being shy to jump into new topics, like helping out with networking and vulkan
• @TyrrelMeter for tall mountains and putting more stuff in the caves
• @yel0h for adding the tool outline, whitelisting, and various smaller changes
• @tillpp despite leaving the the team, we'll keep adding your old PRs, this time /server restart (which caused me so many issues... glad we didn't rush it into 0.3.0)
• @RanPix for head rotation (still hoping for particles)
• @DellieDelta for more blockdrop changes
• @Argmaster for making logs look like logs, and for further investigating ECS

Blender Extensions Platform update: the system will soon be expanded to support asset libraries as well.

TLDR:

• Public Domain (CC0) assets only
• Assets will be hosted on Blender’s servers
• To share your asset libraries with the whole world, you need to fill out a submission request

Asset Library Submission Request form link: https://devtalk.blender.org/t/asset-libraries-extensions-platform/45779

Original publication (Mastodon): https://mastodon.social/@Blender/117292574925804547

Where do we want Blender's development to focus over the next two years?

Read Small Teams, Ambitious Projects article by Dalai Felinto.

Summary of strategic targets:

• Dynamic Overrides
• Animation tools
• A more complete rigging system and UI tools
• VSE Story tools: Board to Previs
• Collaborative asset creation in teams

Potential goals:

• Blender adoption by game studios
• Blender adoption in large scale animation and VFX
• Blender in mechanical industry

Original post (Mastodon): https://mastodon.social/@Blender/117286789309168149

Gaussian splatting rendering technique landed in Blender main branch after many months of hard work as of 2026/09/17
It is not guaranteed to be in 5.3, since the code is still work in progress and things may change after public scrutiny and found bugs, but it looks promising and on track, if things go well to be in 5.3

This makes rendering spatial point cloud data better, since the splats make the points look more solid and continuous.

It currently works for PLY and SPZ file formats.

Work and discussion: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/159470

For one week, all things OVERGROWN, the new Blender full length open movie are free. The content gallery is now open to anyone curious about how this project is coming together.

Official post published on Aug 27th 2026.

In this devtalk thread, Blender dev pragma37 requests feedback from NPR artists about a new lights and lighting experimental feature (targeting 5.3).

The way to help is to download the experimental build mentioned in the thread and play with it, if you have your own style or a style pipeline at work, test it and provide feedback in the thread. What's missing, what would be improved and what blocks you from achieving your desired result.

More info in the devtalk thread link provided and its associated example blend file.

The patch was accepted and merged to main as of today 2026/08/18

In the official devtalk forum, core developer Jeoren Bakker asked Android users to support Blender's Android port with a playstore app (no Fdroid that I found) named 'Vulkan Caps Viewer'.

I believe Lemmy to be specially of interest due to the possibly higher percentage of more niche phones.

How to:

1. Install the app
2. Check the top to find a green text 'Device already present in database'
3. If it says so, there's nothing to be done, you can uninstall the app. No need for you to do steps 4, 5 nor 6
4. Otherwise, I believe it is needed for you to upload the GPU compatibility with the top leftmost button (I did not have the option so I'm not sure) (also I see people also sharing a link to their specs, so not sure)
5. Then, after that sign up / log in to the devtalk forum and publish a comment stating your phone brand and model, and if given, the link with the info
6. Then you can uninstall the app

More info in the official link provided.

If I got any of the steps wrong, please do correct me.

More info about the original post in the Blender Studio Mastodon official account's provided link.

They say they will wait to polish the pipeline before they publish it as a free addon in the extensions platform, but the video looks promising.

For more info, the git issue: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/issues/158285

Credit to ig:@gloryhammer__memes though I did not verify that they were the og creators of the meme.

Released on 2026 Jul 04

Release Youtube video: https://youtu.be/faBHvuhwFSg

Highlights:

• The Bag
• The Mantle
• New Music
• New Decorative Blocks

Changelog categories:

• Gameplay
• Terrain
  • New biomes
  • Updated Biomes
• Structures
• Blocks and Items
• UI/UX
• Commands
• Engine

Active contributors of +100 lines of code:
@careeoki for all the new blocks and textures and biomes and structures she added
@tillpp for taking on the monumental task of starting the ECS (Entity Component System)
@Argmaster for the jungle improvements and the new command argument parser
@Wunka for many small improvements throughout the codebase
@codemob-dev for finally fixing item drops the proper way by refactoring the physics system
@TyrrelMeter for tall mountains
@RanPix for starting work on animations and not giving up on particles
@AfmanS for updating and improving some of the dependencies
@DellieDelta for implementing tool-based drops and improving the sickle
@Crepestrom for not adding mahogany cheese
@ikabod-kee for organizing the music contributions