Blender 2.46 released

This news is a few days old now, but Blender 2.46 was released on Tuesday. This new version adds an impressive list of features, including:

• Better hair and fur simulation
• An improved particle system
• Cloth simulation
• Render baking for effects like normal maps
• Ambient occlusion
• UV texture editing

I haven't used Blender much in my game development process so far, since Cheetah provides most of the features I need in a friendlier package, but this program continues to amaze me. In my opinion, Blender is one of the true success stories of the open-source movement. It is actively developed and delivers a host of professional-quality features in a cross-platform package, for free. To buy a program with the same capabilities would cost thousands of dollars.

And, by the way, it plays nicely with Unity. Blender is definitely my app of choice for advanced 3D modeling and animation effects.

Take a look at the official Blender gallery if you want to be amazed.