Blender 2.49 RC1 released

The Blender modeling and shading interface. The developers have announced the first release candidate for Blender version 2.49. Blender is a free, cross-platform, open source, 3D content creation suite that allows users to model, shade, animate and render 3D objects.

The first release candidate includes several bug fixes and the Game Engine now has video textures and dome rendering and has benefited from a logic API clean up. Projection texture painting, texture node editing, new Game Engine actuators and jpeg2000 support in the sequencer, have all been added to the release.

Work on version 2.50 has already started and will include a redesign of the internal window manager and event/tool/data handling system. The old code is being cleaned up and ported over. The 2.50 release will include other redesign elements and a new Python API. More information on the features planned for the upcoming 2.50 release can be found on the Blender 2.5 wiki page.

Blender 2.49 RC1 is available to download for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and more details about the release can be found in the change log. A release date for the final version of Blender 2.49 has yet to be announced. Bender is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and sponsored by the non-profit Blender Foundation based in Amsterdam.

(crve)