Blender 2.5 Beta 3 released

After more than 7 weeks of development, the Blender developers have announced the arrival of the latest beta for what will become version 2.6 of their open source 3D content creation suite. Blender 2.55 Beta, the third beta of the 2.5 series, includes several changes and addresses more than 340 bugs found in the previous development release.

While no new features have been added in the third beta, the developers note that an "extensive renaming operation" has occurred between 2.53 and 2.55, substantially changing the scripting API and that it may very likely lead to repercussions for loading 2.53 .blends with animation into 2.55. Users are encouraged to try the FCurve / Driver 2.54 fix entry from the Help menu should they experience any issues. Additionally, the developers note the 64-bit Linux binaries are currently broken, adding that they "will be re-uploaded when fixed".

As with all development releases, use in production environments and on mission critical systems is not advised. The developers ask users testing the release to report any bugs that they encounter. A release date for the final version, labelled Blender 2.6, has yet to be announced.

Following up on its third Blender film titled "Sintel", the Blender Foundation has published a 'making of' documentary video on YouTube. The hour long video takes an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at the short film about a young female warrior called Sintel, including the story boarding process, concept art and the animation tools used in the project. Previous Blender films include Elephant's Dream and Big Buck Bunny.

More details about the release can be found in the release notes. Blender 2.55 Beta is available to download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Blender is released under version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2) and sponsored by the non-profit Blender Foundation based in Amsterdam.

See also:

• Third Blender film available to download, a report from The H.

(crve)